Hun Sen Denies China Influence Over Cambodia
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday hit back at claims that China had influenced Cambodia’s actions as chair of Asean, insisting that the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao last weekend was not related to this week’s Asean Summit. Speaking at the closing of the summit at his office building in Phnom Penh, Mr. Hun Sen used much of a question-and-answer session with international media and local journalists to lampoon a local political analyst as well as opposition leader Sam Rainsy. While praising China for its infrastructure investment in Asean countries and Beijing’s stabilizing influence in the 2008 global financial crisis, in which it “played a role to help rescue the world,” Mr. Hun Sen asked that the media not indulge “crazy analysis” suggesting that Cambodia was being manipulated by China. …
