Vì sao một hiệp định thuần kinh tế lại gây khủng hoảng chính trị Campuchia — Transcript

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1. 0:10Hello everyone. Welcome to Asia Chronicle. An agreement
2. 0:15that lasted 25 years. Signed by three Prime Ministers. Thirteen border provinces
3. 0:23participated, and for a quarter of a century, almost no ordinary Cambodian
4. 0:29knew of its existence until the summer of
5. 0:342024, when in less than two months, this anonymous agreement drove
6. 0:39tens of thousands of people to the streets across five continents, resulting in nearly 100 arrests
7. 0:45and ultimately forcing the government that signed it to unilaterally tear up the agreement known
8. 0:49as the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle. Asia Chronicle
9. 0:55has no ambition to judge who is right or wrong in the story we are about to tell. We only
10. 1:00want to present what happened based on verifiable documents so that
11. 1:04each person can draw their own perspective. Recently, in another episode
12. 1:08of this series, we followed a Cambodian scholar who
13. 1:13used maps and data to defend the truth about the border and nearly paid
14. 1:19with his life. That episode ended with an open question
15. 1:24: If, legally, the Phu Quoc dispute has long been settled, why does
16. 1:31the psychological wound still remain? Today's episode provides the answer, and
17. 1:37that answer turns out to be even more thought-provoking than the question we had before moving on:
18. 1:45understanding what this development triangle actually is. It is purely a
19. 1:50border economic cooperation mechanism established in 1999
20. 1:57concerning roads, customs, and infrastructure investment; there is not a single clause in
21. 2:02this document related to territorial sovereignty. This is not a
22. 2:06real dispute between states. This is a story about what happens within
23. 2:10Cambodia's internal politics and social psychology when an old fear meets a
24. 2:14new media tool.
25. 2:20The idea of ​​a development triangle was
26. 2:25agreed upon by the three prime ministers of Cambodia—Hunen, Laos; Shizavat Keobun Fank; and Vietnam—at a conference
27. 2:31in Vientiane in 1999. The initial goal was modest:
28. 2:38to promote economic development and strengthen security in the
29. 2:42most remote and impoverished border regions of all three countries. In 2004,
30. 2:47this initiative was officially institutionalized at an ASEAN summit
31. 2:51. The area encompasses 13 provinces, including four northeastern
32. 2:56Cambodian provinces: Kraty, Stung Cheng, Mondukiri, and Ratanakiri. These
33. 3:03four provinces would later become the focal point of a major crisis. In
34. 3:08writing, the development triangle contains no provisions for
35. 3:12territorial annexation or land cession. The Cambodian government has repeatedly
36. 3:16and publicly affirmed this. The agreement's sole focus was on attracting
37. 3:20investment, building infrastructure, and facilitating the
38. 3:25smooth movement of goods and people across the border for business purposes. However, in its
39. 3:29practical implementation, an imbalance gradually emerged. By 2024
40. 3:34, Vietnamese investors had implemented 110 projects in the region with a total
41. 3:40capital of approximately $3.76 billion, equivalent to nearly half of Vietnam's
42. 3:46total overseas investment in both Laos and Cambodia combined. The majority
43. 3:50of this capital flow was concentrated in land-intensive and easily visible sectors
44. 3:54such as large-scale industrial crop cultivation, particularly rubber,
45. 4:00along with mining and hydropower projects. This overwhelming presence, while providing
46. 4:05infrastructure and jobs, gradually led some Cambodians to worry
47. 4:10that small domestic businesses lacked the competitiveness to thrive in
48. 4:15their own country. And from this real concern, a completely different story began
49. 4:19to unfold. The fear of losing in economic competition and the fear of losing
50. 4:24territorial sovereignty are two completely different things. But in a few weeks of the summer
51. 4:29of 2024, the line between those two anxieties was completely blurred.
52. 4:49It all started with a one-hour live stream on
53. 4:52Facebook. On May 21, 2024, two civil activists, SON
54. 5:00Thron and Phil Sopia, who for years had traveled throughout the
55. 5:05countryside explaining the constitution and the Peace Treaty to the people,
56. 5:11received a viewer's question about
57. 5:16the development triangle. The conversation revolving around the advantages and disadvantages of
58. 5:21this treaty was entirely normal. But two days later, a segment of the video...
