Cambodia’s next leader Hun Manet said he met Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) in the capital, Phnom Penh, on Sunday and they pledged to boost ties between the two nations.
Wang arrived in Cambodia on Saturday, the first Chinese official to visit since Hun Manet was appointed as the next prime minister, as part of a three-day tour of Southeast Asia.
Beijing’s top diplomat also visited Singapore and Malaysia after tensions flared with the Philippines over the South China Sea.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Wang met outgoing Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, his son Hun Manet and other officials.
Hun Manet was appointed by the king, but he and his Cabinet must still win a vote on Tuesday next week in parliament, where his father’s Cambodian People’s Party dominates the lower house.
Hun Manet posted on his Telegram channel that he and Wang “pledged to promote cooperation between the two countries.”
He also reaffirmed in a Facebook post his government’s “unchanged position” toward the “one China” policy and promised no interference in Chinese national affairs.
Hun Manet is scheduled to visit China next month and in October.
Wang also met his Cambodian counterpart and reaffirmed Beijing’s “unwavering commitment” to respecting Cambodian sovereignty and conveyed Beijing’s support for the kingdom, a Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation statement said.
His visit follows diplomatic clashes between Beijing and Manila over their claims in the South China Sea.
China said that a Philippine navy vessel grounded on a reef in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) must be removed from the hotly contested waters, long a flashpoint between them, after the Philippines accused the Chinese Coast Guard of firing water cannon at boats on a resupply mission.
Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are all members of ASEAN, which is in talks with China over a code of conduct in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.
Phnom Penh has become one of China’s strongest allies in the region under Hun Sen, who has ruled for almost four decades, receiving huge sums of Chinese investment.
The Cambodian People’s Party won all but five of the 125 seats in the lower house in last month’s election, which was widely decried as a sham after the main opposition party was barred from running.
He announced days after his landslide victory that he would hand power to his eldest son, a four-star general, and that he would become president of the Cambodian Senate early next year, as well as serving in other positions until at least 2033.
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