August, 2015
now browsing by month
Machiavelli’s Lessons Cambodia approaches China, leaving the United States in the dust. Can it retain its freedom?
Comment: The author has well balanced his argument on choice Cambodia made with China in its foreign policy that can tip the navy of this nation if the policy shifted too much towards China without aligning with USA, ASEAN member states, and other super countries. The author academically termed “alignment” not “alliance” for Cambodia to strengthening tie with China. What author has missed out the important parts is the two pragmatic factors: the Cambodia constitution and lesson learnt during the Khmer Rouge regime.
First, Cambodia constitution firmly claims that Cambodia is a neutral nation state and non-alignment. Cambodia is friendly to all outside nation states. No other state(s) can use Cambodia as their military base or influencing site for their advantage etc.
Second, China supported the Khmer Rouge, and Cambodian people have been bitterly suffered. USA also supported the Khmer Rouge. But aids from USA to the Khmer Rouge were used by someone there, we don’t know who? China’s aids to Khmer Rouge were also used by someone there, we don’t know who? But the usage of those aids within Khmer Rouge cadres tended to destroy their cadres, not to save their company at all, not mention about using those aids to support the nation. Are these unknown users are supper secrete? May be not at all. Before Khmer Rouge turned 90 degree to China, KR was under supervision of Vietnam (North Vietnam or Vietminh, critically). This is the truth of history, undeniably.
Now, Hun Sen (head) has aligned or turned 90 degrees to China, should the old trauma haunt Cambodia again? No one know. But Khmer people nationwide have been vigilant on their political vision that “Head goes to China while Body and Feet are strong with Vietnam“.
Machiavelli’s Lessons Cambodia approaches China, leaving the United States in the dust. Can it retain its freedom?
Op-Ed: The Diplomat
By Cheunboran Chanborey
August 11, 2015
Image Credit: Ari V/ Shutterstock.com
As part of the United States’ ‘pivot’ to Asia, the Obama Administration has taken further steps to broaden engagement with Cambodia, primarily in response to China’s rapidly growing influence in the country and in the broader Lower Mekong region.
Diplomatically, U.S. high-level officials have started visiting Cambodia more frequently. For instance, in 2012, a series of U.S. leaders engaged with Cambodia’s leadership, including President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk—all this while Cambodia was hosting the ASEAN-U.S. Leaders’ Meeting and other ASEAN-related meetings. Two major visits occurred earlier this year in Phnom Penh—the minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2015, and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Asia Pacific Daniel Russel in January. U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama also visited Cambodia in March 2015.
Militarily, the U.S. government has maintained a small but sustained level of engagement with the Cambodian military, which includes naval port visits, joint exercises, and military assistance. From 2007 to 2012, eight U.S. naval ships made port calls in Cambodia and engaged in joint military exercises with the Cambodian armed forces. Cambodia and the U.S. also jointly conducted the bilateral Angkor Sentinel peacekeeping exercises four years in the row, beginning in 2010. As of 2014, the U.S. allocated $0.45 million to an “International Military Education and Training” program to help Cambodian military officers with their English-language skills, leadership training, military professionalism, human rights awareness, and counterterrorism practices.
Economically, the U.S. is the largest foreign market for Cambodian goods, accounting for about half of the country’s garment exports—an industry that employs approximately 400,000 workers in the kingdom. Cambodia is also the fifth-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Southeast Asia after Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Myanmar. In 2014, the U.S. provided assistance worth $70.9 million, mostly to non-governmental organizations and humanitarian programs in Cambodia.
At the sub-regional level, the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI)—launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009—is a regional foreign assistance effort, amounting to $425 million for 2009-2011 period. It aims to help lower Mekong countries, such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, in the areas of agriculture and food security, connectivity, education, energy security, the environment and water management, and health. In 2014, the State Department provided an additional $14.3 million for the LMI.
Although the relationship has recently been strengthened, there are a number of impediments for Cambodia and the United States in developing deeper bilateral ties.
Trust Deficit Between Phnom Penh and Washington
Political Paradigm of Pragmatism from the Khmer Youth part 30
Political Paradigm of Pragmatism from the Khmer Youth part 30
This part (30) is a recapping of recommendations advised by the survey research of Asia Foundation for political parties to win the next election. What are the priorities, from the research, that political party could focus on in order to defeat their contender.
-
Corruption: major respondents said vocally on their disappointment on corruption of the public services and government officials. Corruption is counted from court, to school, to public services, health care, and traffic policemen etc.
