At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes.
Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam.
Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP.
Photo: Reuters
However, months later, China’s financial contribution remains in doubt.
Beijing has expressed misgivings about the project and has not made definitive commitments on its funding, four people directly involved in the investment plans or briefed about them said.
It underscores how Beijing is drastically downsizing its overseas investments as its domestic economic struggles, even in countries it considers strategic partners, such as Cambodia.
Photo: Reuters
Cambodia is widely seen by diplomats and foreign policy experts as a Chinese client state, owing to Beijing owning more than one-third of its total state debt.
However, Chinese investment in the Southeast Asian nation is now plunging, after a series of unsuccessful infrastructure projects, amid concerns over criminal gangs targeting Chinese nationals, and dropping tourist numbers.
The 180km canal would greatly expand an existing waterway and divert water from the fragile rice-growing Mekong Delta to the Gulf of Thailand, cutting Cambodian shipping through Vietnamese ports.
In the months after the Cambodian government in October last year signed an “investment framework agreement” with China Road and Bridge Corp (CRBC), a state-owned construction company, Cambodian officials went public about China’s financial involvement. The text of the deal is not public.
In an interview in May, the minister in charge of the project, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol, said CRBC would develop the canal and “totally” cover its costs, getting a multi-decade concession in return.
However, at the August groundbreaking, the Hun Manet put CRBC’s share in the project at 49 per cent, with the remainder covered by Cambodian companies.
The same day, his father and former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen in a statement on Facebook said that Japan would invest in the canal.
When asked last month about Cambodian assertions that CRBC would have a 49 percent stake, an official for the company said: “It’s very complicated,” without elaborating.
One person directly involved in the investment plans early this month said there was no Chinese money on the table at that stage.
A source from one of the Cambodian investors in the project said it would not be a surprise if China did not invest in the canal at all.
A fourth official briefed on the matter said China earlier this year had privately criticized Cambodian officials for announcing Chinese funding for the project that had not been decided.
They all declined to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity.
More than three months after the groundbreaking, the site of the ceremony on the bank of the Mekong is still abandoned.
Dithering over the canal comes as Chinese official development assistance to Cambodia, including infrastructure funding, is falling.
China’s disbursements to Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021. There have been no new Chinese loans in the first half of this year, down from US$567 million in 2022 and US$302 million last year, official Cambodian data showed.
Chinese funding for overseas projects is also falling elsewhere, but in Cambodia, the impact “could be very pronounced,” said Grace Stanhope, a research associate at the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre.
China is still building roads and other infrastructure, but has pulled out from the construction of the new Phnom Penh airport, where it had initially committed US$1.1 billion.
That disengagement came as an expressway built by CRBC connecting Phnom Penh to the coastal city of Sihanoukville remained under-used by Cambodian motorists and truck drivers who to avoid tolls prefer the crowded, but free old road.
Another recently completed Chinese-backed airport at Siem Reap to serve the UNESCO World Heritage site of Angkor Wat “is very quiet,” said Ou Virak, head of Cambodian think tank Future Forum, adding that investors might face losses.
Chinese private investment remains high, but multiple Phnom Penh-based diplomats and financial experts said that once large inflows of Chinese informal funds destined to the gambling industry and real estate sector having dried up.
Chinese tourism, once a major source of income for Cambodia, has also struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
That has coincided with a prolonged Chinese campaign warning tourists of risks linked to an online scams industry in Cambodia.
As relations between China and Cambodia evolve, the canal project’s fate and its sustainability remain uncertain.
“With so many unknowns, it’s no surprise to me that investors are getting cold feet on this project and have yet to show up with their money in hand,” said Brian Eyler, an expert on the Mekong region at US-based think tank Stimson Center.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS