Asia

Cambodia

  • Myanmar
    Some Final (Brief) Thoughts on the ASEAN Summit and Myanmar
    Updates from the latest ASEAN Summit.
    Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick November 4, 2021 Asia Unbound
  • Cybersecurity
    Cyber Week in Review: February 19, 2021
    New activity from and against North Korean hackers; Russian hackers target French IT monitoring company; Cambodia adopts China-style internet firewall; Facebook blocks Australian news outlets; and Most of London’s boroughs using Chinese surveillance tech linked to Xinjiang.
    Blog Post by Adam Segal February 19, 2021 Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program
  • Southeast Asia
    Cambodia Begins Oil Production, But Who Will Benefit?
    Late last year, Cambodia finally began oil production, from offshore fields in the Gulf of Thailand. A joint venture between the Cambodian government and Singaporean company KrisEnergy Ltd started production, and will be ramping up new wells in the coming months. Cambodia has known about its offshore oil for more than a decade, and other oil firms like Chevron had invested in Cambodian offshore exploration in the past. But production had been delayed for years as some companies were scared off by the low global price of oil and as the Cambodian government initially could not reach a deal on production with an oil company. The offshore fields will start with a peak production of around 7,500 barrels of oil per day, a relatively small amount: major oil states like Russia produce well over 10 million barrels each day, and neighboring states like Thailand produce more than Cambodia as well. But even that modest output will reportedly create some $500 million in new revenue for Cambodia, where GDP per capita is only around $1,500. Cambodian government believes there are hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in its offshore waters; revenues could increase as new wells are developed after the project’s first phase. Announcing the production online, Prime Minister Hun Sen called the oil output “a blessing.” And yet, in one of the most authoritarian and corrupt countries in East Asia, a place where Hun Sen has throttled the remnants of Cambodia’s pseduodemocracy in recent years, who will actually benefit from the new oil production? For more on Cambodia’s new oil production, and its impact on the country, see my new World Politics Review article.
    Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick January 7, 2021 Asia Unbound
  • Southeast Asia
    A Review of “Under Beijing’s Shadow: Southeast Asia's China Challenge” by Murray Hiebert
    Hunter Marston is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University. His research focuses on great power competition in Southeast Asia. According to recent surveys of Southeast Asia, China is now the most influential strategic and political power in the region. Yet China’s rise has been so rapid and consequential that few book-length studies have captured the complexity of Beijing’s expanding regional influence. The new book by Murray Hiebert of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Bower Group Asia, Under Beijing’s Shadow: Southeast Asia's China Challenge, fills this gap and shows in significant detail how Southeast Asian states are responding to China’s rise. Given his decades working in the region as a foreign correspondent and political analyst, Hiebert is well-suited for this challenge, and the result offers valuable insights on issues related to Southeast Asia, China, and broader rivalries in the region. The book portrays a region riven by a diversity of views toward China; this diversity prevents any unified response to China’s growing influence over Southeast Asia. As Hiebert shows, Southeast Asian states are of two minds regarding China: on the one hand, they are deeply dependent on China’s rise for their own economic growth and keen to continue trade with Beijing. On the other hand, they are increasingly nervous about China’s growing economic, diplomatic, and military power, its more assertive diplomacy, and its willingness to use its might unilaterally to get its way in the South China Sea—and potentially other parts of the region as well. Hiebert punctures several myths about the China-Southeast Asia relationship. For one, although media reports often portray mainland Southeast Asian states as close to China, or even as satellite states of Beijing, Hiebert offers a different view. He suggests, with considerably detailed country case studies, that mainland Southeast Asian states are not so easy to pigeonhole. China has constructed innumerable dams upstream on the Mekong, choking off much-needed water as countries down river face droughts as a result of climate change. At the same time, Chinese companies—in joint ventures with Southeast Asian corporations in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia—are building massive hydropower projects on the lower Mekong, leading to increased salt water flooding and environmental degradation. These dams have badly damaged the Mekong’s flow and often stopped the seasonal flow of rich nutrients essential to the cultivation of rice and other crops, and the fish which feed the populations of Southeast Asia. In so doing, they have angered many residents of mainland Southeast Asian states, even though governments like Cambodia and Laos and Myanmar remain highly dependent on Chinese aid, investment, and diplomatic support. Hiebert also gives ample coverage to the depth of nationalism within modern Myanmar, and how it is facile to say that Myanmar also has become some kind of satellite state of China. There is enormous resistance within Myanmar toward China’s proposed Myitsone Dam in Kachin State, which the previous government of President Thein Sein suspended in 2011 due to popular pressures. At the same time, China has covertly supported ethnic insurgents on Myanmar’s northern periphery, sometimes providing arms and munitions, a reality that has not gone unnoticed by Myanmar’s military, which views dependency on China as a “national emergency.” In addition, Hiebert shows that Southeast Asian hedging strategies, playing for time and keeping their options open, provides some grounds for believing that the region will not be totally dominated by Beijing. The ambiguity of Southeast Asian loyalties means that Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states have not made up their minds to side with Beijing. Hiebert argues that many of these states—even Cambodia and Laos, which seem to have less leverage to resist China’s influence and cash—will continue to avoid making stark choices. Malaysia also likely will continue to hedge. It has generally failed to respond to China’s provocations in the South China Sea or has done so quietly, believing that its “special relationship” would protect it from the bullying tactics to which China has subjected Vietnam and the Philippines. However, Hiebert notes Kuala Lumpur’s missile tests in July 2019, after China deployed a Coast Guard vessel near Luconia Shoal on Malaysia’s continental shelf. Later that year, Kuala Lumpur submitted claims to an extended continental shelf in that area to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. In fact, Hiebert’s account leaves open the possibility that Malaysia is standing up to China more often than it appears to outsiders. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, visited China four times during his first five years in office and has solicited major Chinese investment, even as Jakarta has pushed back against Beijing’s increased assertiveness in the North Natuna Sea. Indonesia’s economic dependence on China imposes limits to Jokowi’s willingness to stand up to China, but even he has often pursued a hedging strategy. The book also provides an even-keeled examination of Washington’s regional treaty allies Thailand and the Philippines, frequently described as tilting toward Beijing. Hiebert makes a compelling case that Thailand is still hedging against China, despite prevailing counterarguments regarding Thai foreign policy. Of the Philippines, he notes, “It is far from certain that Duterte’s sharp pivot toward China marks a long-term Philippine trend.” Interestingly, Hiebert predicts that Manila will swing back to an anti-China foreign policy after Duterte’s term ends in 2022 and a future administration in Manila seeks to rebalance relations with the regional powers. Second, Hiebert makes a compelling case that ASEAN should stop competing amongst itself and enhance cooperation, especially by strengthening dialogue on how to deal with China. As Hiebert points out, the main obstacle to deeper cooperation is the fact that Southeast Asian states often have varying levels of threat perceptions toward China and also often have different needs from the United States, the other major regional power along with Japan. Vietnam, for instance, has in recent years deepened its security cooperation with the United States, allowing a U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to dock at Danang for a week in 2018, for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War. There also has been speculation that Hanoi may file legal arbitration against Beijing’s maritime claims, and Hanoi has fostered military-to-military cooperation with Washington in other ways as well. Cambodia, on the other hand, has been all too willing to support Beijing’s interests. Under the increasingly authoritarian leadership of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Beijing has often facilitated China’s goals in Southeast Asia, dividing ASEAN. As Hiebert makes clear, Beijing knows how to cater its aid to Phnom Penh’s needs based on Western actions such as sanctions in response to unfair elections. Still, many Cambodians remain wary of China’s expanding influence in their country. Numerous Cambodians resent Hun Sen’s reliance on Chinese investment, which has transformed Sihanoukville into a Chinese outpost and may grant Beijing a naval base in the country. Sophal Ear, a political scientist at Occidental College, also warns about the risks of taking on unsustainable levels of Chinese debt: in 2018 roughly 48 percent of Cambodia’s $7.6 billion foreign debt was owed to China. Finally, Hiebert turns to the question of what all this regional complexity means for Washington, which has displayed a mixture of heavy-handed demands for regional fealty and ambivalence toward Southeast Asia. The Trump administration’s reduced interaction with the region has fed a perception in Southeast Asia of Washington’s declining influence. Hiebert provides a strong case for why and how the United States should restore its attention to the region and refocus its strategy toward Southeast Asia., including by regularly attending regional summits and increasing funding for much-needed physical infrastructure, including in the Mekong basin countries.