-
Employment: this is very crucial that major respondents spoke highly on cheap agriculture products, they want to have job in the country with decent wage, and they don’t want to travel to foreign countries to find job.
-
Leadership: the respondents want their local leaders are elected by the people, not nominated by the bureaucrats.
Notorious Court in Cambodia
The heated up political tension orchestrated by Hun Sen is to simply use the court as his experiment tool of throwing fire into a cold water. CNRP has boldly claimed its nonviolence and culture of dialogue during this tension.
How much have we known the notorious court in Cambodia?
State authorized this private security guard to beat the peaceful protesters.
Khmer people believe that in the past our court system was using “oath or swear” conducting to ensure individual sincerity and integrity. The state administration was “Deva-Raja” or “Cult of Personality” that King was named Universal Ruler. There are no scientific evidence to ensure the preciseness resulting from those swearing testimonial performance, and how much the state performed free and independent procedures.
In the West, Thomas Hobbs aggressively criticized the “State of Nature” in
A man blinded the court not to see those violent chasers on a motorist. Photo courtesy: Facebook
which holy man is the ruler. Hobbs called such ruler “Leviathan” who critically proclaimed their specific legitimacy from the sky angel.
During the Khmer Rouge regime, the court was also set up to legitimize their brutal leadership. Now, it has inherited to the present Cambodia government under Hun Sen leadership, the same court has been used to threat and jail the dissents.
The 11 protesters were jailed by the court in the charge of national insurrection happened immediately after Hun Sen warned in his televised speech.
How Cambodia country as an institution can bring down the leader(s), tycoons, or politician(s) who have pervasively and evidently abused the power to deviate the neutral and independent court of Cambodia?
This puzzling question has remained unanswered.
In Canada, looking from my daily lenses, the smallest problem happened, it has been brought up to the court, at the same procedure with the biggest problem. For instance, if I was driving in high speed, the road-camera or
The two latest protesters are jailed including one in custody in the charge of assisting national insurrection happened after Hun Sen warned during his televised speech.
onsite policeman will send or hand me the ticket with proof of photo, and the ticket gives us two options: to pay voluntarily or to appeal to the court. The biggest problem, Prime Minister or Minister or high profile entity, shall face with the court at the same procedure like everyone if those committed legal fault.
One of the citizenship obligations is to sit as jury in the court. This is an encouragement for all to learn about the legal procedures and understand this common duty.
Cambodian people have been bitterly suffered by the court system. With no doubt, leader has blinded them for their own advantage.
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Do it for Vietnam
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Do it for Vietnam
John Kerry Attends a Reception in Honor of the 20th Anniversary of U.S.–Vietnam Trade Relations
Image Credit: Flickr/ U.S. Department of State
Tyler Cowen, the prolific economist behind Marginal Revoution (a blog I’ve read for over half-a-decade and recommend), has a unique case in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that relies on simple utilitarian logic. Simply put, the benefits of the TPP coming into effect outweigh the costs in a huge way. Particularly, the benefits for one country—Vietnam—are huge. In fact, Cowen makes that case that the benefit to Vietnam would be so huge that any costs borne by U.S. interest groups and constituencies are marginal. The benefits to Vietnam alone should make the TPP a “no brainer” of an agreement.
The economic reason is simple. The TPP, while it is many things, is at its core a tariff-effacing trade agreement for among its 12 signatories. Vietnam, meanwhile, is not only a poor country, but a country that remains at odds with the values and principles guiding the primary stakeholder behind the TPP: the United States. Vietnam, a Communist country, has undertaken some liberalization on tariffs, “but since then has done some backsliding,” writes Cowen. Specifically, after its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), Vietnamese tariffs “on products of interest” to the United States drastically, only to slightly increase them to come in line with the maximum of the range allowed under WTO bindings (see the U.S. Trade Representative’s report on Vietnam here).
Given that Vietnam does a lot of trade with the United States and that the TPP will slash major trade protections on the Vietnamese market, it follows that Vietnamese goods will be particularly competitive in a post-TPP context. In support of these claims, Cowen cites a simulation study by the Peterson Institute on International Economics that demonstrates the same (i.e., that Vietnam, of all countries party to the TPP, stands to benefit the most). A particularly telling statistic for the potential gains for Vietnam in a zero-tariff scenario is the following: in 2012, 34 percent of U.S. apparel imports came from Vietnam, amounting to $7 billion. In a zero-tariff scenario, these imports are suddenly far more competitive.