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Cambodia in 2021: A Year of Ongoing Domestic Challenges and Western Pressure
- Edited by Daljit Singh, ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute, Thi Ha Hoang, ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 2022
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 01 September 2023, pp 109-125
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Summary
Like many countries around the world, Cambodia continued to be hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Socio-economic impacts resulting from the pandemic and from the government’s responses to it, combined with rising Sino-US geostrategic competition, provided an opportunity for the banned opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) to reactivate its cells inside Cambodia and lobby Western governments in an effort to have the CNRP reinstated as a legal political party. In foreign relations, while 2021 saw ever closer Sino-Cambodian relations, tensions grew between the country and the United States. This chapter analyses the aforementioned challenges in three sections. The first section discusses the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government’s responses, and the subsequent effects on the economy. The second section analyses the efforts of the CNRP to stage a comeback and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) reactions. The third section discusses Cambodia’s foreign relations, focusing on the ever-closer Sino-Cambodian relationship and its benefits for Cambodia, US pressure on Phnom Penh over its close ties with China and democratic backsliding, and Japan’s continued engagement to counterbalance Chinese influence in the country.
COVID-19 Pandemic, Government Responses, and Impacts
When COVID-19 infections were confirmed in Cambodia in early 2020, fear among the public mounted given COVID-19’s origins in China and the large numbers of Chinese travellers between the two countries. However, Cambodia was shielded from the pandemic until March 2021, when the number of infections and deaths began to surge. This forced the government to implement strict lockdowns, causing initial public panic and speculation over doomsday scenarios of a public healthcare system collapse. Government opponents claimed that the government’s policies of mandatory vaccination with mostly Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines was an experimentation with Cambodian lives. When these policies proved successful, many political pundits and government critics attributed the success to random luck.
The pandemic was the first crisis under the CPP’s hegemonic party authoritarianism that began in 2018 following the dissolution of the CNRP. Therefore, the efficacy of the government’s responses to the pandemic would have a significant impact on the CPP’s legitimacy. As such, the government systematically planned the nationwide mobilization of human and capital resources to combat COVID-19 with decisiveness and focus as though the country was at war.
6 - Weak State and the Limits of Democratization in Cambodia, 1993–2017
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- By Kheang Un
- Edited by Aurel Croissant, Universität Heidelberg, Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato, New Zealand
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- Book:
- Stateness and Democracy in East Asia
- Published online:
- 13 May 2020
- Print publication:
- 21 May 2020, pp 133-152
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Summary
This chapter argues that the democratic transition in Cambodia was a product of external imposition through the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement. The accords authorized the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia in 1992–93 to oversee the democratic transition by organizing multi-party elections and to assist in the drafting of a new liberal democratic constitution. Across the next two decades, Cambodia’s democracy went through a period of electoral authoritarianism and in 2017 plunged into a de facto one-party authoritarianism. These developments derived from Cambodia’s weak state capacity. Cambodia’s entrenched neo-patrimonialism kept the quality of governance low in terms of administrative and extractive capacity but kept coercive capacity against democratic forces strong. As popular demand for deeper democracy and government accountability and responsiveness intensified, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) strengthened the state’s capacity by increasing revenue collection, public service provision and the quality of the bureaucracy. However, this reform is unlikely to lead to democratic deepening due to the CPP’s determination to preserve its interests and its ideational inclination to transform Cambodia into a developmental authoritarian state where economic growth takes precedence over liberal democracy.
Cambodia in 2019: Entrenching One-Party Rule and Asserting National Sovereignty in the Era of Shifting Global Geopolitics
- Edited by Malcolm Cook, Daljit Singh
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 2020
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 24 November 2020
- Print publication:
- 22 April 2020, pp 119-134
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Summary
On 29 December 2018, Prime Minister Hun Sen presided over the inauguration of the Win-Win Monument, constructed on the outskirts of Phnom Penh to commemorate the end of civil war in Cambodia some twenty years ago when the Khmer Rouge was finally defeated in 1998. Achieving total peace is a source of pride for Prime Minister Hun Sen, signalling his triumph over the neoliberal global order, especially since even the United Nations (UN) failed in this task, despite the mission's expensive price tag. The ceremony was also a testimony to the pre-eminence of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) following the dissolution of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and the party's comprehensive victory in the 2018 general elections that transformed Cambodia into a de facto one-party state. In many ways, Prime Minister Hun Sen and the CPP have reasons to be proud of Cambodia's achievements. The economy continued to expand sustainably at a rate of around seven per cent, elevating Cambodia to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Its international geopolitical position has also been strengthened with the political and economic support of China. However, despite these successes, the CPP faces challenges to its legitimacy, both on the international and domestic fronts, as it embarks on further power consolidation. This chapter analyses the CPP's successes and challenges in 2019 in the domains of politics, economics and foreign affairs. The first section will discuss the domestic political developments surrounding Sam Rainsy's attempt to return from self-imposed exile and the reactions of the Cambodian government. The second section will address economic developments in 2019 as well as possible future trends. The third section will discuss Cambodia's external relations, particularly Western concerns over its recent democratic regression and its bilateral relations with China and Vietnam.