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Asia Unbound September 3, 2020 Asia Unbound
  • Transnational Crime
    Treasures Looted in War
    Podcast
    Works of art and cultural heritage sites are common casualties in war. In many cases, the sale of plundered treasures has helped finance ongoing conflict. In this episode, two experts examine the history of conflict-driven looting. Along the way, they trace the opaque, unregulated international art market that allows irreplaceable treasures to travel from strife-torn regions to the catalogues of prestigious auction houses.
    Podcast with Gabrielle Sierra August 25, 2020 Why It Matters
  • Southeast Asia
    What’s Behind Mainland Southeast Asia’s Surprising Success Against COVID-19
    With the exception of Thailand, the five countries of mainland Southeast Asia are some of the poorest in the Asia-Pacific region. According to the World Bank, Cambodia has a per capita GDP of around $1,600, while Myanmar’s is roughly $1,400. Laos and Vietnam fare only marginally better, each at around $2,500. Their political systems run the gamut from semi-democracies to authoritarian one-party states. Yet despite some initial missteps, they have all largely suppressed COVID-19, proving far more effective in addressing the pandemic than most developed countries, including the United States. Vietnam, a country of roughly 95 million people, has reported a handful of deaths and only 784 total cases, as of Sunday. It has seen a recent surge, centered on the coastal city of Da Nang, but even that outbreak remains small by global comparison. Its neighbors have done nearly as well. Thailand, which has a population of just under 70 million, has not had locally transmitted cases in weeks, and only around 3,300 cases in total. Many aspects of life are returning to normal in the capital, Bangkok, and in other parts of the kingdom. By comparison, Florida, with a population of around 21 million people, has recently been averaging about 6,600 new cases per day. Cambodia, meanwhile, has had only around 200 confirmed cases, and is even allowing in Americans, a risk few countries are willing to take right now. Laos and Myanmar have had only 20 and 358 confirmed cases, respectively. While the real number of cases is likely higher in all of these countries, their performance still stands out as a bright spot in the global fight against the coronavirus. Many of their maritime Southeast Asian neighbors, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia, are struggling with high caseloads. Few observers predicted mainland Southeast Asia’s success against COVID-19. Back in February, I criticized the region’s initial response to the pandemic; even several months later, I did not imagine how effective these countries would be in containing the virus. While Vietnam quickly responded to COVID-19 with border closures, lockdowns and a major public health campaign, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia were slow to stop all travel to and from China, the initial source of the epidemic, and some of their officials shared misinformation about the virus. Thailand, however, soon righted its approach. It imposed a state of emergency in late March, and launched a national task force to combat COVID-19. While the Thai government has used the state of emergency to suppress dissent—authorities arrested multiple opposition activists last week—it also appears to have helped slow the virus’s spread. Moreover, early lockdowns in Vietnam and Thailand probably helped smaller countries in the region like Cambodia, which did not impose restrictions quickly but may have benefited from having fewer travelers from its neighbors. More recently, mainland Southeast Asian countries have been world leaders in getting near-universal compliance with mask wearing, in many cases very early in the pandemic. At least 95 percent of Thais and 94 percent of Vietnamese wear masks in public. In some cases, like Vietnam, this is because the government imposes tough fines on anyone not wearing a mask in public. Other states have relied more on longstanding social norms promoting the use of face masks when sick. Countries in the region, even the repressive ones, have also displayed impressive levels of transparency about COVID-19 and the government response—even while they stifle dissent and limit the flow of information about topics other than the virus. In Vietnam, where the ruling Communist Party controls all aspects of political life, the Ministry of Health is putting case information online. Laos has embarked on a national public information campaign that is extremely transparent by the standards of one of the most autocratic one-party states in the world. To be sure, Vietnam’s response has built on years of “efforts to improve governance and central-local government policy coordination,” as Edmund Malesky and Trang Nguyen note in a recent report for the Brookings Institution. Many governments in mainland Southeast Asia have also worked to ensure that their coronavirus response measures impose minimal financial costs on their populations—critical moves to getting broad public buy-in. As Nguyen and Malesky note, Vietnam’s policy is to cover most costs for citizens related to the response to COVID-19, including quarantines, coronavirus tests and hospitalizations. Cambodia, in turn, has relied on aid from the World Bank and other overseas entities to help ensure that people are not opting out of COVID-19 restrictions due to an inability to bear the cost. Some of these strategies should be replicable in other developing countries, given enough political will. Masks are cheap and effective, and many other states could copy the combination of pressure and skillful public campaigns to get as many people to wear masks. Other hybrid or authoritarian states would do well to heed Vietnam’s example, which has shown that transparency about COVID-19 doesn’t necessarily endanger the state’s dominance over politics. In other words, if they come clean with their publics about the spread of COVID-19 and their responses to it, they are not necessarily setting themselves up for a broader political backlash. Likewise, other developing countries may be able to copy efforts from mainland Southeast Asia to ensure that COVID-19 quarantines and treatment remain free or highly inexpensive, which is the best way to get people to take tests, isolate and go for treatment. Beyond these clear strategies, some residents of the region, including several medical researchers, have suggested that mainland Southeast Asia may have benefited from unique cultural practices that make contagion less likely. For instance, many people in mainland Southeast Asia do not greet each other with handshakes or hugs, but instead with a palms-pressed-together gesture, while standing apart from the other person. Taweesin Visanuyothin, the COVID-19 spokesperson for Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health, told the New York Times that Thailand’s success “has to do with culture. Thai people do not have body contact when we greet each other.” However, in large, packed cities like Bangkok, Yangon and Ho Chi Minh City, people walk close together, jam into buses and other public transportation, and generally come quite close to each other. They may greet each other without body contact, but the sheer size of these places makes it hard to practice real social distancing. Thus, the true reasons for these countries’ success in containing the virus likely have more to do with their policy responses. Other researchers speculate that some people in mainland Southeast Asia may have some natural immunity to COVID-19. In one study from southern Thailand, more than 90 percent of people who tested positive for COVID-19 remained asymptomatic, a much higher share than normal. The reasons for this finding, however, remain unclear. One thing that is certain is that Thailand and its neighbors, which have had experience fighting other infectious diseases like SARS and dengue fever, have collectively emerged as a rare pocket of resilience in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. As similarly low-to-middle-income countries in Latin America are hit hard by the coronavirus, and nations across Africa brace for a surge in cases, their governments could benefit from looking eastward and taking lessons from mainland Southeast Asia’s response.
    Article by Joshua Kurlantzick August 11, 2020 Asia Program
  • Southeast Asia
    Mainland Southeast Asia's Battle Against COVID-19
    With the exception of Thailand, the five countries of mainland Southeast Asia are some of the poorest in the Asia-Pacific region. According to the World Bank, Cambodia has a per capita GDP of around $1,500, while Myanmar’s is roughly $1,300. Laos and Vietnam fare only marginally better, each at just over $2,500. Their political systems run the gamut from semi-democracies to authoritarian one-party states. Yet they effectively suppressed COVID-19, proving far more effective in addressing the pandemic than most developed countries, including the United States. For more on why mainland Southeast Asia has had such success, see my new World Politics Review article.
    Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick August 11, 2020 Asia Unbound
  • Cybersecurity
    Cyber Week in Review: April 10, 2020
    WhatsApp limits forwarding in attempt to fight coronavirus disinformation; Zoom’s troubles mount as it is banned by Google and U.S. Senate; Rights groups call for unblocking of voice over IP in several Gulf states; and Cambodia grants prime minister sweeping executive powers, allegedly to fight coronavirus.
    Blog Post by Adam Segal April 10, 2020 Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program
  • Southeast Asia
    Nuon Chea and the Failures of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
    Earlier this month, Nuon Chea, the former number two in the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal 1975–1979 regime, died in a hospital in Phnom Penh. He was ninety-three years old.  Nuon Chea had served under Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, and was seen as one of the major planners for the Khmer Rouge’s rapid, brutal overhaul of Cambodian society, which included emptying Phnom Penh of citizens, murdering a sizable portion of the population, and torturing and killing some 14,000 people at an infamous prison called Tuol Sleng. Nuon Chea, who until his death portrayed himself as a Cambodian hero, also was one of the few former Khmer Rouge leaders who actually ever faced trial. And yet despite securing convictions against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge’s head of state, and legally declaring that the Khmer Rouge committed genocide, the tribunal has been mostly a bust. For more on the failures of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, see my new World Politics Review article.
    Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick August 15, 2019 Asia Unbound
  • Southeast Asia
    Can Democracy’s Breakdown in Asia be Stopped?
