These closures appear to be a veiled targeting of institutions backed by the United States, whose foreign policy Hun Sen has long criticized. But Hun Sen sent a less ambiguous message after his government arrested Kem Sokha, president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party: he justified the arrest with the startling accusation that the US government was conspiring with opposition leaders to topple Cambodia’s government. [...]
That opposition movement has slowly grown to pose a credible threat to Hun Sen in next year’s election. During the last general election, in 2013, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party lost a quarter of its seats and won by less than 5 percent, its poorest showing in fifteen years—despite widespread allegations of vote rigging. This small margin of victory led many observers to believe that the Cambodian National Rescue Party had in fact won the election. Hun Sen’s government, and not election officials, announced the vote’s result, which was then protested by thousands on Phnom Penh’s streets. The leader of the opposition party in that election, Sam Rainsy, was banned from Cambodian politics six months ago, and now lives in exile. [...]
Hun Sen’s latest crackdown stems both from the threat to his grip on power and his strategic move away from the United States and toward China. The Chinese government reacted to Kem Sokha’s arrest predictably, emphasizing stability over any concerns about democracy. Booming Chinese investment has helped to drive Cambodia’s economic growth, from new high rises towering over Phnom Penh to giant hydroelectric dams on Cambodia’s extensive river network. But Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, remains dependent on aid from the United States and other Western powers to finance more than 30 percent of the government’s budget, and also for preferential export terms to the US from its large garment industry. [...]
Hun Sen’s government has been accused of land grabs, illegal logging, and widespread corruption. Over the past two decades, more than a dozen journalists and human rights activists have been killed, including the prominent political commentator Kem Ley, assassinated last year in a Phnom Penh coffee shop. The trial for that murder bordered on farce: a Cambodian court accepted the accused killer’s detailed confession, as well as his claim that his name was “Chuop Samlap,” which means “meet to kill.” Such flagrant abuses of power will only grow with a weaker local press.
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