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Image: Fishing Village Dock Sihanoukville Cambodia; Sally, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
While wishing everyone the best for the Pchum Ben holiday - let's see what the Middle Kingdom has been up to in the Kingdom of Wonder as of late...
Image: Sihanoukville's Special Economic Zone (SSEZ) as seen from National Highway No. 4 near Ream commune; Wikirictor, Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0
I have discussed broadly the impact that increased trade and investment has had on Cambodia’s development. One of the most concrete policy examples of this being the case is in Cambodia’s Special Economic Zones (SEZ).
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Image: Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng (L) hands over a plaque to Gao Hua, re-elected president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 10, 2015; News.cn
This week we kick things off with a link to an excellent piece by Elizabeth Economy, the foremost expert on Chinese environmental policy, on that very topic. We highly recommend her book on the issue, The River Runs Black.
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Image: ASEAN Dimsum.2005; Anton Diaz; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Cambodia has pushed for increased openness and regional integration in recent years, particularly within the borders of its ASEAN counterparts. For example: in 2012 Prime Minister Hun Sen called for increased integration by removing trade barriers and liberalizing frameworks so as to transform the region into a global market with free-flowing goods, services, investment, skilled labor and capital.
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President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen at the ASEAN-Russia Summit in Sochi May 2016; Image: Kremlin.ru
The question on everyone's mind since the communal elections in Cambodia is, naturally, what's going to happen in the national elections next year?
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Photo: China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Beijing, China, Remko Tanis; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Quite a bit going on in local Sino-Cambodian relations this week, as befits the country's largest donor.
During the course of my research centered on the historical relationship between Cambodia and India, I came across a remarkable piece of authorship by Dr David Kenneth Basset (1931-1989), who reveals intriguing details of much less scrutinized features of the Company's inner-deliberations and operations pertaining to the East Indies.
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