    It has become, at this point, almost a trope to conclude that global democracy is increasingly imperiled, but there is considerable evidence backing this theory. In response to the global threats to democracy, some foreign policy analysts and government officials have begun to suggest that the United States and other democracies are entering a Cold War–style competition against autocracy, in its many modern forms. While autocracy—illiberal populism of both the right and the left, military dictatorship, major autocratic powers like China—is clearly on the rise globally and in Asia, a Cold War–style, grand ideological campaign against authoritarianism in general is unlikely to halt democracy’s global regression. For more on democracy’s slide in Asia, and how states should respond, see my new feature in the Diplomat.
    Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick July 10, 2019 Asia Unbound
  • Cambodia
    Five Questions on Human Rights in Cambodia: Mu Sochua
    Mu Sochua is the deputy leader of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), and one of Cambodia's most prominent women in politics. This past week, a Cambodian court issued treason arrest warrants for eight leading members of the CNRP in exile, including Sochua.
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World May 9, 2019 Women Around the World
  • Southeast Asia
    Last Days of the Mighty Mekong: A Review
    By Nicholas Borroz The Last Days of the Mighty Mekong, by Brian Eyler, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Stimson Center, takes the reader on a journey from glaciers in China to rice fields in Vietnam, stopping along the way in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. The book describes how unsustainable human society’s current relationship is with the Mekong, which he defines not just as a river but as a complex ecological system that includes glaciers, lakes, deltas, and other smaller rivers in the region. The Mekong is important globally in terms of biodiversity—thirteen times more fish are caught annually from the Mekong than from all of North America’s lakes and rivers combined. It is also important strategically—the Mekong starts in China and flows through mainland Southeast Asia, an economically dynamic region where Beijing is increasingly the dominant external power. The Mekong has become increasingly important to trade as well, as the river has been made more navigable (controversially) through efforts by China to dredge rapids and remove rocks, among other strategies. Eyler demonstrates, through a mix of anecdotes and analysis, how economic development projects that fail to consider ecological consequences are, ultimately, unsustainable—such projects increasingly threaten the long-term health of the river and its basin. In the context of the Mekong, he shows, the impact on the river can occur locally, when a Cambodian fishing community for instance overfishes and depletes fish stocks, thus destroying its livelihood. It can happen on a national scale—for instance, when the Vietnamese government builds water management infrastructure that interrupts sedimentation distribution cycles, thus undermining the national agricultural sector the infrastructure is supposed to support. This damage also can happen on a regional scale. Thailand’s energy demands, for instance, are one reason for dam-building in Laos, and these dams ultimately damage biodiversity both in Laos and Thailand. Eyler shows that unsustainable economic development is destroying both the Mekong’s biodiversity and also the ways of life of communities along and near the river. Eyler cites numerous indicators that biodiversity is on the wane, such as declining Mekong Giant Catfish populations and the changing compositions of cyprinid harvests. To explain the community destruction threat, he provides numerous sobering examples, particularly in China and Cambodia, of ill-designed relocation programs that have hurt displaced communities’ societies and economies. Although all of the countries in the Mekong basin have, in various ways, undermined the river’s long-term viability, Eyler places the most blame on China for the Mekong’s dire future. As he notes early in the book, the Chinese model of economic development “is defined by top-down, investment-led capitalism at the expense of protecting communities and natural biodiversity.” At the end of the book, he circles back to his core claim, after reviewing a mountain of evidence, and reaffirms that China’s model of development is the Mekong’s biggest threat. Not only does dam-building in China (where the river is called the Lancang) disrupt the Mekong further downstream, but Chinese outbound investment and tourism to Southeast Asia potentially lead to harmful economic development projects in other countries. Eyler implies that economic development projects—which often proceed in the Mekong basin after weak or nonexistent environmental impact studies—must do much more to consider potential ecological and societal consequences before they are approved by regional governments. Only in this way, he notes, will the region’s states avoid catastrophe for the river basin. He provides a few examples of relatively sustainable economic development in the river basin. He does not, however, propose a clear, concrete plan for how states—either upstream China or downstream less powerful states—can enforce this shift. Nor does he explain how the region could more broadly avoid greater long-term damage to the health of the river and the people who depend on it. Perhaps he does not offer further recommendations because he sees little reason to believe China will reconsider the ecological and societal consequences of its dam-building activities, or seriously consult other stakeholders in the Mekong basin. Nicholas Borroz is an international business doctoral candidate at the University of Auckland.
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Asia Unbound April 29, 2019 Asia Unbound
  • Cambodia
    Can Hun Sen Pass Power to His Children?
    Charles Dunst is a journalist based in Phnom Penh. He was written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the South China Morning Post, and the American Prospect, among other publications. Cambodia became a one-party state in late July, with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) taking 125 of the available 125 National Assembly seats in an election devoid of legitimate opposition, as the CPP-controlled Supreme Court had dissolved the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), the main opposition, in November 2017. And yet, while the sixty-six-year-old Hun Sen, who, according to the Phnom Penh Post, promised in March to rule for at least ten years (while also noting that it “could be more”), is beginning to talk more openly about succession, his clan’s neopatrimonial grasp on power appears to be looser than often assumed by many Cambodia experts and citizens of the kingdom. In October, Hun Sen, according to Voice of America, called his son, Hun Manet, “the possible future leader of Cambodia.” As reported by Reuters, the prime minister further denied nepotism and defended the promotion of three sons to senior government posts, saying “They all have doctorates or master’s degrees. Why should they waste them? I should find work for them.” Hun Sen’s elevation of his progeny is the apparent first step in a long-term effort to secure an eventual patrimonial succession aimed to keep his family firmly in control of Cambodia. His clan, according to a bombshell Global Witness report, has through allegedly shady business dealings tied to its power over Cambodia, amassed a combined wealth estimated to be between $500 million and $1 billion. The eventual elevation of Hun Sen’s children to power would possibly enable the clan to continue lining their pockets. The prime minister’s current shortsighted and unpopular governance, however, runs the risk of inflaming existing anger and displeasure among Cambodian youth. His increased closeness with China and failure to adequately improve social services and limit corruption, coupled with young people’s limited memory of the Khmer Rouge period from which Hun Sen claims to have delivered Cambodia, has made him potentially unpopular among this younger generation. His unpopularity among Cambodian youths, and the even weaker appeal of his children, imperils a succession to Hun Manet or another member of Hun Sen’s clan. Almost two-thirds of Cambodia’s population is below the age of thirty. These young people, unlike many of their parents and grandparents, do not feel as if they owe Hun Sen for delivering Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge period. Often, they focus instead on how Cambodia lags behind other countries in the region in development. Cambodia’s 2013 national elections—which were largely free and fair and held long before the CNRP’s forced closure—offer some evidence of Hun Sen and the CPP’s unpopularity among the country at large, and particularly among young people. In that election, the opposition almost won control of the lower house of the legislature, shocking the CPP; it may actually have won the election if not for vote irregularities. The CNRP depended heavily on young and urban voters for its strong showing.   Hun Sen’s plans for patrimonial succession would likely include elevating one of his sons, probably Hun Manet, to the top of the CPP’s organizational structure and then running him for prime minister in a sham election—a repeat of the unfree and unfair 2018 election, with a different figure at the top of the ticket. In order to keep up a democratic veneer, this succession would require some public campaigning and, despite a lack of legitimate electoral competition, leave the clan vulnerable to political opposition during the succession period – as other autocratic leaders have found when trying to pass power to their children. In recent years, Hun Sen has increasingly allied himself with China, as Beijing both props up his regime and has provided Cambodia with at least $4 billion in bilateral loans. In return, Hun Sen has given China cover at ASEAN meetings, helping divide the organization and preventing a coordinated response on issues related to the South China Sea, among others. Cambodians young and old, however, have skepticism about China’s influence in their country. “The negative influence of China on the Cambodian government is real and something that should not be overlooked,” Ou Virak, the founder of Future Forum, a Phnom Penh-based think tank, told the Diplomat in November. “The threat is real about how close we have got to China.” While Hun Sen’s authoritarian regime is not now checked, his actions, particularly his alignment of Cambodia with China, often inflame the public, including the young—and this anger could come out in a succession period. In addition, younger Cambodians are often angry at the government’s graft and lack of effectiveness—views that also could erupt after Hun Sen and his iron rule passes from the scene. Noan Sereiboth, a twenty-nine-year-old political blogger and researcher, told German news service DW in July that the CPP has failed to provide its citizenry with adequate medical care, education, and public transport, or done enough to fight corruption. While this anger is currently controlled by the CPP’s legitimacy among some segments of the population due to continued high growth rates, the repression of the opposition, and splits within the opposition itself, in a period of succession anger might well erupt, coalescing around opposition to a handover of power to another member of Hun Sen’s family. Hun Sen is unlikely to face a serious revolution while he leads the country, as he forcefully wields fear to solidify his power. Hun Sen rules through “a system of personal patronage in which money was passed upward in exchange for protection” but one that is effective in maintaining his grip on power, writes Sebastian Strangio in his book Hun Sen’s Cambodia, a seminal account of the prime minister’s regime. This power is tied directly to Hun Sen’s political and personal capabilities; it remains unclear if Hun Manet has similar skills. In a succession period, however, a new leader would be weaker than his predecessor. “One of the greatest threats to personalist regimes’ stability is succession. Systems governed around a cult of the individual set up a self-defeating incentive structure,” writes Brookings Institution nonresident fellow Torrey Taussig in the American Interest. “Domestically, the succession dilemma facing autocrats makes their systems more prone to volatility and infighting among elites.” When a country’s governance revolves around a single person—such as Cambodia around Hun Sen—the leader’s successor, even his son, should be able to step in and immediately assert similar control over potentially volatile elites. Hun Manet, however, has failed to demonstrate such skills; he is also likely to face external opposition led by youth, including the remaining CNRP leaders, who oppose the CPP. The Hun Sen clan recognizes the need to win over this youth and get them to favor Hun Manet’s succession. Mory Sar, co-founder of the Cambodian Youth Network, told VOA Cambodia in June 2018 that the CPP is unnerved by its lack of effective control over a youth population. Hun Sen has tried to increase his popularity among youth voters by implementing educational reforms and raising the minimum wage. A VOA Cambodia investigation found that a CPP drive to ensure voter loyalty included instructions to recruit “new members, especially youth, to support the party.” Additionally, Hun Many, Sen’s fifth son and a current CPP lawmaker, is the president of the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia (UYFC). Hun Many himself is quoted by a state-friendly outlet, the Khmer Times, as saying: “The next youth generation must vow to maintain and support the harmony of the country” — a not so subtle call for the youth to support a harmonious succession to Hun Manet. It is unclear if this engagement has effectively quelled youth discontent with the CPP. Besides the fact that younger Cambodians may not buy into a continuation of rule by the Hun clan, once Hun Sen dies or hands over power during his lifetime, Hun Manet or another chosen successor would face the standard difficulties of succession. These will include proving to senior government figures and the public alike that he is worthy of such power. “In personalized authoritarian systems, the death of a leader poses a serious challenge to regime survival,” writes political scientist Anja Osei in a working paper for the World Congress of Political Science. Only “a small group of non-monarchies that have experienced a ‘seamless passage of power from one autocratic ruler to his preferred heir.’” Indeed, while Hun Manet, if he was handed power, would initially control the armed forces, military police, and secret police, he so far appears to lack his father’s ability to appeal to the public and engender public support. “Hun Manet’s military credentials do not automatically equal party support,” writes Jonathan Sutton of the University of Otago in East Asia Forum. “Whether he is capable of managing the endemic rivalries and factionalism that characterize the party remains to be seen.” It is difficult to imagine Hun Manet, who has been described as “stiff”, according to Singapore’s TODAY news service, and lacks his father’s political capabilities, securing popular support or even convincing enough Cambodian elites to back him. He would, however, need these elites to support his succession, especially if he takes power after his father’s death and is unpopular with a motivated public. As Sutton adds, “There is little positive evidence that Hun Manet has enough support among the Cambodian political elite to hold power on his own any time soon.” Indeed, in a succession Hun Sen’s likely chosen son would be primed to face both public and internal opposition in his path to power.
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Asia Unbound December 20, 2018 Asia Unbound
  • Southeast Asia
    2018 in Review: Press Freedom Under Assault in Southeast Asia—Maria Ressa and More
    2018 was a brutal year, in many ways, for civil society activists, rights advocates, and democratic politicians throughout Southeast Asia. Cambodia’s government transformed from an autocratic regime where there was still some (minimal) space for opposition parties into a fully one-party regime. Thailand’s junta continued to repress the population, attempting to control the run-up to elections in February 2019 that the junta hopes will result in a victory for pro-military parties and their allies. The Myanmar government continued to stonewall a real investigation into the alleged crimes against humanity in Rakhine State, despite significant international pressure to allow an investigation. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte appears to have moved on from using extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs to preparing to utilize extrajudicial killings in other ways. Last month, Duterte raised the idea of creating a new death squad to fight against communist rebels in the Philippines, for instance. And even in Indonesia, one of the freest states in the region, the Jokowi government has given off worrying signs of increasingly authoritarian tendencies. Jokowi has politicized top law enforcement posts, overseen criminal investigations of opponents, and shown other worrying signs, according to an analysis of his growing authoritarianism published in New Mandala by Tom Power, a PhD candidate at Australian National University. (Malaysia is a rare bright spot for rights and democracy in Southeast Asia this year—in fact one of the few global bright spots for democracy in 2018.) Perhaps nowhere has the increasing crackdown on rights and freedoms in Southeast Asia been more visible than in the area of press freedom. Of the journalists featured on Time magazine’s series of covers of people of the year, three are from Southeast Asia. Two of those featured are Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, journalists for Reuters who have been jailed in Myanmar, essentially for investigative reporting into aspects of a massacre against the Rohingya. (They are officially charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act.) The two men have already been in jail for a year—despite their trial being decried as a sham by rights organizations and prominent rights advocates—and they face in total seven-year prison sentences. Suu Kyi has defended their jailing, and the two reporters’ time in prison is emblematic of Myanmar’s worsening climate for independent journalism, even under Suu Kyi’s government. As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has noted, three other Myanmar journalists were arrested in October, and overall the Official Secrets Act, defamation charges, and physical threats are chilling the climate for reporting in the country. The climate for press freedom is poor in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam as well. For example, in Cambodia, one of the leading print outlets, the Cambodia Daily, closed in 2017, reportedly under pressure from the Hun Sen government. Another leading independent outlet, the Phnom Penh Post, was sold to a new owner in 2018, amid worries that the new management would curb critical and investigative reporting. Many Phnom Penh Post staff members quit. Meanwhile, in Vietnam the government continued to aggressively shut down independent bloggers and writers, and Thailand’s junta has continued to harshly repress reporters and editors, such as reportedly pushing for the sacking of the top editor of the Bangkok Post, a leading Thailand newspaper, for his critical coverage of the military regime. Maria Ressa, the head of Rappler, one of the Philippines’ toughest and most groundbreaking news sites, is probably the best-known case of press freedom under attack in Southeast Asia. Before becoming the CEO of Rappler, Ressa had amassed a broad range of experience, including working for two decades for CNN, for whom she covered everything from the rise of Islamist terror networks in Southeast Asia to the post-Marcos era in the Philippines. She has received a wide range of awards for her work, including an Emmy nomination and an Overseas Press Club award. Like many authoritarian-leaning populists, Duterte aggressively demonizes the media, and Rappler in particular seems to infuriate him, with its hard-hitting, deep-digging style. The Duterte administration seems determined to put Rappler out of business. In early 2018, the Philippine SEC announced that it was revoking Rappler’s license. The media organization fought, and continued operating, but it was then accused of libel by the Philippine national bureau of investigation, and then was hit with tax evasion charges by the Philippine tax agency. Ressa herself also was charged with tax evasion, only a few days after she got a press freedom award from CPJ. She and the media outlet deny the charges, and noted how quickly the Philippine government had moved to file charges, seemingly without considering all motions and evidence. The case is now proceeding—but the climate for press freedom in the Philippines, which long combined tough investigative reporting with one of the most dangerous environments for journalists in the world, looks like it will only get grimmer in 2019.
    Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick December 17, 2018 Asia Unbound
  • Women and Women's Rights
    Pushing for Political Parity: A Conversation With Mu Sochua
    Podcast
    As one of the most prominent women in Cambodian politics, Mu Sochua has championed democratic values and human rights. Yet, in 2017 Sochua was forced to flee Cambodia amidst a government crackdown on opposition leaders and civil society. Though she is unable to return to Cambodia, Sochua has continued to fight for her country. Sochua discusses her experiences in government and how women’s political participation can advance reforms and gender equality.   STONE: Good morning. Welcome. We’re so honored and thankful that all of you were able to join us today. Thank you so much. I want to introduce myself. My name is Meighan Stone. I’m a senior fellow here in the Women and Foreign Policy program at CFR, and previous to joining the team here was the president at the Malala Fund. So I worked with Malala Yousafzai the last three years. So I’m all the more honored to be accompanied by someone that was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize today. Our mission here at the Women and Foreign Policy program is to analyze how elevating the status of women and girls around the world advances our U.S. foreign policy objectives. So to that end, this conversation is actually on the record today. I know many of our conversations at CFR have Chatham House rules. Today is not that day. We actually want you to engage fully. If you have one of these with you, I’m going to ask you to tweet. Don’t be afraid of Twitter. You can use the—I’m looking at you, Anne—thank you. She’s got her phone out, ready to go. You can take—you can take photos, you know, if there’s something that’s meaningful that you hear today. If you use the hashtag #CFRWomen—so #CFRWomen—our team can better find your comments and thoughts and retweet them and share them more widely. So please engage with us on social platforms. So for our program today, we’re going to be having a conversation with our speaker for the first thirty minutes, and then around 11:00 a.m. we’re excited to open it up to all of your questions, your thoughts, and your feedback. I want to start by just expressing some special gratitude to our friends who are joining us today from the Oslo Freedom Forum and from the Human Rights Foundation because they helped make today possible. If you want to raise your hands, I just want to say thank you to you for your partnership and for making today possible. (Applause.) They have an event here on Monday—the Oslo Freedom Forum does—with human rights activists from around the world. So if you want to join in, you can talk to them after today’s session. I know they would love to share information with you and warmly welcome you. So let’s get started. Today, we are so honored to welcome Mu Sochua for a conversation about her experiences in government and how women’s political participation can help advance both reforms and gender equality. We know that women are, woefully, underrepresented in politics around the world. Globally, we’re looking at just about twenty-three percent of parliamentarians and six percent of heads of state—hopefully, the U.S. can increase that percentage someday soon—and this is despite research that greater female political representation has been shown to positively affect not only policymaking but even budget measurements and impact in ways that benefit not only women but entire communities and countries. So we’re really humbled today to be joined by a trailblazer in women’s political leadership. One of the most prominent women in Cambodian politics, Sochua serves as the deputy leader of the Cambodian National Rescue Party and she has long championed democratic values and human rights. Yet, in 2017, she was forced to flee Cambodia amidst a government crackdown on opposition leaders and civil society who were resisting Prime Minister and strongman Hun Sen’s thirty-three-year rule. Though she is unable to return to Cambodia, Sochua has continued to fight for her country. She has dedicated her life to women’s rights and advancing democracy in Southeast Asia. As a daughter of disappeared Sino Khmer parents, Sochua spent most of her young adult life in exile here in the United States. When she returned to Cambodia in 1991, she founded Khemara, a nongovernmental organization focused on women’s empowerment. She went on to win a seat in parliament and she became the first minister for women’s affairs and for veterans’ affairs, and she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. In 2014, she stepped down to become vice president of the National Rescue Party, Cambodia’s main opposition party. She’s currently traveling the world and she’s meeting with international leaders to call for action against government corruption. And so, bringing us to today, our discussion could not be more timely or important with all the evolving news out of Cambodia even this week. So on Monday we saw the release of National Rescue Party opposition leader Kem Sokha on bail a year after he was jailed on treason charges in September 2017 that were widely seen as politically motivated and to prevent him from challenging Hun Sen in elections. And as we know, a few months after his arrest, they completely dissolved the party and all of its senior members, including Sochua, are banned from political engagement for five years. Kem Sokha was released from jail at 3:00 a.m. on Monday near the border of Vietnam, officially citing his poor health. But lawyers and family members say that he will now be confined to a one-block—one-block—radius from his home and under constant court supervision. Under the terms of his release, he’s barred from political activities as well as contact with any colleagues including Sochua and any foreign nationals who are allegedly linked to his treason charges. So you said, Sochua, in some media engagement earlier today and yesterday that he is virtually under house arrest at this time. And then where is Prime Minister Hun Sen this week? Well, he spoke yesterday at the World Economic Forum regional meeting in Vietnam where he not only defended the fraudulent election but also went so far as to say that the violence against Rohingya Muslims in neighboring Burma was unfair criticism and that the government were political victims. So some sharp contrasts in approach to governance and human rights. So with all that background, we’re really thrilled to welcome today Ms. Sochua to share with us about her work and her role as a woman and political leader. So, Sochua, I want to just start with asking you about recent events. It’s been a really powerful and challenging few days. What does this release from jail mean for your party, for your movement, for your work here, and for your campaigning in exile? SOCHUA: Do I have to push here? STONE: No, it’s on. SOCHUA: It’s on. First of all, I wish to thank you all for allowing me to be with you at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is a very prestigious institution. It is a privilege, really, and an honor. It is at the moment in the life of democracy in Cambodia and it’s a moment as well for me to be in New York speaking on behalf of half of the country—of my people. Why do I say half? Because over three million voters in Cambodia voted for change in 2013, the parliamentary election where I won for the third time a seat in parliament, and in 2017, again, our party, the only opposition party, won forty-four percent of the vote. So the Cambodian people, especially the young people, who represent over—about seventy percent of the population—seventy percent of the population—under the age of thirty-five want change. Yes. What all of this means to us at this moment being in exile, democracy in Cambodia is dead after how many billions of money from the international community. STONE: Thank you. SOCHUA: This—and it has been an incredible journey for the democrats in Cambodia. When I say democrats, I don’t mean that Cambodia have—has Democrats and Republicans. No, I mean—I mean democrats in the sense of people who will, like here as well, anywhere in the world, who believe in the basic principle of the fundamental human rights and fundamental principle of democracy. What it means to us right now, and I put it in the context of women, the hardcore politics—I put it in the context of women and that’s why—and that’s how I entered politics in 1995 as a women’s rights activist, inspired by Hillary Clinton at the time, the First Lady of the United States, who spoke at the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women—that you have to have power and power to make changes for the lives of women. It has been a very difficult moment in my personal life, being in exile again. I’m no longer eighteen, as you can see, and then in my head I work and I live in four, five different time zones, depending on where politics call me to be. At this moment, all we want is to get Cambodia democracy back on track so that our women’s—our women’s lives are secured—the children of Cambodia, the women of Cambodia, the families in Cambodia. It is a nation that has been broken and we have been living in the legacy of the Khmer Rouge—the Khmer Rouge that killed over two million Cambodians, including my parents. That legacy continues to haunt us, and because it is haunting us that it makes the opposition party a very strong party because we represent the base—people at the base—the farmers, the workers, the local women, victims of many atrocities. So we are fine looking for solutions and we hope that the actions that have been taken inside Cambodia, outside with the—with the support of the international community, especially the United States, will lead to us going home soon. STONE: Thank you for sharing that. I know that the U.S. and the EU, even this morning, have been engaged in a variety of tactics—put pressure on Hun Sen’s regime. Let’s talk about your own entry into politics. You just talked about being exiled at the age of 18. So, you know, for much of your childhood and your young adulthood you lived here in the United States and then, you know, pursued education. You got degrees in psychology, in social work. You worked as a community organizer, and then you decide to return to Cambodia and then you decided to enter politics. What was that moment of decision? What made you decide to go home? What made you decide to pursue that work and how did that work as a social worker, as a community organizer, inform your political agenda for what you would fight for when you became a leader? SOCHUA: It has never been a decision. It was always—from the beginning when I left Cambodia, it was always the circumstances, politics—political circumstances that pushed me into making decisions for myself and for my people. And when I left Cambodia in ’72, it was either you stayed behind and lived with the communists or you are sent out for a better education, and, luckily, my mother, who had only three years of education, wanted her daughters to be educated. I remember very well growing up, when I was eight, probably, sitting next to my mother, who was trying how to read and write, learning the ABCs, and I was learning also, doing my homework. I was—I remember her very well taking us to the airport, but we didn’t know it was the last time. That