A major project of modernization and expansion by China of the only Cambodian naval base was inaugurated on Wednesday June 8, by the two countries
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China and Cambodia confirmed, Wednesday, June 8, what Western experts and American officials have denounced for about three years: China’s participation in major expansion and modernization work of the single Cambodian naval base of Ream, located 25 kilometers south-east of Sihanoukville.
An inauguration ceremony of the work was chaired on Wednesday by the Cambodian Minister of Defense, Tea Banh, and the Chinese ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wentian. Photos, highly symbolic, of the two men taking a sea bath together in a bay in Sihanoukville had been shared on Tuesday on social networks. “China and Cambodia have become inexpressible brothers, economics in words but generous in acts, treating each other with sincerity and standing side by side in difficult times,” Wang said on Wednesday, according to a statement from the delegation Chinese.
Official declarations and descriptive panels of future infrastructures published by The Cambodian press detail the nature of the projects funded by China for the first time, at a cost that remained secret: the base will be equipped with new buildings (notably receipt, for meetings, catering and entertainment), as well as a hospital, all “to the highest international standards”. Building ship repair workshops, dry hold, a “Slipway” (the drying tool for ships) will be built, two floating quays and two new throws. Drawing operations will allow the base access to medium -sized boats. Ream, lotie in a shallow bay protected by small islands, only accepts patrollers.
Chinese without uniform
Finally, China will provide the Cambodian navy with ships, technical training and sea law, as well as “36,900 uniforms”. This project, which has largely started since new constructions have been visible on satellite images since 2021, corresponds closely to a cooperation agreement that a Chinese state group, China Metallurgical Group Corporation, had announced on its website Having passed in 2016, with the Cambodian Ministry of Defense, before withdrawing information.
Officially, it is a question of providing Cambodia with “self-defense capacities”, explained Minister Tea Banh, a cacique of the regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen, in power for thirty-seven years. In reality, the small kingdom located between Vietnam and Thailand, slides a little more in Chinese orbit: Phnom Penh is to date the nearest support of Beijing in this Southeast Asia which is of strategic importance capital for China. But most countries are wary of its geopolitical ambitions and its appetites in the Southern China Sea.
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