Will humiliation in Myanmar help Cambodia distance itself from China?

HUN SEN likes doing things his own way. Cambodia’s prime minister has ruled the country for 37 years and counting. Satisfied with his own performance, he banned the main opposition party in 2017. In January he flew to Myanmar, deciding that he was the man to bring peace to that country, racked by war since the army seized power last year.

This did not go down well in the region. ASEAN, the club of South-East Asian countries to which Cambodia belongs, has a hallowed tradition of consensus, and last year decided to shun Myanmar’s junta. In 2022 Cambodia holds the bloc’s chair, which rotates annually. So the timing of Mr Hun Sen’s visit was unfortunate. It might have helped create the impression that the bloc considered the junta legitimate, remarked Malaysia’s foreign minister. In exchange, the generals offered no real concessions to Mr Hun Sen.

So the “cowboy” diplomat, as he has been dubbed, has had a rough ride, recalling the last time his country wielded ASEAN’s gavel. In 2012 Cambodia scandalised the region by appearing to act as a proxy for China, blocking the release of a joint ASEAN statement on the tussle between China and several South-East Asian countries over competing claims in the South China Sea. Cambodia began to be seen as a Chinese client-state. In 2020 Bilahari Kausikan, once Singapore’s most senior...