Cạnh tranh ảnh hưởng văn hóa Việt Nam - Trung Quốc tại Campuchia — Transcript

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1. 0:10Hello everyone. Welcome to the Asian Chronicle program on the morning of
2. 0:16December 7, 2013. At a conference center in Hanoi, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen
3. 0:22stood before 700 former Vietnamese experts and volunteer soldiers, far exceeding the number of seats
4. 0:27provided by the organizers. He spoke Vietnamese continuously for over an hour, without
5. 0:32the need for an interpreter. He recounted his first meal in Loc Ninh after
6. 0:36crossing the border into Vietnam in 1977
7. 0:41to seek asylum and escape the Pol Pot genocidal regime. Ten years later, his eldest son, who now
8. 0:46sits in that very prime minister's chair, is not known to the public as a leader
9. 0:51who uses Vietnamese in political life. He studied at West Point, in New
10. 0:55York, and Bristol. Meanwhile, right in the capital Phnom Penh, the number of students flocking
11. 1:01to rapidly expanding Chinese language centers in schools
12. 1:05and vocational training programs throughout the country is growing rapidly. If the language a
13. 1:09person chooses to learn reflects where their heart is drawn, then
14. 1:12with what brushstrokes is the map of Cambodia today being redrawn?
15. 1:18This speech, delivered in Hanoi during
16. 1:23Hunen's official visit to Vietnam, helps us understand why a foreign head of state could be
17. 1:27so moved that he spoke for over an hour in the language of his host country. We
18. 1:32need to know a little about these two individuals. Hunen was the Prime Minister of Cambodia for nearly 40
19. 1:37years, from 1985 until he handed over power in 2023. He belongs to the generation of
20. 1:44Indochinese leaders, having grown up amidst war, a former soldier, and even having
21. 1:48sought refuge in Vietnam during the Khmer Rouge's rule.
22. 1:52Hunen, the current Prime Minister of Cambodia, is quite different from his father. He grew
23. 1:57up in peacetime in Phnom Penh and received a university education. After graduating from prestigious universities
24. 2:02in the United States and the United Kingdom, this father-son story is more than just a family tale
25. 2:07; it's a glimpse into a much larger question. The question that
26. 2:12regional researchers have been fiercely debating for years: where does Vietnam's
27. 2:16cultural and educational influence stand in Cambodia today? Amidst a
28. 2:21rapidly spreading wave of Chinese language, right in the schools, markets, and
29. 2:25factories where Cambodian youth grow up every day.
30. 2:34Let's go back to the morning of June 20, 1977.
31. 2:39A 25-year-old regimental commander named Hunen and four comrades decided
32. 2:44to defect from the PP regime. They set out from a village in Mot district, crossed the border
33. 2:49at a point called X16, and entered Loc Ninh district, then part of Song
34. 2:55Be province in Vietnam. What followed was not a grand welcome.
35. 2:59Vietnamese militia and officials questioned the strangers repeatedly to verify
36. 3:04their identities. Before taking Hunen to a hospital in Song Be for treatment of a
37. 3:09critical case of malaria, he later described his first meal in Loc
38. 3:14Ninh as the meal that saved his life. According to many regional observers, that experience
39. 3:18shaped his entire political worldview throughout his four
40. 3:22decades in power. He studied and earned a master's degree in public administration
41. 3:27from the Vietnam National Academy of Public Administration. He was so fluent in Vietnamese that
42. 3:30he could speak extemporaneously for hours without any prepared text. In the language
43. 3:35of diplomatic analysts, a speech like the one he gave in 2013
44. 3:40is not simply a personal expression; ordinary diplomatic speech is almost free
45. 3:45, anyone can declare friendship without paying anything. But standing before
46. 3:50700 public witnesses in the language of his counterpart for over an hour
47. 3:55is a self-sabotaging act, making any later denial or
48. 4:00reversal of his position come at a very high political price. That's why
49. 4:04that moment is still talked about years later. It's not just a touching
50. 4:09story , it's a costly signal, something that can't be faked with words
51. 4:13alone. Now look at his son. In 1995, at age 18, Hunmanet joined the Royal Cambodian Army. That same year, he
52. 4:19was accepted into West Point Military Academy in the United States, based on some of
53. 4:26his admission documents,
54. 4:31which were part of a scholarship quota sponsored by Thailand
55. 4:36for international students. He was the first Cambodian to set foot in
56. 4:40this prestigious military school in the United States and graduated in 1999
57. 4:46as one of seven international students that year, in a class of over 100.
