PHNOM PENH - China, hungry for strategic influence and natural resources, is
asserting itself as a major investor in Cambodia, sparking concerns that a huge
inflow of Chinese cash will fuel existing corruption and exploitation in one of
the world's poorest countries.
The relationship between the two countries is long and mixed, given Maoist
China's unflagging support for the late supreme Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot,
whose Marxist faction is blamed for the deaths of more than a million
Cambodians from 1975-79.
But in recent years, ethnic Chinese families close to Cambodian
Prime Minister Hun Sen have played a key role in putting Chinese companies,
often with the backing of the Chinese state, in touch with top Cambodian
officials, economists and activists said.
"China needs Cambodia," US-based Cambodian economist Tith Naranhkiri said. "If
a security problem occurs, for example, a war with Taiwan, China may need
Cambodia ... Secondly, for economic reasons, it needs gas and oil."
According to the official China News Agency, China has become one of the
biggest investors in Cambodia, with 3,016 Chinese companies making cumulative
investments of US$1.58 billion to the end of 2007. Bilateral trade last year
rose by 30% from 2006, to $730 million.
Since the signing of an investment protection agreement in July 1996, a further
$350 million has been pledged, mostly in the forestry sector, power, textiles,
construction materials, and agricultural development.
Major role for China
"China now plays a crucial role in our economy. It is both an important donor
and an investor, and it's also a big market for Cambodian products," Khmer
Economists' Association president Chan Sophal said. "Our agricultural products
are exported to China but through Thailand and Vietnam. We are also a market
for Chinese products. China’s role in the Cambodian economy is growing," he
said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited Cambodia in February, pledging a
further $55 million in aid and investments of $1 billion in the country's power
industry. He also waived import tariffs on 400 Cambodian products.
Besides investment and assistance, China has also granted military assistance
to Cambodia, providing the country’s dilapidated navy with nine patrol boats in
November 2007 and five warships in 2005.
But rights activists and anti-corruption campaigners point to a huge increase
in illegal logging, land-grabbing, and worker exploitation as a secondary
consequence of Chinese money.
"The effect of lots of money coming in with few strings attached, going to a
lot of people in the government, is generally exacerbating corruption," Simon
Taylor, director of the international anti-corruption group Global Witness,
said.
Land grabs, illegal logging
"This manifests itself as land-grabbing, massive plantations and illegal
logging, unregulated mining, the building of dams, and so on," Taylor said.
Meanwhile, workers' rights are often sidestepped in Chinese-invested factories,
especially in the textile industry, activists said.
"The Chinese companies, especially garment factories, today have a lot of
problems with Cambodian workers," Chan Saveth, of the rights advocacy group
Adhoc, said. "Today, we see that China dominates garment factories in Cambodia.
Workers suffer a lot, and the Chinese garment factories have mostly restricted
workers' freedom."
Hundreds of thousands of workers - the majority of whom are women - are
employed in Cambodia’s textile industry, which generates annual revenue of more
than US$1 billion.
They have described an atmosphere in which they are constantly pressed into
unpaid overtime, with too many financial worries and too little spare time to
cause trouble for management. Unauthorized deductions from pay-packets are
common, and paid sick leave is rare.
Protests in the forest
Chinese money has been tied up with massive agricultural and forestry
exploitation projects, which are destroying traditional ways of life such as
bamboo-harvesting and resin-tapping, activists said.
The Cambodian government granted a Mondulkiri forest concession of 200,000
hectares - 20 times the legal limit - acquired secretly by Pheapimex, an
ethnic-Chinese owned Cambodian conglomerate with close ties to Prime Minister
Hun Sen.
Pheapimex formed a joint venture with China's Wuzhishan plantation firm to
exploit the region, displacing indigenous minority people who rely on the
forests for their traditional livelihoods.
Global Witness said bigger deals involving Chinese state-backed companies were
likely the least transparent and the most strongly defended by government
security forces, who responded with military force to anti-logging protests by
villagers in Mondulkiri.
"From the perspective of people in Cambodia who might want to ask questions
about the process ... it's even more difficult with some of these recent deals
that have totally been brokered behind closed doors," Taylor said.
He said the outcome of such deals for people living in rural areas was
disastrous. "They know nothing until the moment that the bulldozers turn up and
start pushing down their houses."
Loans, grants from Beijing
"If they protest, they get the full force of the state mechanism ...
suppressing their efforts to get their voices heard," he added.
Hun Sen has banned illegal logging and called anarchic logging "the biggest
mistake" of his political career, and his views have been backed up by
anti-logging speeches by ministers, but with little apparent effect.
Chan Sophal said China's interests in Cambodia were clear. "They help us, but
they also look into the resources we have, such as mines, oil, gold, iron, and
land. They need land to grow agricultural and agro-industrial crops to meet the
demands of the [China's] population."
Difficult history
Sino-Khmer relations began in 1958. During the 1970s, Maoist China for Pol Pot
gave steadfast support to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, whose faction is blamed
for deaths of more than a million people.
Closer ties developed after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 through former
Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, who maintained a second home in China and
close ties with Beijing.
China wrote off significant loans to the Cambodian government six years ago,
making new loans and grants worth $600 million during the visit to Cambodia of
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in April 2006.
While no conditions were attached, analysts say Beijing is keen to secure
access to the southern port of Sihanoukville for strategic reasons,
particularly as a delivery point for imported oil.
Original reporting in Khmer by
Mayarith. Translated by
Chea Makara. Khmer service
director: Kem Sos. Additional
research by RFA's Cantonese service. Cantonese
service director: Shiny Li.
Written and produced for the Web in English by
Luisetta Mudie. Edited by
Sarah Jackson-Han
.
Copyright (c) 2005, Radio Free
Asia . Reprinted with the permission ofRadio Free Asia
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