When Hun Sen handed Cambodia’s premiership to his eldest son, Hun Manet, in August 2023, many diplomats and regional observers noticed the succession as a possibility for change. The fastidiously stage-managed handover fuelled hopes {that a} new era of leaders, headed by a primary minister educated at West Level, New York College and the College of Bristol, may reopen Cambodia’s political area after a long time of authoritarian rule.
Writing at the time, I argued that this optimism was misplaced, not as a result of the management was altering, however as a result of the political system was not. Western policymakers have been desirous to consider {that a} dynastic switch may create room to recalibrate relations with Phnom Penh. However they did not recognise how deeply the Cambodian Folks’s Celebration’s survival relied on preserving the very establishments that had pressured opposition figures reminiscent of me into exile. Hun Sen’s sweeping crackdowns on the opposition, unbiased media and civil society weren’t aberrations, however expressions of a governing mannequin he had constructed and the ruling elite continued to maintain: one based mostly on patronage, coercion and the elimination of political competitors. So long as that mannequin remained intact, there was little purpose to anticipate a brand new chief to rule any in another way.
Three years on, this evaluation has been borne out. Hun Manet has not ruled because the liberal reformer many hoped he would. As an alternative, he has preserved the foundations of his father’s rule whereas making its repressive equipment much less seen and extra institutionally refined. Though violence has turn out to be much less conspicuous, the regime more and more depends on elite patronage, authorized repression, digital surveillance and tighter management over communications. The result’s a quieter however arguably extra resilient authoritarian state.
This technocratic improve is probably most seen within the regime’s remedy of civil society. In July 2024, 5 of Mom Nature’s younger leaders – Ly Chandaravuth, Lengthy Kunthea, Phuon Keoraksmey, Thun Ratha and Yim Leanghy – have been sentenced to between six and eight years in jail on trumped-up fees together with “conspiring towards the state” and “insulting the king”. Their actual offence was exposing environmental destruction and corruption, together with unlawful logging and sand-mining operations that instantly enrich the ruling elite. In the present day, they continue to be in overcrowded provincial prisons throughout the nation, successfully remoted from their households and authorized counsel, with their appeals delayed indefinitely.
What stays of Cambodia’s political opposition has confronted comparable persecution. The Candlelight Celebration and the Nation Energy Celebration have confronted routine authorized harassment and administrative obstruction, whereas their leaders and supporters have been subjected to arbitrary arrests and politically motivated prosecutions, making significant electoral competitors inconceivable. Rong Chhun, a veteran labour chief and senior Nation Energy Celebration adviser, was sentenced to 4 years in jail in 2025. Though the Supreme Court docket later suspended the rest of his sentence, it upheld his conviction and barred him from voting or taking part in politics for 5 years.
Impartial journalism has fared no higher. Reporters investigating corruption, land seizures, unlawful logging and the cyber-scam operations which have proliferated throughout Cambodia function below fixed stress. In late 2024, environmental journalist Chhoeung Chheng was fatally shot whereas investigating unlawful logging inside a protected wildlife sanctuary. That very same yr, Mech Dara, who helped expose the nation’s position as a worldwide hub for on-line fraud and human trafficking, was arrested on incitement fees extensively considered as politically motivated. Though Dara was later launched on bail, his detention despatched a transparent warning to journalists investigating the regime’s alleged hyperlinks to an business that now generates billions of {dollars} yearly by defrauding victims throughout Asia, Europe and North America.
Taken collectively, these developments present that the consolidation of Hun Manet’s rule has introduced not a political opening, however only a minor refinement of Cambodia’s authoritarian mannequin. But many Western governments proceed to pursue diplomatic engagement and provide financial incentives within the hope that sustained dialogue will persuade Cambodia to rebalance its international coverage and step by step reopen political area. This expectation rests on a elementary misunderstanding. It treats Cambodia’s rising alignment with China as a foreign-policy desire that may be moderated by way of engagement, when it has the truth is turn out to be central to the ruling get together’s technique for preserving energy and shielding itself from Western stress over democracy and human rights. Not like Western companions, Beijing supplies funding, diplomatic backing and safety cooperation with out demanding democratic reform, giving the ruling get together better room to face up to exterior stress.
The depth of this alignment is seen in each Cambodia’s financial and safety partnerships with Beijing. The Funan Techo Canal, backed by a $1.2bn financing settlement with Chinese language companions, has turn out to be emblematic of China’s financial footprint in Cambodia. Chinese language buyers accounted for 54 % of the nation’s accepted funding capital in 2025. The Chinese language-funded growth and reopening of Ream Naval Base level to the identical development. Though Phnom Penh insists the power stays below Cambodian sovereignty, Chinese language financing and development have fuelled persistent issues that Beijing is securing a long-term strategic foothold on the Gulf of Thailand. Regardless of the base’s eventual army significance, it underscores how deeply China is now embedded in Cambodia’s safety structure.
This actuality ought to immediate a change in Western coverage. For too lengthy, Western governments have prioritised diplomatic entry over leverage, assuming that technical cooperation and sustained dialogue would step by step encourage political reform and imposing few penalties when that assumption proved false. Future cooperation ought to as a substitute be explicitly tied to measurable democratic progress. Judicial capacity-building programmes that lend legitimacy to compromised courts ought to be suspended. Focused sanctions ought to be expanded to incorporate officers, army commanders and enterprise elites implicated in critical human rights abuses and Cambodia’s cybercrime economic system. Western participation in high-level boards hosted by Cambodia, together with the Francophonie Summit in November, ought to be made contingent on the discharge of political prisoners, credible motion to dismantle rip-off compounds, an finish to politically motivated prosecutions and stronger protections for unbiased media.
For years, the worldwide neighborhood has mistaken generational succession for political reform. Hun Manet’s Cambodia demonstrates that authoritarian programs can modernise with out liberalising. Solely by recognising that actuality can Western governments cease reinforcing the establishments which have closed off democratic competitors and start serving to to create the circumstances for Cambodia’s democratic renewal.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
