Category: Cambodia
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Who Owns Cambodia’s Stability?
Inside the diplomatic week that produced a credit upgrade, a Chinese congratulation, and a Western-facing trade sprint
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Australia backs Cambodia’s top public-private forum. No one has independently tested whether it works.
Australia has funded Cambodia’s Government-Private Sector Forum for over two decades. The forum’s private sector chair is a government appointee who leads the country’s largest conglomerate. No independent evaluation of the forum’s 25-year track record exists in the public record.
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Why Cambodia Chose the US While ASEAN Chose China
Country-level ISEAS data reveals Cambodia’s US preference is driven by border security, not alignment.
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Cambodia’s Compound Banking Stress: Multiple Shocks, Structural Gaps, and a Safety Net Built Mid-Crisis
The individual shocks have each been reported. The compound architecture connecting them has not.
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Three Partners, One Week: Cambodia’s Institutional Tempo During the Border Crisis
Cambodia signed institutional agreements with the United States and France and issued its UN Human Rights Council record within seven days, compressing the multilateral architecture it has built during the Thai border dispute into a single week.
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Cambodia’s Multilateral Machine: Seven Institutional Tracks in One Border Dispute
Cambodia has built parallel institutional engagement across seven international bodies during the Thai border dispute, creating the most extensively documented small-state position in any active Southeast Asian territorial conflict.
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Cambodia’s Restitution Architecture Enters a New Phase
Cambodia’s restitution team recovered 20 Khmer artifacts from an unnamed Asian private collection, the first return in the program’s record where the collector’s identity is withheld, signaling a new operational phase in one of the most structurally unusual cultural recovery programs any source country has built.
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Cambodia’s Domestic Product Push Rests on a Number No One Agrees On
Cambodia’s government says local goods are 60-70% of the market. Its top SME lobby says 30%. Neither can prove it, three years before trade preferences disappear.
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The Ox-Cart Racers of Kampong Speu
From 38 pairs in 2023 to 80 in 2026, Kampong Speu’s Saly Kolleun ox-cart race is a living tradition preserved by the people who chose not to let it disappear.
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Cambodia’s Tourism Meeting Announced Urgent Measures. The Documentary Record Tells a Different Story.
An April 1 gathering of 150 stakeholders cited tax incentives, electricity subsidies, and a six-pillar strategy. Three months of documentary research shows instruments that are geographically restricted to one province, expired two years ago, or describe participation categories rather than policy.
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Three Legal Instruments Constrain Military Activity at Preah Vihear. Thailand’s Post-Ceasefire Record Tests All Three.
Thailand deployed armoured vehicles near Preah Vihear on April 4, escalating a post-ceasefire construction pattern that engages the ceasefire agreement, the ICJ’s sovereignty determination, and Thailand’s own accepted obligation to respect Cambodian territorial integrity.
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Thailand’s Policy Statement Embeds MOU Cancellation. The BHQ Allegation Arrived First.
Thailand’s new cabinet formalizes MOU cancellation this week without the notification procedure that international treaty law requires. The Joint Boundary Commission has not met since before the July 2025 fighting, and post-ceasefire infrastructure in contested areas accumulates without adjudication. An unverified assassination allegation aired in the 48 hours before the oath.
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Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce Is Directing the IFAD Program. That Distinction Matters Before 2029.
IFAD approved its first loan to Cambodia in 1996. The country was five years out from the Paris Peace Accords, rebuilding institutions that had been systematically destroyed, running a rural economy that had barely cleared subsistence. The loan was a food-security instrument for a country that needed one. Thirty years later, the Ministry of Commerce…
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Cambodia passes first anti-scam law after years of documented official complicity
Cambodia’s first dedicated anti-scam law creates reverse-burden asset seizure and life imprisonment provisions. It arrives after OFAC sanctions, a Tier 3 trafficking designation, and the arrest of a scam kingpin who served as advisor to both the current and former prime minister.
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Cambodia Formally Protests Thai Military Activities in Three Border Provinces
Cambodia formally protested Thai military activities in three border provinces on April 3, citing specific provisions of the December 2025 ceasefire that bar force increases, troop movements, and fortification construction along the border.
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Russian warships return to Cambodia’s commercial port, bypassing its renovated naval base
Russia is the only foreign navy to consistently dock at Cambodia’s commercial port rather than its renovated Ream Naval Base since the facility reopened in April 2025.
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Cambodia’s PM Heads to France as Paris Manages Both Sides of Border Dispute
France hosted both countries’ foreign ministers within 48 hours, holds the archives both agreed would govern their border, and is now welcoming Cambodia’s PM to a G7 summit.
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The Compound Collapse: Donor Withdrawal and Cambodia’s Civic Space Crisis
Democracy-oriented donors reduce aid by 70 percent after restrictive NGO laws. In Cambodia, that withdrawal fed the crisis it was meant to protest.
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Cambodia orders investigation into Thai fuel smuggling allegations as import ban holds
Hun Manet’s order was conditional “if the allegations are proven true” responding to Thai media reports, not a Cambodian confirmation that smuggling occurred.
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96 Days In: Armor at O’Smach and the Ceasefire Architecture’s Blind Spot
Thailand deployed armored vehicles to the Cambodia border checkpoint four days after ASEAN observers visited. The monitoring body stayed on the Cambodian side.