58. 4:51900 students. He then earned a master's degree in economics at New York University and
59. 4:56a doctorate in economics from the University of Bristol in 2008.
60. 5:01Midway through, according to a social media post by Hunen
61. 5:05himself, quoted by international media, he also completed an internship at the World Bank and
62. 5:09was sent on assignment to the Republic of Cambodia. Two degrees, two schools
63. 5:14, two completely different languages ​​of thought. During Hunen's
64. 5:19formative years, Cambodia's survival was driven by the need to escape genocide and
65. 5:24civil war. In that context, the close relationship with Vietnam was
66. 5:29the country's most valuable strategic asset. Currently, Cambodia's survival
67. 5:34has shifted to economic growth, employment, and infrastructure
68. 5:39for a rapidly growing young population. And almost anyone in leadership positions
69. 5:45today, regardless of their educational background, will have to answer the same crucial question
70. 5:50. In other words, the shift in how Cambodia views
71. 5:55its partners lies less in where an individual studied and more in the fact that the
72. 6:00survival motives of an entire nation have shifted. And once the question has changed, any
73. 6:06relationship based on history, however deep, must be weighed against
74. 6:11all other partners, regardless of the subjective wishes of any individual leader
75. 6:16. So if the language of diplomatic goodwill is no longer the
76. 6:21default value of currency, what other currency does Vietnam hold to place on that scale?
77. 6:33When the Pop regime collapsed in 1979, almost the entire
78. 6:39Cambodian education, healthcare, and administrative system was wiped out. A large portion of the country's intellectual class
79. 6:44did not survive for more than a decade afterward. From 1978 to 1989,
80. 6:53Vietnam sent nearly 35,000 civilian officials and experts to assist Cambodia. This was organized
81. 6:59through various channels, most notably the Central Working Committee Z,
82. 7:04often abbreviated as Committee B68, which served as the Party's advisory body
83. 7:11, and the 478th Brigade of the Central Military Commission, responsible for military experts. They helped
84. 7:17restore the state apparatus, reopen schools, and retrain
85. 7:21Cambodian doctors and medical staff. A large portion of Cambodia's middle-level management in
86. 7:26the following decades were trained directly or indirectly by
87. 7:30this group of experts. That's a story of the past. For the present, we can
88. 7:34look at two very specific examples. The first is the Rif Nomping Hospital,
89. 7:39inaugurated in January 2014 with a total investment of US$40 million from eight
90. 7:45businesses in Ho Chi Minh City. The hospital was designed with 500 beds, and
91. 7:49doctors from Cho Ray Hospital in Vietnam rotated to provide examinations, conduct remote consultations
92. 7:54, and transfer advanced techniques weekly. In its first year of operation, the hospital received
93. 7:59over 50,700 patients in just the first 10 months of 2022. That number has since surged to
94. 8:07over 117,000, a 37% increase compared to the previous year. A second example is the Department of
95. 8:13Vietnamese Studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's oldest
96. 8:17and most prestigious public university. On May 23
97. 8:21, 2022, speaking at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh, Hunen, then
98. 8:28Prime Minister, announced the establishment of this department. The department would train bachelor's degree holders in
99. 8:32Vietnamese Studies, Vietnamese translation and interpretation, and Vietnamese for business communication.