59. 5:26An 11-minute clip from that live stream was reposted, highlighting the risks
60. 5:32and questioning whether Cambodian leaders were tacitly ceding control
61. 5:37of four northeastern provinces to Vietnam. While the language in the clip still resembled
62. 5:42a policy analysis, it served as a spark to ignite a
63. 5:47powder keg. Groups spread a specific argument that
64. 5:53provisions facilitating the free flow of goods and people
65. 5:57across the border, intended solely for business purposes, were actually paving the
66. 6:02way for the elimination of national borders. The government's granting of
67. 6:07long-term agricultural land leases to foreign businesses was reinterpreted as
68. 6:11a form of demographic colonization. A mechanism designed
69. 6:15to attract investment had been transformed into a plot to annex territory without firing a single
70. 6:20bullet. Facebook's algorithm delivered the clip to hundreds of thousands of views
71. 6:25in just a few days. But what was truly noteworthy was what followed. Recognizing
72. 6:31the intense scrutiny on public platforms, the movement quickly migrated
73. 6:36to Telegram, where conversations were encrypted. Within days, a
74. 6:41host of new groups emerged. Some swelled to hundreds of thousands of members
75. 6:45, and within that enclosed space, the nature of the conversations shifted dramatically from
76. 6:50expressing concerns to discussing action plans, with the catalyst
77. 6:54for decisions coming from outside Cambodia's borders. At the same time, a
78. 6:59student protest movement had successfully overthrown a government in Bangladesh.
79. 7:03Administrators of these public Telegram groups were inspired by
80. 7:07this event and planned a large-scale march in
81. 7:11Phnom Penh on the 18th. Let's pause for a moment to consider the scale of what
82. 7:16had just happened. A crisis that brought tens of thousands to the streets, dozens
83. 7:20to jail, and a 25-year treaty to a halt. All stemming from a
84. 7:26single hour-long Q&A session. This is not
85. 7:31the first time such fear has been stirred up in Cambodia. And to understand
86. 7:35why it is so effective, we need to look back at an event nearly a decade ago.
87. 7:41In 2015, under the leadership of former opposition leader Sam Ry, anti-Vietnamese sentiment
88. 7:47was weaponized for election purposes. In June of that year,
89. 7:51opposition lawmakers directly led hundreds of Cambodians to the
90. 7:56border demarcation area in Campong Raw district, Sri Lanka province, leading to a brawl
91. 8:01with Vietnamese people and authorities. That event
92. 8:06had a notable political consequence. It forced Hun Sen to face
93. 8:12accusations of being a puppet of Vietnam due to his role in the Hanoi-backed government
94. 8:17from 1979 to 1989
95. 8:23after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge. That event and the
96. 8:282024 crisis in the Development Triangle region share a similar emotional structure: the fear
97. 8:34of losing land to its eastern neighbor. But there's a fundamental difference
98. 8:38, and that difference is the cost of triggering that fear in
99. 8:442015. To create a confrontation, it required mobilizing hundreds of people to travel
100. 8:49to a remote border district. In 2024, an
101. 8:5411-minute video is all it takes; technology doesn't create new fear. It just makes the cost of reviving
102. 9:00an old fear almost zero.
103. 9:09Sun S, one of the two presenters of the fateful live broadcast, wasn't an
104. 9:14opposition politician in the conventional sense. He's 43, from Kandal province,
105. 9:19holds a master's degree in business administration, and for over 18 years, he's worked primarily
106. 9:23in public health, protecting the most vulnerable groups in
107. 9:27Cambodian society. His turning point came in 2014 when he came to believe that
108. 9:33all civil liberties in Cambodia stemmed from the integrity of the
109. 9:38Paris Peace Accords. From there, he shifted to educating the community about
110. 9:42constitutional rights—it was precisely that belief that calmly interpreting the law
111. 9:47was safe that led to his downfall. At the end of July, just days after the
112. 9:53live broadcast, Sunron, along with Philung Sofia and a third person named Sanit, were
113. 9:59arrested by police while campaigning. The seriousness of the case escalated
114. 10:04when former Prime Minister Hunen himself spoke out on Facebook, publicly
115. 10:08demanding the court apply the maximum sentence, even before the official indictment was issued.
116. 10:12In effect, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced all three to a maximum of two years
117. 10:18in prison along with a fine of approximately $1,000 each. If the
118. 10:23Sun case showed how the government silenced domestic voices,
119. 10:28another case exposed a far darker tactic, targeting those
120. 10:32already beyond the reach of Cambodian law. Hayvan was an activist
121. 10:37in exile in Japan and one of the most vocal dissidents whose
122. 10:41voice couldn't reach Tokyo. The Phnom Penh authorities shifted their focus to
123. 10:45his relatives. Earlier this month, Hunen issued a public warning that
124. 10:51if Hayvan made a mistake, he could be in danger. Just days later,
125. 10:56Hayvan's younger brother, a civil servant at the Ministry of Health who had never publicly spoken politically
126. 11:00, was arrested by security forces at the border while trying to leave the country
127. 11:05. His whereabouts were kept secret for days. In the eyes of
128. 11:10the authorities, these harsh measures were necessary to prevent the risk of
129. 11:13an uprising similar to what had just occurred in Bangladesh right in the heart of the
130. 11:18capital. This is where we need to pause and look straight at something. This incident reveals
131. 11:23a harsh reality of political confrontations. When the boundaries of the law
132. 11:28fail to reach a voice of criticism, pressure often shifts to
133. 11:31the weakest point of human beings: the family. The wave of repression that year also had another
134. 11:37notable characteristic: the shift in targets from veteran opposition politicians
135. 11:42to the younger generation. Many members of a student association, including its
136. 11:46vice presidents, were detained and faced sentences of up to 10 years for conspiracy
137. 11:51to overthrow the state. Human rights organizations noted that at least four minors
138. 11:56were also prosecuted in this wave of sentences and arrests.
139. 12:01Another question is being raised on a completely different front, the front of
140. 12:05numbers. While the security apparatus suppressed the
141. 12:09domestic movement, outrage spread across the world over a weekend in mid-
142. 12:14August. Simultaneous protests erupted in South Korea, Japan, Australia, France,
143. 12:19and Canada. The largest event took place in Wangu, South Korea, a location
144. 12:25closely associated with the bloody 1980 pro-democracy movement. Approximately 7,000
145. 12:32migrant workers and pro-democracy supporters participated in a candlelight vigil
146. 12:38there. In response to this wave of protests, the Cambodian government not only used
147. 12:43police but also employed a different strategy: using data to counter
148. 12:48the claims. Leading this effort was Dr. Shock Touch,
149. 12:54President of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, a name viewers may have
150. 12:58encountered in a previous program – someone who had previously used maps to verify border lines.
151. 13:02This time, he organized roundtables and released a report showing that the
152. 13:07Cambodian government had invested approximately $3.85 billion in infrastructure, healthcare, and education development
153. 13:14in four northeastern provinces. Of this, Kratie province received about $1.5 billion
154. 13:19. Hunen argued that the road network connecting these four provinces to
155. 13:25the rest of the country made them an inseparable entity, and
156. 13:30Hmanet even declared his willingness to stake his political future
157. 13:34on the commitment that not a single inch of land would be lost. Notably, unlike
158. 13:40the previous event, the K Rice Party played no role whatsoever
159. 13:45in this crisis. According to independent research sources, the
160. 13:492024 wave of protests was led primarily by independent activists and remnants of
161. 13:56another previously dissolved opposition party. Linking these two events
162. 14:00to the same organization is unfounded, but attempts to use data to reassure have
163. 14:06failed to achieve the desired effect. Instead of allaying suspicion, the numbers only
164. 14:11deepened it. In the eyes of a segment of the public driven by
165. 14:16survival fear, the billions of dollars in investment are not seen as evidence
166. 14:21of protection. They are seen as evidence of preparation: that
167. 14:27the government is building infrastructure to pave the way for land concessions. This is perhaps
168. 14:31the most bitter paradox in the whole story. The more evidence there is,
169. 14:37the deeper the suspicion, using the same tool. Data-driven truth saved an
170. 14:43academic from the dock in the previous episode. This time, it didn't.
171. 14:47A treaty. Faced with this, the Cambodian leadership had only one
172. 14:52final option.
173. 14:59On the evening of May 20, 2024, Hunen and Hunmanet simultaneously
174. 15:05announced Cambodia's official withdrawal from the Development Triangle after 25
175. 15:10years of involvement. The publicly stated reason was to disarm extremists
176. 15:16and prevent them from continuing to exploit the agreement to incite division. Before
177. 15:21proceeding, one point needs clarification: the number of people arrested during the entire
178. 15:26crisis. According to Prime Minister Hunmanet's official statement, a total
179. 15:30of 66 people were arrested in connection with the planned protests on May 18,
180. 15:35most of whom were released after questioning. Only nine were considered masterminds and prosecuted.
181. 15:41However, according to international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch
182. 15:45and Amnesty International, the actual number is much higher, at least 94 to over 100
183. 15:51people. Including arrests since July for social media statements
184. 15:55, the discrepancy between the two figures is not simply a statistical error.
185. 16:00It reflects how each side defines the issue. The 66 figure only accounts for what the government
186. 16:06calls a conspiracy to riot. The more than nine figure includes those who simply
187. 16:11expressed their views online. The decision to withdraw can be interpreted on several
188. 16:16levels. On the domestic political level, analyst S, an associate professor at
189. 16:22Occidental College in the United States, describes the event as similar to Brexit, although he also acknowledges
190. 16:28that this comparison is somewhat exaggerated since Cambodia has not left
191. 16:33regional institutions like ASEAN. Analyst Cheng Porm suggests that Phnom Penh's leadership
192. 16:39calculated that maintaining the agreement carried
193. 16:43far greater domestic political risks than the economic benefits it promised.
194. 16:48On another level, some regional observers compare this event to a different development
195. 16:52that occurred just a month earlier. The groundbreaking ceremony for the khanantro, a $1.7 billion project
196. 16:58funded by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, illustrates this point. From this perspective,
197. 17:03withdrawing from an agreement linked to Vietnam while simultaneously pushing forward a project linked
198. 17:07to China reflects a broader geopolitical shift. Notably
199. 17:11, that same summer, the Cambodian public reacted fiercely to a
200. 17:16nearly $3.76 billion economic cooperation mechanism from Vietnam, but
201. 17:23there was almost no similar reaction to a $1.7 billion project financed by China,
202. 17:27traversing their own territory. This disparity suggests that the root
203. 17:33of the fear, at least in this case, lies not so much in the economic scale of the
204. 17:38investment but in which country is behind it. However,
205. 17:43this should be viewed cautiously. Official diplomatic relations between Vietnam and
206. 17:48Cambodia are expected to remain warm during the 2025-2026 period.
207. 17:55Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang affirmed that the two countries would
208. 17:59continue to promote cooperation. Meanwhile, Vietnamese domestic media reported on
209. 18:03the event neutrally, without any public commentary. Vietnam
210. 18:08subsequently publicly supported Cambodia's bid to host an international summit
211. 18:12in 2026, stating that withdrawing from an agreement does not
212. 18:18mean turning its back on an entire relationship. The story didn't end on the night
213. 18:22of the withdrawal announcement. As of April
214. 18:272026, courts continued to sentence a total of 33 people involved in the protests
215. 18:33. Under charges of inciting social unrest, the authorities
216. 18:39also employed a different tactic: winning over rather than punishing. Haana,
217. 18:45the activist who had pressured the authorities to arrest her younger brother,
218. 18:51eventually publicly apologized to Japan and announced her joining the ruling party
219. 18:56. One final point to clarify to avoid a common misunderstanding: the
220. 19:02anti-development triangle movement is entirely different from the activities
221. 19:06of the Cambodian Khmer League overseas. That organization focuses on the rights
222. 19:11of the Khmer people in the Mekong Delta, a region that has belonged to Vietnam
223. 19:17since 1949. The fear in today's story, however, is
224. 19:23the fear of losing the current territory of Cambodia. One is about
225. 19:28the past, the other is about present-day anxieties. The two stories are different, though they may both
226. 19:33stem from a shared obsession.
227. 19:40The majority of those who took to the streets in the summer of
228. 19:442024 were not war survivors. They were a generation that grew up there.
229. 19:49In peacetime, people hold smartphones more often than weapons, and have never
230. 19:54seen a real soldier except in photographs. Yet, when an 11-minute video
231. 19:58appears, they react with the same fear their grandparents harbored decades
232. 20:04ago. Perhaps that fear is no longer simply a memory. Memories
233. 20:09fade with each generation. But what happened in Cambodia in
234. 20:152024 shows something different: the fear of losing land to its eastern neighbor
235. 20:20has been passed down almost as part of its identity from generation to generation, and
236. 20:27that fear doesn't distinguish between mainland and island. The suspicion directed at the four northeastern provinces
237. 20:33that summer and the conflict surrounding a small island to the south centuries
238. 20:38ago share a common psychological root. This is also a time to look back at the entire journey
239. 20:43this series has taken. It all began with a man
240. 20:46named Mac Cuu who pioneered a coastal area over 300 years ago. Under the patronage
241. 20:51of the Khmer court at the time, that journey unfolded through a letter from a
242. 20:56king, a boundary drawn on a map by a French governor-general, a
243. 21:01massacre, a peace treaty, and a scholar nearly losing his life because of a
244. 21:06forged map. And now, that journey concludes with an 11-minute video
245. 21:11on Facebook. Between that beginning and that end, one thing remains unchanged
246. 21:17. The island known as Phu Quoc, or Cra as the Khmer call it, has
247. 21:22long been clearly demarcated legally, confirmed by generations of leaders
248. 21:27, and recognized by the international community. But there is another border that has never
249. 21:32been fully defined: the border in the memory of a
250. 21:36nation. No international court has jurisdiction over that border.
251. 21:42No map can accurately depict it. It can only be
252. 21:46slowly soothed over time, through each generation learning to trust
253. 21:51their neighbor a little more. We look forward to seeing you again in the
254. 21:55next episode of Asia Chronicle
255. 22:00.