was in ’72. And going back home was never a question in my mind. It was an obligation, and it’s, again, for me to be working and speaking on behalf of my people is an obligation. STONE: Thank you for sharing. That’s so powerful. I know that you’ve been committed a long time to this work. For six years, you worked with the U.N. to assist about a quarter million displaced Cambodians, you know, and to this day you’re working with international organizations and partners to try to bring pressure in this situation. How did that experience shape you, working with the U.N. with displaced Cambodians globally and what did you learn in that experience that you take into your work today? SOCHUA: I think each moment of my life has been a moment of—you add the chips and then you add more cement in the foundation, however painful it is. But you grow to be more open to the reality of the lives of the people. That’s why I went into social work at the UC Berkeley and psychology at San Francisco State, because I was working as a(n) interpreter for the first waves of Cambodian and refugees to the San Francisco Bay area. I was—I was not a refugee yet at the time. I was a student, and there were very few Cambodian students at the time. So I interpreted for them and I realized very, very quickly—it hit me that I am really one of them, and you have to—it’s a twenty-four-hour job because it stays in your heart and in your mind. But what is important is that they should not be treated as victims. They are not just refugees. They are human beings and they are survivors, and they need just a moment of peace so that they can put their lives back together, and that has taught me the fundamental issues of human rights, dignity, and value and the respect for that—those fundamental values and human rights. And the reason—and this is why, as a vice president of the only opposition in Cambodia, I speak for the women of Cambodia. I speak about the everyday lives of the women in Cambodia as well as I’m connected with the global issues of women. When I was minister, I focused very clearly on changing the Cambodian proverb that says men are gold, women are just a white piece of cloth. If it is men are gold, gold, you know, when it is dropped in mud, you can pick it up and you brush off the mud—it shines again. But a white piece of cloth, if it is stained, it’s stained forever. So as a minister, I was the first woman to be representing that ministry. It was headed by a man before. They couldn’t find a woman to head—to head the women’s ministry. We changed the proverb to men are gold but women are precious gems. So in that context of precious gems, I—we focused on a very—a key issue, which is the fundamental human rights of women. And then when we chose issues and we looked at the actual challenges for women—why are they losing their human rights and respect—and that is all because of the exposure to gender-based violence. That includes domestic violence, of course, human trafficking, HIV and AIDS, and that’s why we pushed again for a law, which is the domestic violence law, and which I pushed for the draft and it got passed. And then I always look at the reality—not just theory, not just policy, but mixing it all. So I would go to brothels. I would go to factories. I would go to demonstrations so that—to give the people whose life we’re talking about—to build trust with them and also to say, you know, what you are going through we need to know and we need to defend it, no matter who you are, because as a member of parliament or as a minister it is—I believe that I got more credibility by taking dossiers and dossiers to the parliament and say, listen, when we talk about gender-based violence, when we argue for this article, this law, we know what we are talking about. So it is that type of attitude that I have. So now when democracy in Cambodia is dead, we take the same attitude. Release the prisoners of conscience. I have been in jail and I don't want to go back to jail. That’s why I’m in exile. We had to be practical. As I get older, I get more practical. (Laughter.) I’ve become more practical and this time I refuse to be in jail. I am here speaking with you and I will continue on speaking again. And it may take years, but we have to tell the untold stories of the women back in Cambodia. STONE: Yes. Well, I’d love to talk about some of the concrete legal and legislative victories that you achieved in your time in government that you were just referencing. It’s a pretty impressive list. So you authored the domestic violence laws, you shared. You negotiated an agreement with Thailand to curtail sex trafficking. You launched a campaign to engage NGOs, law enforcement, and rural women in a national dialogue on women’s development, so an incredible agenda that had really significant legal and economic impacts. What were the barriers, you know, when you were trying to do that work in government? What were you facing in a daily way in terms of push back against, trying to put some of these really groundbreaking laws on the books? There must have been tremendous resistance. How did you go about the political work of bringing people together to support these laws and pass these laws for the first time? SOCHUA: I think being an activist, going into politics as an activist, has some plusses and some minuses. The plusses is that you speak with the reality. We have stories to tell, yeah, and you’re flexible. When there is a strike, when there is a protest and you are there, the people embrace you. They are—you’re part of them. However, it also—I remember very, very, very well before I went into exile the situation was very, very bad. One of the French official at the French embassy in Cambodia pulled me aside and say, madam, you have to stop being an activist—you represent a political party. It hit me. However, what does the party mean? And then I have to define what does the party mean if it is not the life of the people? But it teaches me that you have to find a balance. You have to find a balance. It also teaches us to—the word credibility, accountability, and transparency. All these words, I didn’t get it when I was an activist in the streets. I got it through politics and I—and our party demands that and that’s why we got forty-four percent and we represent half of the country because we put politics in a new—it’s not the old-style politics in Cambodia. We say to the dictator, Mr. Hun Sen, you can’t drag Cambodia back to the Khmer Rouge because, you know, today we have this social media and you can’t hide from it. The—what is—the challenges that I get personally because I’m a woman, because I’m educated, and they hold that against me—I’m educated in the West, especially in the United States—now because the opposition party—my leader—is in jail today and they dissolved my party—our party today is because Mr. Hun Sen accused us of creating a color revolution led by the United States. So being—and I have a U.S. citizen—I am a U.S. citizen. Therefore, it is always against us for bringing in, for brainwashing our people with the what’s human rights, what’s democracy; we were fine until the U.S. came in. Now, this type of language you know that it is the language of a dictator that is desperate to hang on to his power. So we have to continue to speak on—with the language of the people and put the word—what is transparency. They took—now Cambodia is signing billions of dollars of contract worth of billions of dollars with China, taking away millions of hectares of land from our fishermen, from our farmers. What does it mean—the word transparency mean to a farmer, to a fisherman, to a woman who has no education whatsoever? She—but what you have to explain to her the government is signing this contract, taking your land, your crops, your boat, your river, giving it to China. You want to know what is in that contract. That’s called transparency. So what—but the challenge is that you have to be on the ground, and Mr. Hun Sen knows very well that transparency is a—actually, he does not want transparency or accountability. That’s why he had to dissolve us. He had to kick us out. He had to kick civil society out. He had to close down the major—in a week, all the radio stations—twenty radio stations were closed down, just like that. The death of democracy in Cambodia was delivered by a bullet train. It was done within a few months. All the work that we put on the ground for the past twenty years after the war was finished in—from February to—from a—for less than six months. STONE: Well, I’d love to go back to July of 2014. So this is when you and several other members of the Cambodian National Rescue Party were arrested. You were leading a series of nonviolent protests. So my favorite footage of you is in the park, giving speeches and rallying people. But after your arrest, we saw how important global support can be—networks of support—whether that’s governmental action, advocacy, political figures calling for your release. I know our colleagues at Human Rights Watch have done incredible work supporting your campaign as well and want to salute them for their efforts. So we saw this outpouring of support. Can you talk about what’s really helping now? Like, what can governments like the U.S. continue to do? What can other governments that are sympathetic do? What can activists and organizations do to support your work in country even as you’re in exile? SOCHUA: It’s a combination of the work inside Cambodia, the hope that we must—we continue to give to our people by using social media. I go live for ten minutes every day, giving a message to the people. About half of the country have access to a smart phone these days and, as I said, seventy percent of our populations are between the age of—under the age of thirty-five. Yeah. So keeping the hope alive, keeping the issues on the ground alive and reporting those issues, and the youth—although the people inside Cambodia cannot speak, but we follow the news and we speak on their behalf. Like, you know, what China is doing right now—they can’t say what China is doing right now, but we know what China is doing right now. And so keeping them alive and then saying to them—this morning I saw them, the farmers, on the—marching to the city and I saw, again, yesterday a group of young people who went to the ministry of education and protested and say, how come you drop us out from—there’s an exam for baccalaureate and it turned out that there was a technical error in the computer and the students went and protested. So my message to the young people, I say, see, protest—go talk to the minister, and they got—now they can pass the test. So it’s this type of very concrete action that we—people inside and people outside—us outside pull resources together. We have to be united—unity, solidarity, meaning, what do we want for Cambodia? Democracy. We want to—for a Cambodia that respects human rights, rule of law. We want to stop the issue of corruption. We want real, free, and fair elections, not sham elections. Just last July, a few months ago—July, August, September, so months ago—Mr. Hun Sen, through his sham election, his party collected all the 125 parliamentary seats. All. It’s now a one-party state and he is coming to the United States, to the U.N., on the 28th to introduce himself as the representative of the people of Cambodia. No. We have communities in the