Politics
The CPP's electoral victories since the UN-organized elections in 1993 have occurred largely because of the divisions within the opposition camp. The merger between the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party into the CNRP had initially posed an electoral challenge to the CPP, as evidenced by the former's strong performance in both rural and urban areas in the 2013 general election and the 2017 local elections.
Cambodia
- Return to Authoritarianism
- Kheang Un
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- Published online:
- 01 February 2019
- Print publication:
- 07 February 2019
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Drawing data from multiple sources, Un argues that following the 1993 United Nations intervention to promote democracy, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) perpetuated a patronage state weak in administrative capacity but strong in coercive capacity. This enabled them to maintain the presence of electoral authoritarianism, but increased political awareness among the public, the rise in political activism among community-based organizations and a united opposition led to the emergence of a counter-movement. Sensing that this counter-movement might be unstoppable, the CPP has returned Cambodia to authoritarianism, a move made possible in part by China's pivot to Cambodia.
The Cambodian People Have Spoken: Has the Cambodian People's Party Heard?
- from CAMBODIA
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- By Kheang Un, Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University
- Edited by Daljit Singh
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 2015
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 19 May 2017
- Print publication:
- 19 May 2015, pp 102-116
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Introduction
The 2013 national elections could be seen as a transformative event for Cambodian politics. Given its massive grassroots organizations, strong symbiotic relations with domestic tycoons and its control of state resources and institutions — particularly the security apparatus, the judiciary, and the National Election Committee (NEC) — the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was expected to win a landslide victory over the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). This expectation was up-ended as large numbers of Cambodian people voted against the CPP, forcing the party to do some soul searching. This article addresses four points.
The first examines factors that led many people to expect CPP victory. The second focuses on reasons underlying the protest votes against the CPP and the CNRP's popularity. The third documents the popular protests organized by the CNRP and the CPP's responses that culminated in a political compromise; and the fourth addresses CPP's reform efforts since the election. It then concludes by outlining expected trends for the coming years.
The Expectations
The CPP went into the 2013 election cycle with strong prospects. First, the economy was strong, growing at a rate of over 7 per cent propelled by the agriculture, textile and tourism sectors. The CPP controlled all government institutions from the national to local levels including the National Election Committee. It also had a monopoly over the media; major television and radio stations are either affiliated with or owned by the CPP. As the Cambodian state has been synonymous with the CPP, the party was able to manipulate public goods transforming them into partisan resources. The CPP has strong organizational capacity with networks that link the state and business tycoons to local communities, creating a massive patronage-based vote-driving machine. The core of this structure is the party working groups comprising central party officials, senior government officials, and sub-national government officials with funding from these government officials and businesses. These working groups contributed resources for the construction of schools, roads, bridges, and offered a variety of small gifts including cash, monosodium glutamate (MSG), clothing and reading glasses. Nationwide opinion polls conducted by the National Republican Institute found 79 per cent of Cambodians believed that their country was headed in the right direction. Top reasons for people's confidence included the country's infrastructural improvement. Cambodia watchers generally believed that the CPP would win a comfortable majority even in the absence of electoral manipulation.
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal: A Politically Compromised Search for Justice
- Kheang Un
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- Journal:
- The Journal of Asian Studies / Volume 72 / Issue 4 / November 2013
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 15 October 2013, pp. 783-792
- Print publication:
- November 2013
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In 1993, Cambodian history turned a very significant corner with the promulgation of a new liberal constitution aimed at moving the country forward from its turbulent past. Many challenges remained, however; one of which was how to deal with the most horrific crimes of the “despicable Pol Pot” regime (1975–79)—as Cambodians called it—during which the radical pursuit of utopian revolutionary ideas cost roughly two million Cambodians their lives. Searching for mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes is seldom simple, as this essay, an assessment of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal twenty years on from the founding of the new Cambodian state and thirty-four years after the fall of the Pol Pot regime, attests. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, whose formal name is the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), was established in 2006, providing the first hope that Khmer Rouge leaders would finally be brought to justice and held to account for their hideous crimes.