The militaries of Cambodia and China have signed a memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation. The deal comes after the Biden administration hit Cambodia with sanctions and an arms embargo over its relationship with China.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Wu Qian said the deal was agreed upon by senior commanders during a video call on Thursday but didn’t elaborate on the details of the agreement.
“China and Cambodia are close neighbors and iron-clad friends,” Wu said. “In recent years, the pragmatic cooperation between the two militaries in various fields, including strategic communication, joint exercises and training, exchanges and personnel training, has continued to deepen.”
Last year, the Biden administration slapped sanctions on two Cambodian military officials over Chinese financing construction at the Ream Naval Base. The US claims Cambodia is allowing China to build a secret military base at the facility, which both Beijing and Phnom Penh have denied.
Following the sanctions, the US Commerce Department imposed export restrictions and an arms embargo on Cambodia over the Southeast Asian nation’s relationship with China. Announcing the restrictions, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the Cambodian government must work to “reduce the influence” of the Chinese military in the country.
But the US pressure hasn’t worked, and the new deal between Cambodia and China is the latest example of sanctions having the opposite effect of Washington’s stated goals.
Why don’t people and nations love the freedom and democracy of the USA and want to emulate it ?
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“Over the course of war from 1965 1973, eight million tons of bombs were dropped, threefold WW II tonnage, around 300 tons for every Vietnamese man, woman, and child.
Cambodia was bombed with over 500,000 tons of ordnance until August 1973.
About 600,000 deaths followed, mostly civilians, helping Khmer Rouge elements gain power in 1975.
A 1962 Geneva Accord recognized Laos as a neutral state, banning foreign military personnel from its territory.
Reality was much different. From 1965 1973, America flew around 580,000 sorties, dropping over two million tons of ordinance, the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes round-the-clock for nine years.”
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OK, so we murdered 600,000 of your people because some other country was walking through your lands.
Shit happens.
But why don’t you love us ?
Yes the Chinese have virtually rebuilt your country whilst we ignored you, but Xi is a nasty slant eyed dictator.
OK so you have slant eyes too, and have not had a democracy ever, but still why don’t you little peasants love us ?
We also bombed the Plain of Jars to smithereens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_of_Jars
Two million tons of bombs had to land somewhere. From 50,000 ft, the wind is tricky to calculate and US navigation was never that good to begin with.
When you have a million sq kms of jungle, then : “Bomb something that looks valuable – Norwegian NATO pilots told in Libya” becomes the instruction.
Cambodia is close to China and its BRI (naval base and rec area) and the US doesn’t like it. This scenario (also with Russia) will be more prevalent as time goes on (as it always does).
Also this year Cambodia is chair of ASEAN which the US is wooing, unsatisfactorily. The White House in February called for a US-ASEAN meeting in Washington for March but then Cambodia’s foreign minister told Reuters that some Southeast Asian leaders could not travel to Washington on the dates the White House had announced. So no meeting.
Subsequent to that, three US senators tore into Cambodia. Senators Romney, Markey, Menendez and Risch introduced a resolution last October, on the 30-year anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements. The resolution notes that the promise of the Paris Peace Agreements remains unfulfilled due to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s violations of Cambodia’s Constitution and effective one-party rule since 1993.