As Cambodia’s once-robust media freedom comes under attack, Chinese-linked outlets have found new footing ahead of next month’s general elections, pushing the country’s media toward an authoritarian model — and bolstering Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s tight grip on power.
Critical coverage is increasingly drowned out by gushing pro-government tirades and pro-Beijing content as China extends its influence beyond business into Cambodia’s media.
At the forefront of this shift is government-friendly Web site Fresh News. The owner Lim Chea Vutha, wearing a crisp suit and sporting a flashy ring, welcomes Beijing’s support with open arms, namely in the form of sponsored trips to China.
Photo: AFP
“As a Cambodian citizen, I declare that I support China, I support Chinese investment in Cambodia,” Lim Chea Vutha, 38, said in the company’s modern newsroom as dozens of young reporters huddled over computers nearby.
Several of his employees have been treated to reporting trips on Beijing’s dime, and he traveled there in early June last year, he said.
In February, he launched a Chinese-language edition, which brims with articles hailing the Cambodian government’s achievements and Chinese state media coverage.
His sentiment reflects the country’s love affair with its communist neighbor, which last year floated US$1.4 billion in approved foreign direct investment as part of its massive Belt and Road Initiative — double the previous year’s amount and outspending all other countries.
Chinese loans have relieved Hun Sen of reliance on the Western aid that pushed Cambodia’s democratization after the Khmer Rouge’s brutal reign ended in 1979.
That has given Hun Sen, who has been in office for 33 years, room to choke independent media that he was once under pressure to permit, smoothing the path to election victory on July 29.
The unravelling has paralleled a crackdown on the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party, which was dissolved in November last year, prompting Western countries to pull funding for the vote.
The combative Cambodia Daily closed in September last year under the weight of a massive tax bill believed to be politically motivated, while US-backed Radio Free Asia was shuttered and two of its reporters arrested two months later.
That left only the Phnom Penh Post, which spiraled into mayhem after a Malaysian investor — whose PR firm has worked for the government — bought the newspaper in April.
What remains are almost solely government-friendly outlets, many owned by Hun Sen’s cronies and relatives.
Although far from Beijing’s sophisticated control of information, Cambodia’s media landscape is starting to echo China’s, said Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which defines the model as media used to promote government aims and development.
“It’s going to be journalism with Chinese characteristics,” RSF East Asia head Cedric Alviani said.
Government officials have in some cases openly praised the way Chinese media operate, Western diplomat in Cambodia said.
It is an unexpected turn for a country once heralded as a beacon of media freedom in a region dogged by censorship.
Chinese influence also comes in the form of investment into state-run Cambodian media.
NiceTV debuted last year as a venture between the China-based NICE Culture Investment Group and the government, delivering news broadcasts and entertainment in Khmer from a studio inside the Cambodian Ministry of the Interior.
The company is to cooperate with Chinese state media outlets and air one program called “National Security News,” Chinese media reports said.
An interior ministry official told reporters that the station would help educate Cambodians about “basic law.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied pouring money into Cambodian media, telling reporters that it only conducts media exchanges to promote “mutual understanding between countries and peoples.”
However, a Cambodian journalist who travelled to China on a government-funded trip had a different view, saying that the controlled visit was designed to impress.
“We stayed always in at least four-star hotels in any city that we went to,” the reporter said, adding that interviews were lined up with officials and trying to speak with people not on the itinerary was difficult.
Fresh News does not receive direct funding from Beijing and operates independent of the Cambodian government, Lim Chea Vutha said.
However, the Web site is widely seen as a state mouthpiece.
He told reporters that he built a relationship with Hun Sen over the span of at least 10 interviews — access almost unheard of in Cambodia.
The exclusives have helped Fresh News grow to a dominant digital outlet in just four years.
Lim Chea Vutha welcomes the growth and said he would embrace assistance from Beijing.
“If China helps Fresh News, Fresh News is happier,” he said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese