MEcon@MR Blog

A curious relationship: Cambodia and North Korea

July 21, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

Norodom Sihanouk, former King of Cambodia (left) is welcomed on April 22, 1975, in Pyongyang by North Korean President and "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung (right). Photo: AFP

If you ever visit Phnom Penh or Siem Reap in Cambodia, you may have had the pleasure of looking at a curious chain of restaurants called “Pyongyang Restaurants”. These chains are found throughout China and Southeast Asia and are run the North Korean government, staffed by North Korean waitresses, serving North Korean cuisine.

Whither Southeast Asian Liberalism?

July 20, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong and the visiting Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith on 15 May 2017 Photo: VNA

Francis Fukuyama's prediction of the "end of history" and the inevitability of the establishment of liberal democracy clearly took a hit after the third wave of democratization as we continued and continue to observe roll backs of individual rights across the globe. So, why has this been the case? What exactly do we know about democratization?

Weekly Roundup: Vietnam 19 July 2017

July 19, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

Our weekly round up for Vietnam 19 July 2017

China in Cambodia: What You May Have Missed This Week

July 14, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

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.

Weekly Roundup: Laos 14 July 2017

July 14, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

Continuing our "Weekly Round Up" Series - today we head north of the border to Laos.

Weekly Roundup: Cambodia 13 July 2017

July 13, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

We would like to introduce our new "Weekly Round Up" where we highlight recent articles on contemporary Cambodia that we found particularly interesting.

On the British East India Company's trade with Cambodia

July 12, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

Map of Thailand and Cambodia (between 1690-1743)

Battle of Phnom Penh, 1644

View of Longvek, 1749

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.

China and Regional Cooperation: A New Era

July 11, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

Photo: 澜沧江边的架线工人/wireman on the riverside of Mekong; Mingjia Zhou in Nanjian, Yunnan, PRC; 11 September 2009; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 — Photo: 澜沧江边的架线工人/wireman on the riverside of Mekong; Mingjia Zhou in Nanjian, Yunnan, PRC; 11 September 2009; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

China's track record with regional cooperation, historically, has been "patchy" to say the least. The dismal outcomes of the 1990s era Tumen River Basin project in China's northeast regularly gallop to my mind when the phrase "regional cooperation" is uttered.

#IdeasCamp July 2017 - The Future of Ideas

July 10, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

One of our goals at Mekong Research is to study the trends in science and technology that are guiding regional changes in education and training, of students and mid-career professionals. With this in mind, we organized #IdeasCamp on Saturday, 8 July 2017 at Emerald Hub BKK3.

The Current State of the Cambodian Economy: A Primer

July 10, 2017 Anirudh Bhati

Photo: Phnom Penh, Cambodia (June 2017); Mark Pegrum; CC BY-SA 2.0

Cambodia is experiencing what is arguably unprecedented levels of economic expansion, liberalization, and development, given its situation in previous decades. However, this is not to say Cambodia is on the verge of becoming another "Asian miracle."