Official Says ‘Strategic Partnership’ With Japan Won’t Irk China
Returning from a state visit to Japan on Tuesday, a member of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government dismissed the possibility that newly upgraded ties with Japan and Cambodia’s decision to join its Asean neighbors in a “freedom of overflight” pact with Tokyo might strain its close relations with Beijing. During the trip, Mr. Hun Sen officially upgraded Cambodia’s relations with Japan to a “strategic partnership” and, at an Asean-Japan Commemorative Summit on Saturday, joined a communique expressing the right to a “freedom of overflight” in the region. China is likely to interpret the communique as a challenge to the air defense identification zone it unilaterally declared over disputed islands in the East China Sea. … Asked if Cambodia’s joining the Asean communique might offend China, the country’s biggest investor, [government minister] Mr. [Kao] Kim Hourn maintained that the overflight agreement merely reiterated principles in a Declaration of Conduct (DOC) that already exists among Asean states, which covers navigation in the South China Sea. … Already Cambodia’s most generous development aid donor, Japan signed up for another $134 million in new loans to Mr. Hun Sen’s government for a trio of projects. At Saturday’s Asean-Japan summit, the Japanese government also announced plans to shower Asean member states with $20 billion in aid over the next five years. … “This strategic partnership is more broad,” he [Kao Kim Hourn] said. “The sectors are deeper and wider, as you saw Prime Minister Hun Sen asking Japan to help with electoral reform. And there is also the military sector, which we did not have before. Now we have a memorandum on military cooperation. We are also pushing for cooperation among the police, so the cooperation is wider than before.”
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/official-says-strategic-partnership-with-japan-wont-irk-china-49410/