United States—Cambodian-Americans diaspora—in Australia as well, in Europe as well. We are protesting every single day, and thanks to the media, fighting—Mr. Hun Sen has his own media called Fresh News, or fake news—his Fresh News—fresh and fake news. So we, luckily, through—like today, through an independent international media—the global media—reporting on Cambodia is really, really key. Every single moment we can be on—Cambodia is on the global media, we rush to get there. Otherwise, the world will forget. It’s just another story. And Mr. Hun Sen is very clever. There is no blood in the streets of Cambodia. But there is not one single person who can be on the street in Cambodia without being arrested and being accused of being part of “color revolution” and we know the international community, the media, does not react until there’s blood in the streets. We don’t want blood in the streets. That’s why we are protesting, and then we have to be very, very focused in what we want. We want free and fair elections. We want a—the release of our leader, release of the prisoners of conscience, and we want Cambodia back on track. And the world community is—especially the United States is taking the lead at the world community to impose targeted sanctions on the officials of Cambodia—the government of Cambodia. For example, there is a ban and we are talking about—the United States is also—at the Senate is—it should be passed, hopefully, soon—the Magnitsky law—the Global Magnitsky law on Cambodia, and the EU this morning at their parliament just passed a resolution that called pretty much for whatever the world community is calling for, which is free and fair elections, back to—democracy in Cambodia must be put back. STONE: Well, I want to move to my final question for you. So if—everyone else in the room get ready with your question. We’re going to open it up in just a moment. So I want to fast forward to a hopeful moment to come in the future, which would be your return, so your return, going to Cambodia one day. What would be your agenda for—particularly for women if you were to return? What would you see or what would you envision helping to create that would ensure women’s political leadership, representation, that their rights would be protected, their contributions to furthering democracy in a new vision for Cambodia? What would be the agenda that you would think would be most important upon return home if you are so lucky to have that moment? SOCHUA: First, I have to go collect my suitcases. I don’t know where they are. (Laughter.) It would be an incredible victory for us and I believe it will happen, and I ask you to, please, write to your senators and say, pass the Magnitsky law on Cambodia. I ask you to, please, if you are—not just the United States but you—any government you are involved with, call those governments who will be speaking at the U.N. to raise the issue of Cambodia—why is Mr. Hun Sen representing Cambodia at the U.N.—he stole—he destroyed democracy. That’s at the global level. To the people, when we walk in—I say walk in—whether we fly in or we walk in across the border, I think it has to be a moment where the people come together en masse and show to Mr. Hun Sen it is not a few of these returnees coming back from exile. It is to prepare for the election. And for the women of Cambodia, who are always, always, on the front line at every single protest, is there’s the tribute to their courage, to the sacrifices they have made, and we need to say to our women, choose among them, especially the young ones, to take my place. Get into politics. Politics have to be defined by the action on the street. I watch also the movements in America—the #MeToo movement—and I always say, wow, how could we do #MeToo in Cambodia, too. Now, and every—when I was—when I’m really down, I look at the social rights movement in America. I read speeches of Nelson Mandela. But it’s really actually very few women—very few women in the world. We have Aung San Suu Kyi, but she is now tied to a really, really controversial issue, which is the Rohingya. Yeah. Women in the social movement today, you look at them and they are young people. Of my generation, of our generation, there’s very few, and the issues are different. Their fight is different because they have this access that we didn’t have. They have social media. I look at my—the young activist from Bolivia. Raise your hand. (Laughter.) You are next. Yes. So I think what is important is the support that these movements need, whether that is financial—they need financial support, like me. I’m trying to raise funds so that my colleagues who were put in jail, who are in jail, whose lives were destroyed, to put their lives back together. Those who were put in jail with me, they were not privileged to be protected with parliamentary immunity. They stayed back in jail, and they are—they have just been released last week, and every single family is destroyed. Every single family. There’s a case so painful of the wife who was gang raped more than once when her husband was inside and then forced to pay over $20,000 and the—her husband is back and called me and said, this is our life now. They have a child who is mentally disabled. They have to get out of Cambodia because those gangsters are after them. So this is reality, you know, and this reality they can’t talk about until we in—so we are not just a party. It’s a movement. So a political party needs to have this movement—connected with the movement and the movement needs support, whether it is your word, your letter, your tweets, whatever. But don’t leave us isolated. It’s not just our fight. The global democracy is in trouble—in real trouble anywhere in the world. This is what we need to say and that’s why I thank—again, I thank you for picking this topic today at the Council on Foreign Relations, giving Cambodia a chance to speak. But it’s not just about Cambodia. It’s about global democracy and women in global democracy. STONE: Powerful words. Thank you so much, Sochua. I know we are keen to open up the discussion to all of you. So, as you know, you can raise your placard and that’s how I know to call upon you. Please identify yourself. We welcome your brief questions and, again, we invite you to engage on Twitter. Again, the hashtag is #CFRWomen if you want to share any of our discussions today. So I see Lucy right in front of me, if you want to start us off. Q: Yeah. Lucy Komisar. I’m a journalist. Can you tell us how you got to the point where you got forty-four percent in an election. and is that the reason for the crackdown—the threat that was going up and up and up? The question is you seem to have done very well and then you got knocked down. So could you explain a little bit about that? SOCHUA: Yes. Forty-four percent didn’t come in a day nor a year. It took us twenty years—over twenty years. The leader of the opposition—the leaders of the opposition were a minister or human rights activist and we walked—we campaigned—we walked the campaign trail every single day for over twenty years, just listening to people, and then from that movement came the party and workers’ rights, human rights, women’s rights. We put it all together into a platform and at every single election we get more support because we speak so much about the issues. That’s how we got forty-four percent, and actually, we won the last election in 2013 but it was not given to us, and when we went back to the streets for six months. Then we got—then there was another election and again the people—again, we kept on walking the streets. We don’t have financial means, but we have the trust of the people. I think this is when a party is healthy. It’s not about the money, and when we run—well, we need the money but we run by walking the campaign trail and keeping the issues alive. Q: And that’s why he went after you? SOCHUA: We went—yes, and in the July election—the July election—we would have won for sure and take Cambodia to democracy. But it was clear Mr. Hun Sen knew that he would lose—he would have lost his power. And instead of just not letting us compete, if we—if we even had one day to compete we would have won. That’s why he had to go to the ruling through the Supreme Court to dissolve the party entirely, and we cannot go in and we are forbidden to conduct any political activity for five years. STONE: Thank you. I want to go to Khadija. It should be on. Q: Thank you so much. I actually—as you probably know, we have a primary today in New York and I was thinking that you should be on that ballot. (Laughter.) My question is about China and the role of China in strengthening the actual regime right now. Do you see any potential of influencing—from the outside influencing the Chinese government to at least allow a dialogue with the current regime instead of strengthening it for its own economic and, obviously, geopolitical benefits? Or do you think that China has gone too far into its own self-interest—that there is really no broker in the region to play that role? SOCHUA: China—wherever I go, I meet foreign ministers. They’ll say, China. I say, so China—so what—what about democracy—have you talked about democracy—you left democracy—you’ve let democracy down—because grassroots movements are not given the chance, and now grassroots movements are back. So it’s—this is about grassroots movements in my country as well. Every single community has to be empowered. Every single activist have to be trained in leadership and speaking on the—addressing, making that—taking that message very strongly, like the high school students in America after the traumatic event—the shooting. It is no longer—it is no longer the politics of the old party. Even within the old party, there has to be a renewal—a change within the party. Otherwise, China will be. You can’t kick out China. However, you can. Ask—you should ask yourself why you cannot kick out China. It’s because you hang on to the old power. It is the new power. It is—China cannot deal with the grassroots movement. China will work with any leader that is put into a position in leadership. Therefore, you need to have free and fair elections. Every single time there is free and fair election, no matter what level of elections, give the power to the people. And you look at the disasters. You look at the civil unrest. It’s all about old leaders not listening to what the youth are saying. But I am inspired by especially the female candidates in the primaries—that’s the way to go—coming out of nowhere but strongly holding on that fight, no matter what the fight is. Is there an issue? Take that issue all the way. And I think the world needs to be rejuvenated—rejuvenation. Yes. It has to come back to what’s the core issue—what are we fighting for—and it’s the same with the financial world. You take our money but you don’t—you cannot take our lives. We demand respect. We demand solutions with you. Otherwise, the world is in big trouble. Look at the EU. Look at the West. Europe—the anti-immigration—the right-wing European party is winning in Europe. That is scary—very scary. But we have to come down to the roots of the problem. STONE: All right. I’m going to try to get as many questions in as we can. I see a lot of placards. I’m going to go to Eason Jordan next. Q: First, thank you so much for your heroic, critically important work. You really inspire us. So