In an exclusive interview with Asia Times, important exiled opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua said that without a real democracy and a functioning anti-graft program, Cambodia is destined for high debt, utilized lands, utilized lands, and depleted natural resources.
Mu Sochua, president of the Khmer Movement For Democracy , ( KMD), a United States-based activist group, was vice president of the nation’s largest opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party ( CNRP ), when the Supreme Court banned and dissolved it in October 2017.
After CNRP leaders Kem Sokha was arrested on crime charges, including unsubstantiated claims that he was working with the United States, the group has consistently maintained that these allegations were false, she and another CNRP members fled the country.
Mu Sochua continues to challenge the democratic legitimacy of the currently dominant Cambodian People’s Party ( CPP)-dominated political order, which was established through recent stage-managed elections, which the CNRP claims were neither fair nor free.
In particular, she says the West should review the application of the Paris Peace Agreements, signed in October 1993, to maintain Cambodia’s independence, self-determination through free and fair elections, and human right after years of painful legal war fueled by competing fantastic and regional power.  ,
That freedom, Mu Suchua asserts, is under rising risk from China’s growing power and influence over the decision CPP.
She noted that China’s influence has grown rapidly in recent years, as evidenced by the expansion of China’s military, cybercrime, and human trafficking operations led by the Chinese mafia, the availability of loans through the Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI), and the influx of Chinese mining and construction companies.  ,
As relationships with the West deteriorated on issues relating to democracy and human rights, former prime minister Hun Sen gave priority to China relations toward the end of his decades-long law. And there is no indication of a change in the royal dispatch to his brother Hun Manet, who became prime secretary in 2023.
” Cambodia is in arrears about US$ 11 billion, 40 % of which is owed to China”, she said. When we discuss the BRI, the income is not provided to us for free. It’s a loan and it has no conditions on rule of law, democracy, independent media and independent judiciary in Cambodia” . ,
” It is also a loan to force the plan of Chinese President Xi Jinping to get dominance, not just in a state or a place, but worldwide dominance”.
She said, under the Public model, Beijing offers loans to assist Cambodia develop its infrastructure, including airports, roads, dams and a new corporate canal. In return, Mu Sochua claims, China is allowed to boost its military presence in the country.  ,
” It is a secret agreement made by Hun Sen and China. It is not transparent at all”, she said. Cambodia is intended to serve as a proxy power to China’s ability to influence ASEAN, the European Union, and the UN.
She asserts that with heavy debts owed to Beijing and China’s growing military presence in the country, Cambodia’s sovereignty is at stake.  ,
” Our country is in debt, our people are in debt”, she said. ” Hun Sen is removing Cambodia from the West,” he said. We do n’t want to be with the West, either. We want our country to be a part of the world where people are governed by law and the people rule our country. We want the people to freely and fairly elect our leaders. We want to prioritize both human rights and freedoms.
On August 5, Xinhua reported that Cambodia began to build the US$ 1.7 billion Funan Techo Canal, designed to link the nation’s capital, Phnom Penh, to its coast.
The 180-kilometer-long canal, which was funded by China, will reduce Cambodia’s current dependence on Vietnamese ports for trade and give it access to the Gulf of Thailand.
However, the US, Vietnam and others are  , worried , that the canal, as well as the newly expanded , Ream Naval Base, will ultimately be co-opted by China’s military, giving Beijing a strategic southern flank in the South China Sea and pressure points on mainland Southeast Asia.  ,  ,
Mu Sochua said Cambodia’s strategic geography could reinforce China’s position in any invasion of Taiwan. She claimed that Cambodia would have a democratic government with the authority to overthrow the Chinese military presence, thereby preventing a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
Foreign troops cannot be deployed on Cambodian soil under the law. Hun Sen has consistently refuted claims that his previous administration had entered any” secret” agreements that would permit China to establish a permanent military presence in the nation.
Chinese mafia hub
Hun Sen was willing to look the other way, however, as Chinese crime groups established operations in the country, often under the guise of casinos.
In a report published in August 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ( OHCHR ) estimated that there are at least 100, 000 and 120, 000 people forcibly involved in online scam centers in Cambodia and Myanmar, respectively.  ,
It said victims are mostly men who are “well-educated, sometimes coming from professional jobs or with graduate or even post-graduate degrees, computer-literate and multilingual”.
According to OHCHR’s report, they were lured by phony online jobs for high-tech jobs before being illegally trafficked into scam areas where they are held by armed gangs in prison-like conditions and forced to conduct online scams.  ,
In a report released in May 2024, the independent US Institute of Peace ( USIP), which was established by the US Congress in 1984, stated that Southeast Asia’s China-origin criminal networks and their online scamming operations are putting more pressure on human security globally and pose a growing threat to the US and its allies and partners around the world.  ,
In a slew of elite-protected criminality spread across Cambodia, it claimed that casinos and hotels that were left vacant by the Covid pandemic’s suppression of tourism have been fortified and repurposed for online scamming.  ,
The report said the return on cyber scamming in Cambodia is estimated to exceed US$ 12.5 billion annually, which was about 39 % of the country’s gross domestic product ( US$ 31.77 billion ) in 2023.
According to Mu Suchua, Chinese criminal organizations are now using Cambodia as a hub for cybercrimes, and that billions of dollars made by online con artists from Cambodia are going straight into the pockets of local tycoons under the protection of Hun Sen.
She continued,” What the international community needs to do right now is coordinate its efforts to push for targeted sanctions against the high-ranking officials in Hun Sen’s regime who are engaged in cybercrimes,” making an apparent reference to Hun Manet’s successor regime.
Deep-rooted corruption ,
The non-governmental organization Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index ( CPI ) in January of this year, which ranks 180 nations on a scale of zero ( highly corrupt ) to 100 ( very clean ). Cambodia scored 22 while ranking 158th among 180 surveyed countries.
” Cambodia is ruled by one man, one family. Look at the amount of money they possess. A watch costs$ 3 million and Hun Sen has five of those”, Mu Suchua claimed. ” All this ill-gotten wealth is coming from cybercrimes, the extraction of natural resources and the deforestation of Cambodia” . ,
” And why are the people in Cambodia and China now in such great debt to the micro-finance institutions”? she said. In Thailand, there are two million unskilled Cambodian workers. Why did they leave Cambodia? Because of their lack of education and land,
There are about 50, 970 Cambodian migrant workers in South Korea, 22, 262 in Malaysia and 20, 056 in Japan, the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training in Cambodia said earlier this year.
More than 2.2 million hectares of land in Cambodia, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights ( Licadho ), are controlled by economic land concessions ( ELCs ), a program that has resulted in numerous land disputes and environmental issues since 2022.  ,
Concerning Mu Suchua’s accusations and criticizing, Asia Times reached the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia, but they did not receive any responses.  ,
KMD on a mission
Mu Suchua’s KMD was registered in the US state of Massachusetts in December and set foot in California in March 2024. Its main goal is to bring together Cambodian citizens by adhering to the terms of the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991.
” We want to create a platform where everyone who lives outside of Cambodia and is inside of it can come together to advance democracy, rule of law, and human rights,” she said.  ,
She claimed that the KMD can communicate with local partners and users in Cambodia despite the country’s ban on social media.  ,
Mu Sochua stated that the KMD will continue to lobby Western governments, chambers of commerce, and industry organizations to raise awareness of Cambodia’s deeply ingrained forced labor, political activist persecution, and general lack of democracy, rights, and freedoms.  ,  ,
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