100. 8:37This information, upon spreading, sparked a significant backlash on Cambodian social media,
101. 8:41with accusations that it was a form of disguised political interference
102. 8:46. Hunen, along with then-Cambodian Minister of Education Hang Chonaron, had to
103. 8:51publicly refute this suspicion, asserting that Cambodia is a
104. 8:55sovereign nation and that the opening of the Vietnamese language department stemmed from the practical needs of
105. 9:00Cambodians themselves to prepare students in the language domestically before
106. 9:04they received scholarships to study in Vietnam. At that time, more than 1,000
107. 9:09Cambodian students were studying in Vietnam at various levels. A third example, less
108. 9:15frequently mentioned but perhaps the most significant and subtle move, lies in a
109. 9:19field that few consider when discussing soft power: telecommunications infrastructure
110. 9:23. Medphone, a telecommunications brand invested in Cambodia by Viel of Vietnam
111. 9:28since 2009, currently leads the market with approximately half of the
112. 9:34subscriber market share, covering over 95% of the country's territory. Simply put, while
113. 9:40we are discussing who is distributing what content in which language on the internet...
114. 9:44The infrastructure that allows Cambodians
115. 9:48to connect their smartphones across a significant portion of the country
116. 9:52is built and operated by a Vietnamese company. According to figures
117. 9:56released around the same time, approximately 700 of these students were studying in the
118. 10:01North and 300 in the South of Vietnam. Of the approximately
119. 10:0622,000 international students studying in Vietnam during the same period
120. 10:12, students from Laos and Cambodia combined accounted for nearly 80%. Furthermore, at the framework level,
121. 10:18a mechanism known as the Development Triangle between Cambodia, Laos,
122. 10:22and Vietnam, which existed since 1999, was withdrawn from by Cambodia in
123. 10:29September 2024 following a wave of domestic protests. This is a story
124. 10:35related to regional diplomacy and politics, not the focus of
125. 10:39today's program, so we won't delve into it. What is more important to our topic
126. 10:43is what happened immediately afterward. Educational and medical relations between the two countries
127. 10:49did not freeze. In February 2026, the top leader of the Communist Party
128. 10:56of Vietnam visited Fnompank and, together with Hunen, witnessed the signing of
129. 11:00new cooperation documents. The border provinces of the two countries also recently signed another cooperation agreement
130. 11:04for the period 2026-2028, focusing on exchanging information on scholarships and
131. 11:10vocational training. Why
132. 11:13could a meticulously built national-level cooperation framework, developed over 25 years, crumble in just a few months
133. 11:19under the pressure of social media? Meanwhile, a small hospital, a
134. 11:23Vietnamese language department in a university, or even a nationwide information network
135. 11:28continues to exist and even thrive amidst
136. 11:33that very wave of public opinion. International relations researchers have a term for this situation: a game
137. 11:38on two chessboards. Every government negotiates with an external partner while simultaneously
138. 11:43negotiating with its own public and domestic political forces
139. 11:48for an agreement. No matter how logical it may seem on the international stage, it can only survive if the
140. 11:53acceptable zone on the domestic stage remains unbroken. The trilateral development triangle,
141. 11:57while offering real economic benefits, is too large and
142. 12:01abstract a symbol for the majority of the public to directly understand in their daily lives, as
143. 12:05opposition groups and social media have transformed it into a narrative of territorial sovereignty
144. 12:10. The government has virtually no choice but to back down, regardless of
145. 12:16how sound the economic arguments are on the international stage. Conversely, a
146. 12:21life saved by an emergency, a diploma securing a job, or a phone call
147. 12:26connecting with a loved one do not go through that domestic stage. They
148. 12:31directly impact the lives of specific individuals, without requiring any collective
149. 12:35political approval, and are therefore almost immune to the populist wave that could
150. 12:40collapse a state-level agreement in a single summer. In other words,
151. 12:45the smallest and most practical cards are the most durable,
152. 12:50not because they are small, but because they never have to navigate the
153. 12:54volatile domestic chessboard of their opponents. This is likely to continue to be the
154. 12:59prevailing pattern in the coming years. State-level, symbolic cooperation frameworks
155. 13:03between Vietnam and Cambodia will remain vulnerable to populist movements,
156. 13:08while service-level and personal connections will continue to be the most enduring foundation.
157. 13:12A key indicator to watch in the future is how
158. 13:16new cooperation mechanisms between the two countries are designed. If more and more agreements are broken down
159. 13:20into smaller, less symbolic projects instead of grandiose multilateral frameworks
160. 13:25, it will be a sign that the lessons from the collapse
161. 13:31of the development triangle have truly been learned.