you spoke of Hillary Clinton being an inspiration to you. Well, I’m sure you had not just her moral support but support from many other powerful people in the U.S. government in a previous era. So my question is, for the government in the United States that’s in place today, do you draw any inspiration or support from anyone within the U.S. government? SOCHUA: You know, the—again, it’s not the politics of America. But when we come in to America, the diaspora in America—the Cambodian diaspora in America—we go into—we go into the Congress, to the White House, and say, this is what we need. Help us. And we have been able to find some good friends of Cambodia, and, hopefully, I hear that President Trump will raise Cambodia issue at the U.N. How do we—how do we sell Cambodia to the U.S. administration? It’s more a challenge that we say to the administration—the U.S. administration as well as Congress—you talk about values. You talk about respect for human rights. Show it to us. We will fight, but stand with us. Somehow, so far, the United States is taking the lead in this international campaign to save Cambodia. How do we do it? Also, I think because of our determination we don’t have—we don’t put the United States politics into our politics because the United States is actually—if we put it in—bring the United States into our platform we’ll be in big trouble because Hun Sen is—wants exactly that. So we put human rights and democracy into our own context. STONE: Thank you. I want to go to Nina, right next to— Q: Thank you. Hi. My name is Nina Schwalbe. I’m a member of the Council and I worked in the camps on the border in the ’80s. And my question actually follows up on Khadija, relating to the role of Thailand, in fact, and how they have—kind of your perspective on their current relationship with Hun Sen as well as with your party and the extent to which they let you do organizing and work within, given the changes also over the past decade in Thailand. SOCHUA: Thailand is not our friend, although we are neighbors. But Thailand needs over—we have about 1.5 million Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand. Thailand needs cheap labor from Cambodia—very, very cheap labor. Thailand—the government of Thailand—the military government—has told us many times if you contact any political party in Thailand, you will be deported. We have very close—my colleagues are there. They can be deported every day, any day. If I—when I go to Thailand, I go under radar. I use my U.S. passport and I don’t connect with my colleagues because they are followed. Their apartments are raided every other day and the—Thailand has deported Cambodian refugees back to Cambodia—a few months ago, deported. So Thailand is not a safe place for us, politically speaking, because of the military regime. STONE: Thank you. I want to go to Michael. Q: Yeah. Hi. Michael Paller. I’m with the Open Society Foundations and I manage scholarship programs for Cambodian graduate students as well as fellowship programs for faculty members teaching in universities in Cambodia. And over the past three years, we’ve seen a pretty steady decline of applicants, especially women, from Cambodia and I was wondering if you had any insight or to think about how we can increase our pool of applicants there. SOCHUA: You do— Q: Yes. SOCHUA: —have candidates, yes? Q: We have—yeah, we have— SOCHUA: Yes. STONE: You could do some business here, I feel like. SOCHUA: We can do—(laughter)—exactly. I’m desperate. I’m desperate for—in fact, I have—I have connected with your colleague and said give scholarships to the students who were in jail and that just got released. They lost years. They want to come back—go back to school and they want to be safe, and they need to be safe, and especially for women we need to encourage them and say it is safe, because Hun Sen has made it so unsafe to be in politics, to be with any social movement, to be with America and open society. Yeah. So we have to say, again, it’s about human rights and democracy, and we need to pool—make that pool of students, of scholars, and scholarships very strong and build it up for the years to come. STONE: That’s great. Hopefully, you can speak after as well. We have about seven minutes left so I’m going to actually take a couple questions in a bunch and then have Sochua answer those together as a group. Why don’t we start, quickly, with Jonathan? Q: Hi. My name is Jonathan. I work for an organization that supports human rights activists in Cambodia so I’m not going to reveal the organization. But I wonder if you could speak to the future of the CNRP both inside and outside the country, and whether the CNRP is seeking any official recognition as an exiled government from democratic governments. Thank you very much and thanks for your comments. STONE: Thank you so much. I’m going to go over here to, I believe, John. If you want to share your question, briefly, and then we’ll get one last one. Q: Yes. I was in the Navy. We thought we might actually have a war with Cambodia and the—our warship was peopled by the U.K.’s forces. Thank God we didn’t have to do what we were prepared to do. But my question—you mentioned—what—can you tell us something about what our working-level people in the U.N. and elsewhere in the U.S. government—are they—how well informed are they and what, if anything, are they doing about the U.S. impact— STONE: Great. Q: —on your two groups? STONE: Thank you. And then, David, if you want to share your question. Q: Sure. Thanks. I was very struck by your comment that you’re continuing to deal with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge, and just for full disclosure, I spent a year as a secretary general’s special representative on the ECCC on the Khmer Rouge, trying to sort this problem out, back in—a decade ago. So my question is, really, if you might give a few words about the work of the ECCC and dealing with the legacy of the past—how effective that’s been. I have my own views, but I’d be very interested to hear yours. And Cambodia has, still, a strong civil society, which I think you represent very well. How do we engage or how does the civil society engage to address these legacies of the past? Because, as we know, without transitional justice and a number of other steps being taken, even if you move to the next step you’ve got a huge legacy to deal with. So I’d be very interested in your views on that. STONE: OK. Great. Thank you so much. I also want to recognize my colleagues from the Oslo Freedom Forum but I’m going to defer to the member questions, if that’s good. I asked them to ask questions if we were a silent room. But we’ve been very engaged today. So thank you for that. Why don’t we answer these three really wonderful questions? Jonathan had a very specific one talking about the knowledge, as well—from John—about the U.S. government officials, how informed are they. And then this very specific question at the end about the legacy of the Khmer Rouge. SOCHUA: There’s one thing you—we will not do—government in exile. No. We are the official representatives of the—of the people. We didn’t lose an election. We won an election. Show us that we do not represent the people. So if we go in, we now transform ourselves into a government in exile, that means the international community will get very, very confused—which government in exile? Our strength is that we represent the people of Cambodia—the forty-four percent. There are three million voters and more—that, strategically, if we go in as a government in exile, we’ll lose even the support of the people inside. We—the word—our party is called Rescue. It didn’t—we did not choose that word just like that. Cambodia needs to be rescued inside out from the legacy of the Khmer Rouge. How do we deal with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge? We have not—we never did. We didn’t deal with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge for the past thirty years, even though we had the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. You don't just put three people of the Khmer—top leadership of Khmer Rouge on trial while two—close to two million people were killed. It was genocide. So to undo that, there’s nothing but to rework this society, and the more you lose the time, you lose every single moment, every single day, you lose the inspiration, the aspiration, the hope of the people, and China will take over. That’s why civil society movements—that’s why your institutions, showing that in the—that outside of Cambodia people care about Cambodia and not just—we don’t just work with governments. It is important to work with civil society, with institutions—independent institutions, think tanks. We had to deal with ASEAN. It’s easy, actually, with the Western countries but with ASEAN, that has a tradition of noninterference, it is extremely difficult—extremely difficult, even with Japan or Malaysia that just got elected, after 61 years of fighting for democracy. John, you talk about the U.S. Now, earlier I spoke about Cambodia and the U.S. Now I’m going to talk about the U.S. in the world. I think it is really, really unfortunate for the U.S. to pull out of the U.N. Human Rights Council. STONE: Mmm hmm. SOCHUA: You can’t do that. You devalue yourself. How can you go into the world, the global community, and be proud and speak about human rights and democracy? You can’t do that. I think I hear something about the International Criminal Court. They want to pull out as well. You can’t do that. You leave this huge space for China. China loves it. It’s not about the U.S. It’s about global democracy. It’s about the whole world, and I am really torn when I come to the U.S. to speak, whether I speak—this is being very honest, OK. (Laughter.) This is free will, right—free speech. I always—I always get—I turn my tongue around many, many times before I can speak, even though I’m not in Cambodia; I’m in the U.S. But you really—at the end of the day, it’s about five years, ten years, twenty years from now. Do you want the Nazis to come back? This is what’s happening, and what are we doing? If it is not about courage from every single world leader, and every single world leader who does not stand up for democracy and human rights, shame on them, and they should be shamed no matter who they are. As much as we need the United States to help Cambodia, but the quality of leadership, the courage of each world leader, has an impact on the world community, on global democracy, and then when we talk about it, all democracy, whatever politics, whatever, it comes down to what a woman has to face every single day—that she had to sell her body, her land—every single day. When does it stop? That’s the point. Sorry. I got carried away. (Laughter.) STONE: Powerful words. Please join me in thanking Sochua for her time today—for a powerful hour together. (Applause.) Sochua, are you willing to stay after for just a couple minutes if other people have questions? Great. Thank you for being so gracious about that. Thank you so much for voting with your feet and coming to Women and Foreign Policy programming here at CFR so we can keep bringing incredible speakers to you. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you so much. (END) This is an uncorrected transcript.
    Event with Meighan Stone and Mu Sochua September 13, 2018 Women and Foreign Policy Program