Chinese and Cambodian officials on Saturday presided over the opening of a new China-funded expansion of the country’s main naval base, the subject of long-time concern among U.S. strategists.
Since 2022, the Chinese government has funded an extensive expansion and refurbishment of Ream Naval Base, which lies around 30 kilometers from the port city of Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand. The upgrades include a 300-meter-long deep-water pier, a 5,000-ton dry dock, a 1,000-ton slipway, office buildings, and a Cambodia-China Joint Logistics and Training Center.
In a ceremony launching the new facilities, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet hailed the good state of relations between Phnom Penh and Beijing, and confirmed earlier reports that Chinese leader Xi Jinping will visit the country later this month, his first official visit since 2016. A report by the government-aligned Fresh News seemed to suggest that during his visit, Xi would take part in an official inauguration ceremony for the Ream Naval Base.
Manet also asserted that the Chinese-funded upgrades to the base would not affect Cambodia’s neutrality, and that Ream Naval base will be open to warships from all friendly countries.
“From now on, Cambodia welcomes all friendly parties to come,” Manet said, according to a report from state news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse. “Warships from any country weighing less than 20,000 tons may enter, provided prior notice is given, except in urgent cases. We have nothing to hide. This is our stance to maintain friendship with all parties.” (As one observer noted yesterday on X, the 20,000-ton limit “effectively rules out aircraft carriers, certain large amphibs and fleet auxiliaries.”)
Over the past few years, Ream has become the subject of alarm in Western capitals, particularly Washington, where many policymakers and think-tankers have become convinced that the base will evolve into a permanent Chinese naval base. These fears were reinforced last year when two Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships berthed for several months at Ream’s new pier. The Cambodian government later claimed that these two warships were set to be transferred from PLAN to the Royal Cambodian Navy.
The base first became the subject of sustained attention in 2019, when the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. and allied officials, reported that then-Prime Minister Hun Sen had signed a secret agreement granting China’s military the right to use the base for a period of 30 years. The report, and subsequent reports about Ream, prompted vociferous denials from the Cambodian government, which said that it would never permit the establishment of a foreign military base on its territory – a point made again by Hun Manet during Saturday’s ceremony.
“From this day forward, we expect that there will be various attacks and interpretations,” he said, as per the Phnom Penh Post. “I want to take this opportunity to clarify clearly that Cambodia, under the leadership of the Cambodian People’s Party government, has no intention – whether in the past, present, or future – of violating its own constitution by allowing any country or military to establish an exclusive base on Cambodian soil.” For similar reasons, Cambodia last month announced that the first foreign vessel to pay a port call at the completed base would be from Japan.
There remains the question of what privileges, if any, the PLA will enjoy at Ream, and in particular, how the Cambodia-China Joint Logistics and Training Center will operate. Officials from both nations have said that the center will host the annual Golden Dragon joint military exercises, which have taken place five times since 2017. After Saturday’s ceremony, Cambodian and Chinese officials launched this year’s iteration of Golden Dragon, which will take place in Cambodia over the coming weeks. (Chinese state media reports did not clarify when the exercises would conclude.) According to a report in Chinese state media, the exercises kicked off with a joint drill between the Chinese and Cambodian navies, “further enhancing their joint command and coordinated operational capabilities.”
In a statement, China’s Ministry of National Defense said that the Cambodia-China Joint Logistics and Training Center “is not aimed at any third party and aims to further strengthen practical military cooperation, enhance both militaries’ capacity to fulfill international obligations, and contribute to global public security, according to the statement,” as per the Global Times. But the statement added that “necessary personnel from both countries” will be based at the center to ensure its “smooth operation.”
All of this seems to suggest that PLAN will retain a presence at Ream, albeit a minimal one, and that the U.S. fever dreams of Cambodia harboring a Chinese “base” are probably overblown. That said, in the event of a regional conflict, the PLAN presence in southern Cambodia could likely be scaled up quickly – and it is not obvious that the Cambodian government could do much to resist it.
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