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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: China & Taiwan: 2 sisters, Large propaganda board with China and Taiwan depicted as two sisters, happily holding each other in Xiamen, PRC: 思归照统一，两岸一家亲, kattebelletje, CC BY-NC 2.0
Later this week we will be providing our usual round up of events in the world of Sino-Cambodian relations, but today we take a break to pose a question that my own research currently examines, what I call the "Bates Question."
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Image: Poipet (Thai border), Cambodia. 2; James Antrobus; CC BY 2.0
It is no secret that Cambodia’s borders are quite porous. Much of the illegal cross-border trade seems to be accomplished with a nod and a wink – there are established, though of course informal, understandings as to how to get people and goods across formal, legal border crossings, as well as informal border crossings which seem to be well known and accessible, as the author discovered in the course of her field work in Cambodia.
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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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Source: National Bank of Cambodia and National Institute of Statistics/Phnom Penh Post
A liberal market economy have played a huge role in bringing Cambodia to where it is today, with foreign direct investment being the foundation. It has enhanced industries, created jobs, and has empowered people.
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Image: An allegory of the New fighting the Old in early Meiji Japan, circa 1870; Source: Printing Museum News N36
The involvement of Japanese experts in the preparation of the new Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure and other requisite legal instruments (so as to ensure a fully functional infrastructure for the recognition of contracts, contract enforcement, the protection of property rights, the enshrining individual rights and the rule of law, into legal code) is reflective of a benign foreign policy adopted by Japan that is aimed at building symbiotic and synergistic relationships with her partners.
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Image: South China Morning Post
Just a brief round-up of some of the events that caught my eye this week, more on Sino-Cambodian relations soon.
This Week in Lao: Are We Starting to See "Balancing" Against China?
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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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Kompong Cham - Floating Village, CortoMaltese_1999, CC BY 2.0
Anyone who has spent any time in Cambodia is familiar with the alphabet soup of multilateral and bilateral aid agencies and the hundreds of international NGOs operating throughout this country.
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