On February 17, a U.S. Congressional delegation met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet in Phnom Penh to celebrate 75 years of U.S.-Cambodia diplomatic relations. On the same day, two Chinese warships steamed into Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base on the southwestern coast. While U.S. lawmakers discussed deepening ties through trade, investment, and humanitarian issues like unexploded ordinance removal, the ships’ arrival, which followed a high-level meeting between former Cambodia Defense Minister Tea Banh and Chinese Ambassador Wang Wenbin to inspect the progress of the base’s refurbishment, sent a distinctive message.
During the last decade of former Prime Minister Hun Sen’s reign, which came to an end in August 2023, Cambodia’s relations with the West deteriorated and the government snuggled up to China. Under its new leadership, Cambodia appears to be changing course. Cambodia now finds itself performing a balancing act, reaching out to Washington while still heavily relying on Beijing for military and economic support. The question isn’t whether Cambodia will choose sides, but how skillfully Hun Manet’s government can leverage old relationships with new ones to maximize its strategic position.
Since the end of the Cold War, China has become Cambodia’s principal trading partner and investor, receiving billions through the Belt and Road Initiative, including a $1.7 billion port. Cambodia’s lean into China has only deepened over the past decade as relations with the United States have decayed over democratic backsliding, human rights concerns, and China’s increasing military influence. Yet the choreography of recent diplomatic events may indicate that Hun Manet is shifting to a balancing strategy more closely resembling that of Cambodia’s ASEAN counterparts.
The younger Hun’s calculus likely combines strategic and economic objectives. His public desire to “keep old friends and strengthen relationships with our new friends,” reflects more than diplomatic platitudes. The government is facing an economic slowdown and decreased funding from China, motivating Cambodia to alter course. As private investors shy away from becoming involved in countries their home governments have poor relations with, Hun Manet is seeking to diversify Cambodia’s diplomatic portfolio. Warming to Western powers may be essential to attracting the foreign investment that his country needs. The question remains whether he can successfully execute this pivot without triggering Beijing’s anxiety about losing influence over one of its most reliable regional partners.
As one recent example, U.S. defense attaché Colonel Kyle Saltzman met with General Vong Pisen, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) in January. The two discussed expanding exchange programs, joint counterterrorism efforts, and transnational crime prevention. Most notably, they discussed the possibility of resuming the Angkor Sentinel, a U.S.-Cambodia joint military exercise that has been suspended since 2016. Vong Pisen made this request more explicitly when he met with Gen. Ronald Clark, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific, on February 24, calling for “a review and discussion on the possibility of resuming joint military training, such as the Angkor Sentinel exercise,” according to a statement from RCAF.
Despite these recent signs of a thaw in relations, the U.S.-Cambodia relationship must be examined against a complex historical backdrop. Relations between the two countries took a sharp downturn under the first Trump administration, marked by sanctions against senior Cambodian officials and the Chinese state-owned Union Development Group. While these examples hardly represent the nadir of bilateral ties, they reflected a pattern of growing American pressure over the last decade. The U.S. has also called out the Cambodian government for human rights abuses, democratic backsliding, and bureaucratic corruption. These issues are of particular concern to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who cosponsored the “Cambodia Democracy and Human Rights Act of 2023” as a senator, even as strategic imperatives push toward greater engagement.
But geopolitics has a way of reshaping priorities. The second Trump administration’s prioritization of U.S.-China competition suggests a more pragmatic approach of economic and military cooperation will take precedence over ideological confrontations. Yet Cambodia’s position remains precarious.
The 90-day USAID foreign aid freeze is alarming for aid-dependent states like Cambodia. It reveals not only Cambodia’s fragility, but also its vulnerability to Trump 2.0’s transactional and unpredictable foreign policy style. Hun Manet must navigate these choppy waters carefully: balancing between Chinese patronage and U.S. engagement while facing the possibility that either partner’s support could shift with little warning.
Hun Manet’s change in strategy extends beyond the U.S.-China dynamic. While Cambodia has maintained close relations with Japan for years, it recently upgraded its relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This is the highest diplomatic tier in Cambodian foreign relations, a status previously reserved for the Chinese alone.
Cambodian exports to Japan exceeded $1 billion in the first nine months of 2024, with bilateral trade increasing 17 percent from 2023. Additionally, Japan was granted unprecedented access to Ream Naval Base in December. While Cambodia has repeatedly denied that China has exclusive rights to the base, de facto practice suggests otherwise. Phnom Penh is clearly signaling that Chinese influence, while still paramount, need not be exclusive.
Australia, too, has found an opening, leveraging its $2 billion business engagement package to deepen economic ties. At the Australia-ASEAN Special Summit last March, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Hun Manet’s discussion reflected a relationship based on commerce, health, and security. Having over 70 years of diplomatic relations, Manet stated, “Our rapid socio-economic development could not have been achieved without Australian support in key sectors such as agriculture, health, mine clearance, security and defense, among others.” Recent talks in Sydney between trade ministers displayed a deepening of economic ties, backed by a 19.2 percent increase in bilateral trade in 2024.
Hun Manet’s diversification strategy looks set to branch out beyond the Pacific. His first foreign visit as Prime Minister took him to France, where President Emmanuel Macron offered a $235 million aid package for drinking water and energy infrastructure development. Even a meeting with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland signaled Cambodia’s appetite for Western engagement. However, it is not all smooth sailing, with the European Union’s November declaration on the state of human rights in Cambodia serving as a reminder that ideological friction persists.
Most intriguingly, Cambodia has begun cultivating ties with Saudi Arabia, exploring everything from commerce to counterterrorism cooperation. A new era of relations kicked off in December 2024 when Hun Sen, now the president of the Cambodian Senate, visited the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Consultative Assembly. Then, in January, the Cambodian and Saudi Arabian ministers for commerce signed a formal agreement to promote and diversify bilateral trade relations. A draft security agreement that concentrates on combatting transnational crime through intelligence sharing and law enforcement coordination is also under review.
This web of new and strengthened relationships suggests a subtle but significant shift in Cambodia’s foreign policy approach. While Cambodia will likely keep China as its primary partner, Hun Manet appears to be constructing a more sophisticated and diverse diplomatic portfolio than his father maintained. The economic motivations are clear enough; diversifying investment sources provides insurance against overdependence on any single partner.
The security implications may prove even more important. Japan’s access to Ream Naval Base, the revival of the Angkor Sentinel exercises with the U.S. Army, and potential security cooperation with other partners hint at a broader strategic reorientation. The question isn’t whether Cambodia is hedging its bets, but rather how far this balancing act can proceed before it tests Beijing’s tolerance for its client state’s newfound independence.
