The international community has all but abandoned support for Cambodia’s national elections, scheduled for July 29. A string of events have outraged Western governments and unnerved already strained relations. Last September, the Hun Sen-led government arrested opposition leader and Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) president Kem Sokha, a tainted Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP a month later and banned 118 opposition leaders from politics for up to five years.
When the American strategic ‘pivot’ to Asia collapsed, China took the mantle of hegemonic leadership in Southeast Asia. The question of how to respond to an assertive and confident China is a conundrum shared by small states and regional powers alike. One of the remaining bright spots of Obama’s so-called pivot, was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was supposed to significantly boost trade in three Southeast Asian states, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore–while excluding or checking China. Donald Trump’s election in 2016 radically altered the fortunes of TPP beneficiaries.
Media freedom in Cambodia is at an all-time low. Reporters Without Borders reported in April that press freedom in Cambodia had plummeted more than 10 places from the previous year, placing the country 142nd worldwide, behind Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines.