Cambodia buying 'tens of thousands' of Chinese weapons: PM

Cambodia has purchased "tens of thousands" of weapons from China, premier Hun Sen said Monday, providing rare details of arms deals with Beijing just days after denying a secret agreement to allow Chinese warships to use a local naval base.

The Wall Street Journal last week reported on a draft deal letting China access Ream base near Sihanoukville to dock warships and store weapons, apparently confirming months of rumours.

Cambodia tried to knock down the report on Friday by taking dozens of reporters on an unprecedented tour of the base.

Prime Minister Hun Sen repeated the denials in his latest remarks and called the news "slander", but he went into an unusual level of detail about arms sales from its powerful neighbour.

"I ordered the purchase of tens of thousands of additional weapons," he said, without explaining what the country had bought. "Now they are being shipped."

Hun Sen said $40 million had been spent this year on top of a total amount of $290 million in previous arms deals with China.

He was speaking during a trip to the construction site of a Chinese-funded stadium that he called a gift from President Xi Jinping.

China has lavished billions of dollars in soft loans, infrastructure and investment on the poor Southeast Asian kingdom, which has tilted away from the US amid Hun Sen's increasingly authoritarian rule.

Cambodia has also stepped up military exercises with China and been a staunch diplomatic ally in the fiercely contested South China Sea.

The Ream base under scrutiny is strategically located in the Gulf of Thailand and gives ready access to the disputed waterway.

The US embassy in Phnom Penh has questioned the possible hosting of foreign military assets there.

The base is also close to Sihanoukville, where many casinos and properties are Chinese-owned.

Anger built in the southwestern city last month when a Chinese building under construction collapsed, killing 28 people.

Analysts say Hun Sen, who has been in power for 34 years, is attuned to the potential for an anti-China backlash and placing a base there would be a step too far for Cambodians.

Friday's tour of the base was unprecedented in a country where military installations are almost never opened to the media.

During the closely chaperoned trip, navy and government officers showed reporters a number of outhouses and a jetty where several Cambodian-flagged patrol ships had docked.

Related Links
The Military Industrial Complex at SpaceWar.com
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

Trump seeks to avoid slapping Turkey with sanctions over missile deal
Washington (AFP) July 27, 2019
The warnings were unambiguous, and now so is the retreat: after threatening to hit Turkey with sanctions for buying a Russian missile defense system, the Trump administration is looking for a way to avoid doing so. Theoretically the sanctions were to be automatic, mandated by Congress, if NATO member Turkey opted to buy the S-400 system from NATO's main adversary Russia. But since Ankara began taking delivery of the system, designed to protect the country from air attacks, on July 12, President ... read more