162. 13:39But will these enduring cards carry enough weight to compete when an opponent is playing
163. 13:44a completely different game on a much larger scale than Vietnam's small, practical cards
164. 13:49? What is happening from the Chinese side operates on a completely different scale,
165. 13:53much more systematically. It's important to clarify that the
166. 13:59Cambodian government and people are not mere bystanders observing the power struggle between the two superpowers
167. 14:03. They are the active participants, and most decisions about learning Cambodian, applying for
168. 14:08scholarships, and taking their children for medical treatment stem from very practical calculations of self-interest
169. 14:12for each family, each student, and each Cambodian business. It's not...
170. 14:17From a geopolitical vote, the first Confucius Institute in Cambodia was established
171. 14:22in 2009 as a collaboration between a
172. 14:26Chinese university and the Royal Academy of Cambodia. To date, the network has expanded
173. 14:31to approximately 22 to 23 branches across provinces and cities. Notably, a
174. 14:36Chinese language center specifically for military personnel was established at the
175. 14:40Cambodian Ministry of Defense in 2017, and the newest Confucius Institute was inaugurated
176. 14:46at a technology university in Phnom Penh in early 2023. The total number of people who have
177. 14:51studied at Confucius Institutes in Cambodia has exceeded 130,000, with
178. 14:57over 8,000 students attending annually, while many Western countries are cracking
179. 15:02down on or closing down Confucius Institutes. Due to concerns about political influence, Cambodia
180. 15:07is one of the countries that most strongly welcomes and expands this model globally
181. 15:11. This is coupled with scholarships from the Chinese government. The number of scholarships ranges from 200 to over
182. 15:17300 per year, not including thousands of other provincial scholarships. The
183. 15:22financial appeal of these scholarships is significant. Besides
184. 15:27full tuition and dormitory coverage, students also receive a monthly living allowance, equivalent to approximately
185. 15:31US$350 to nearly US$500 depending on the level of study – a significantly higher amount than
186. 15:37Vietnamese scholarship agreements. But perhaps the most noteworthy move
187. 15:41lies not in language or academics, but in vocational training. In October 2018, a
188. 15:47center called Luban Workshop was inaugurated at the National Polytechnic Institute
189. 15:51of Cambodia in Fnorpen, which China touted at the time as
190. 15:56the world's largest Luban project. This model trains mechanics, automotive maintenance technicians, and
191. 16:01operators of numerically controlled equipment, using entirely Chinese-supplied machinery and technical standards
192. 16:06. The significance of this model is far deeper than its outward appearance suggests
193. 16:11. A student learning Chinese might later choose not to use the language
194. 16:15anymore, but a technician who is familiar with a particular type of machine, a
195. 16:20specific technological standard, a specific ecosystem of equipment will usually continue to operate within
196. 16:25that ecosystem throughout their career, because the cost of switching to a different standard
197. 16:29is too high. In other words, this is not soft power in the classical sense,
198. 16:35like movies or food that make people love a culture. This is
199. 16:39soft power designed in a very pragmatic sequence. Language opens the door, skills
200. 16:44lock the door, and finally, salary holds it back. And the fourth layer of this machine lies in
201. 16:49the information space of Fresh News, Cambodia's most influential mobile news network
202. 16:54with millions of followers, which signed
203. 16:58a memorandum of cooperation with a Chinese media conglomerate in May
204. 17:032025, during the state visit of the Chinese President to Cambodia.
205. 17:08Through this channel, Khmer-language news content about the outside world, including
206. 17:12news about China itself, is distributed directly to millions of
207. 17:16mobile phones every day. This is a capacity for distributing information in the native language that
208. 17:21Vietnam has not yet established on a comparable scale.
