The US has ordered an arms embargo on Cambodia, citing deepening Chinese military influence, corruption, and human rights abuses by the government and armed forces in the Southeast Asian country.
The restrictions on defense-related goods and services took effect yesterday.
A notice in the Federal Register said that developments in Cambodia were “contrary to US national security and foreign policy interests.”
Photo: AP
The aim of the embargo is to ensure that defense-related items are not available to Cambodia’s military and intelligence services without advance review by the US government, it said.
The restrictions follow the US Department of the Treasury last month ordering sanctions against two senior Cambodian military officials for corruption, and come amid increasing concern about Beijing’s sway.
At the time, the US government issued an advisory cautioning US businesses about potential exposure to entities in Cambodia, such as its military, that “engage in human rights abuses, corruption and other destabilizing conduct.”
Cambodia branded those sanctions as “politically motivated” and said it would not discuss them with Washington.
The US has similar controls on exports of items that might be diverted to “military end users” in Myanmar, China, Russia and Venezuela.
US exports to Cambodia in 2019 totaled US$5.6 billion.
The US is the largest export market for Cambodia, a major garments manufacturing hub, but three-quarters of Cambodia’s imports are from China and other countries in Asia.
The US halted military assistance to Cambodia following a 1997 coup in which the country’s leader, Hun Sen, grabbed full power after ousting his joint prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Hun Sen remains prime minister.
In August 2005, former president George W. Bush waved the ban, citing Phnom Penh’s agreement to exempt US citizens in Cambodia from prosecution by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court.
Since direct military ties between the two countries were restored in 2006, the US has pledged millions of US dollars in military aid, initially to help improve its border security and peacekeeping operations.
China is Cambodia’s biggest investor and closest political partner. It was the chief backer of the murderous regime of Pol Pot in the 1970s and has long maintained strong relations with Hun Sen, who has ruled for more than 30 years and grown increasingly repressive.
Beijing’s support allows Cambodia to disregard Western concerns about its poor record in human and political rights, and in turn Cambodia generally supports Beijing’s geopolitical positions on issues such as its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The construction of new Chinese military facilities at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base is a point of strong contention with Washington.
Ream faces the Gulf of Thailand, adjacent to the South China Sea, where China has aggressively asserted its claim to virtually the entire strategic waterway. The US has refused to recognize China’s sweeping claims, and the US Navy’s 7th Fleet routinely sails past Chinese-held islands in what it terms freedom of navigation operations.
In recent years, Hun Sen’s government has cracked down on the political opposition, shut media outlets and forced hundreds of Cambodian politicians, human rights advocates and journalists into exile.
Human rights groups say the government has engaged in arbitrary arrests and other abuses, and worked to portray peaceful dissent over corruption, land rights and other issues as attempts to overthrow the government.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS