China undertakes to provide more military assistance to Cambodia in run-up for elections

Beijing. June 22. Silkroadnews - China has promised to provide Cambodia with more than $100 million in military aid as a part of expanding its ties with this country in south-east Asia, the South China Morning Post reports.
A promise of assistance was given during the visit of the Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe to Cambodia, where both sides also agreed to increase military cooperation, including future joint military exercises, and also discussed the visit of representatives of the Chinese navy next year.
Wei met with Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen in Phnom Penh. During the visit, Cambodian officials asked China to provide tactical equipment and provide the equipment necessary to create a training ground for training with live-fire drills.
It is expected that Hun Sen’s ruling People’s Party of Cambodia will win the elections to be held on July 29, after the main opposition party of the country, the Cambodia National Rescue Party was dissolved. As a result, the EU and the U.S. refused to support the elections. This year, Russia will provide election observers, and China and Japan will provide ballot boxes and voting booths.
Hun Sen has accused the U.S. of supporting the opposition party in an attempt to overthrow his government.
Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of the University of New South Wales, said the show of military support by Beijing is not directly related to the election.
During the visit of Wei, both sides agreed to hold the joint military exercises “Golden Dragon” in 2019. Military partnerships with other countries have been suspended. Cambodia postponed joint military exercises with the U.S. in January and with Australia in March last year.
Zhang Jie, an expert from Southeast Asia at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that increasing aid by China before the elections should be seen as a long-term effort to protect its investments.
“China also realizes that if Cambodia has a serious corruption problem, it’s bad for the long-term strategy for investment in the country,” said Zhang. On the “Belt and Road Initiative
"China also understands that if in Cambodia there is a serious problem of corruption, it is bad for a long-term investment strategy in the country," Zhang said. According to him, corruption can jeopardize the security of investments, but this is not something that can be solved in the short term.