209. 17:26Notably, this memorandum of understanding was not signed on a normal working day
210. 17:30, but precisely during the timeframe of the aforementioned state visit. In
211. 17:35the language of decoding diplomatic signals, attaching a media agreement to
212. 17:39the exact schedule of a high-level visit is rarely a coincidence. It
213. 17:44is a way of amplifying the message, turning a technical collaboration between two
214. 17:48media companies into part of a larger diplomatic narrative that both sides
215. 17:52want to tell during that particular week. The point to consider here is not how much money China
216. 17:57is spending on regional research by scholars. This includes Daren
217. 18:01Chong, in a 2022 report published by the ISAS institute in Singapore, who, analyzing
218. 18:08Chinese development finance data in Southeast Asia, pointed out that
219. 18:12much of this capital flow is driven more by commercial profit motives than by a
220. 18:16single, deliberate political strategy. But whatever the initial motive, the
221. 18:21ultimate consequence remains the same. An ecosystem of languages, skills, and information
222. 18:25is being built in sync, deeply ingrained in the daily personal choices
223. 18:29of a young generation seeking employment and a better future
224. 18:33. The question is no longer simply who is winning at the foreign exchange negotiating table.
225. 18:38The question is, who is winning on a different chessboard? Much more subtle events are taking place in
226. 18:44every classroom, every factory, every smartphone.
227. 18:53Academics studying Cambodia are currently divided into two opposing hypotheses when explaining
228. 18:58the phenomenon we have just described. The most useful way to assess them
229. 19:03is not by choosing sides emotionally, but by placing the two hypotheses side-by-side and asking what evidence
230. 19:07truly distinguishes them. The first hypothesis, exemplified by scholar Sful Ear
231. 19:12at Arizona State University, suggests that Cambodia has essentially become a
232. 19:17form of state dependent on Beijing, where political elites are willing
233. 19:21to trade a significant portion of strategic autonomy for comprehensive economic patronage
234. 19:26. Scholar John Serary, analyzing the model of patronage relationships between nations,
235. 19:31also argues that this asymmetrical relationship is often accompanied by a certain degree of political subservience
236. 19:36from the smaller country. The second hypothesis, represented by scholars
237. 19:41such as Treng Vanar at the Asian Vision Institute, strongly rejects
238. 19:47this designation. They argue that Cambodia is implementing a calculated risk-hedging strategy,
239. 19:52leveraging the enormous capital readily available from China—
240. 19:56something Western financial institutions often fail to provide—to
241. 20:01modernize its infrastructure, while still maintaining a margin for diversification
242. 20:05when necessary. This contrasts the two hypotheses. A more useful approach is not to ask
243. 20:10what evidence supports each side, as both have supporting evidence. A more useful approach
244. 20:15is to ask, if the total dependence hypothesis were true, what
245. 20:20should we see that we don't? If Cambodia had truly become a
246. 20:25vassal state in the truest sense, it should have withdrawn from or weakened
247. 20:30non-China-led multilateral mechanisms such as the Association of Southeast
248. 20:35Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Mekong River Commission. But as journalist David Hart points out in his commentary on
249. 20:40Cambodia's withdrawal from the trilateral cooperation framework, that hasn't happened. Cambodia
250. 20:46remains, fully participating in those mechanisms. The absence of an action that should
251. 20:51have been taken. If the hypothesis of complete dependence is correct, it is the
252. 20:56most valuable diagnostic evidence in the entire dossier. It does not refute
253. 21:01China's far-reaching influence, but it almost completely eliminates the most extreme version
254. 21:05of the vassalage hypothesis. At this point, a critic might ask the opposite question
255. 21:09: if Cambodia still maintains such a degree of autonomy at the state level, why
256. 21:15did it withdraw from the very same trilateral cooperation mechanism with Vietnam and Laos, a mechanism
257. 21:20much smaller than the Association of Southeast Asian Nations? This question is entirely valid
258. 21:24, and the answer lies in what was analyzed earlier. The development triangle
259. 21:29disintegrated not because of pressure from Beijing, but because of pressure from Cambodia's own domestic geopolitical landscape
260. 21:34. These are two mechanisms that failed for two almost unrelated reasons
261. 21:39. And lumping them together into a single narrative that
262. 21:43Cambodia is drifting away from Vietnam toward China is a
263. 21:48far simpler interpretation than what the evidence actually shows.
264. 21:53These two hypotheses have been debated for years, and both focus on the state level.
265. 21:58But there's a layer that neither seems to have given enough space to analyze: the
266. 22:02layer of everyday personal choices. The annual report on the State of
267. 22:06Southeast Asia, conducted by the EIAS institute in Singapore, surveys
268. 22:11policymakers, academics, businesspeople, and regional observers—
269. 22:15rather than a general population poll—and yields a very striking figure
270. 22:20. In 2024, when this group was asked to choose between the United States and China
271. 22:26, for the first time since the survey began in 2020, the number
272. 22:32of people who chose China surpassed the number who chose the United States. But at the same time,
273. 22:36this same survey found that more than half of respondents expressed distrust
274. 22:41of China. Meanwhile, Japan, despite having significantly less investment, has been
275. 22:46the most trusted power in the region for many consecutive years. Putting these two figures
276. 22:51side by side, a clear paradox emerges. Power and trust don't always
277. 22:56go hand in hand. People can acknowledge someone's strength while simultaneously being unwilling
278. 23:01to fully trust them. And the real question worth pondering is
279. 23:06: Is Cambodia closer to China or closer to Vietnam?
280. 23:10The question is whether the two debates we just discussed—the
281. 23:16state-level debate and the quiet shift at the societal level—are following
282. 23:21the same trajectory. At the state level, communication channels between the two
283. 23:25ruling parties, high-level visits, and new cooperation agreements continue
284. 23:30as we saw earlier. But at the societal level,
285. 23:35in the very classrooms where Cambodian children are growing up, language choices
286. 23:40and career paths seem to be
287. 23:44naturally shifting in a different direction, without any political pressure. Simply
288. 23:49because it appears to lead to a better job and a higher salary
289. 23:56. If this is true, then this is the most important aspect of the whole story
290. 24:02. The nation can maintain a strong position on the
291. 24:06state-level diplomatic chessboard while silently
292. 24:10, slowly, but perhaps more decisively in the long run. This is the chessboard
293. 24:15shaping the thinking and professional identity of a new generation of citizens. A
294. 24:19diplomatic agreement can be re-signed, renegotiated, or even restored after a
295. 24:24breakdown. But the linguistic habits and career paths that hundreds of thousands of young
296. 24:29people have chosen, once established, will be very difficult to reverse in a generation with many potentials
297. 24:34. This trajectory will continue for at least the next decade. Vietnam maintains its
298. 24:40state-level communication channels and practical cards deeply rooted in
299. 24:44public services while accepting to cede much of its influence
300. 24:49in the linguistic and career choices of the younger generation to a rival with
301. 24:54far superior resources. The most important indicator to watch in the coming years
302. 24:58is not high-level diplomatic documents but a
303. 25:03much more concrete number: the percentage of Cambodian students choosing Chinese as a second foreign language in
304. 25:08the public school system, not in private centers. If that percentage continues
305. 25:13to steadily increase year after year, it will be the clearest sign that the social chessboard
306. 25:18has been decided, regardless of the extent of state-level relations between Hanoi and Phnom Penh.
307. 25:28Let's return to the image where we began. Hunen stood before 700 former Vietnamese experts
308. 25:35, speaking a language other than his mother tongue, so fluently that it seemed as
309. 25:40if it were the language he grew up with. This is the legacy of an era when
310. 25:46the destinies of two nations were so intertwined that a man could
311. 25:50borrow another's language to tell his life story. Nearly half a century after
312. 25:55that meal in Loc Ninh, another Cambodian boy will also sit down to learn his
313. 26:00first foreign language. Perhaps he will learn English to venture into the wider world. Perhaps he will learn Chinese
314. 26:06to secure a high-paying job in a factory near his home. And perhaps,
315. 26:11albeit a smaller one, he will walk through the doors of a small Vietnamese language department located
316. 26:16on the campus of a university in Phnom Penh. The language that boy chooses
317. 26:20to learn will most likely not be decided by any treaty signed
318. 26:25between two governments. It will be decided by a much simpler question
319. 26:29: which language will open a better door for him tomorrow? And perhaps
320. 26:33that is the answer to the question we posed at the beginning. The Map
321. 26:38of Cambodia program is not being redrawn by ministers or
322. 26:43state-level treaties. It is being redrawn every day with much smaller strokes,
323. 26:47by the language choices of hundreds of thousands of students who have never appeared in
324. 26:51any newspaper. See you again in the next broadcast
325. 26:56of Asia Chronicle.
326. 27:00Oh.