Making Sense of Cambodia’s Reaction to AUKUS

On 14 March, United States President Joe Biden, United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese provided an update on a trilateral plan to provide the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear-powered submarines. Since then, there has been growing attention paid to how ASEAN nations respond to the deal and whether Canberra’s diplomatic blitz to assuage regional concerns towards the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) agreement has made positive progress.

Among ASEAN states, Indonesia and Malaysia have been the most outspoken, given that the management of their archipelagic waters will directly affect Australia’s AUKUS submarines over the next three decades.

As a small, mainland ASEAN member with modest maritime capabilities, Cambodia has expressed some reservations about AUKUS, but it is not outrightly hostile towards the agreement. In contrast, its response to AUKUS can be considered lukewarm at best. Compared to Indonesia and Malaysia, Cambodia’s public statement on AUKUS has been more restrained, expressing hope that AUKUS “will not fuel unhealthy rivalries.” Likewise, in the 2022 State of Southeast Asia Survey published by the ISEAS-Ishak Yusof Institute, 25.9 per cent of Cambodian respondents viewed AUKUS as a counterbalance to China’s growing military power, while 28.4 per cent said the pact would lead to a regional arms race. The mixed reactions indicate how the Cambodian strategic and foreign policy community has taken a cautious but not hostile approach to AUKUS.

Western journalists and pundits have dismissed Cambodia’s position on AUKUS, based on the premise that its reaction to the trilateral partnership is primarily influenced by its close ties with the principal target of AUKUS, China. But there are three reasons behind Cambodia’s lukewarm position.  

First, since AUKUS was first unveiled 18 months ago, the deterioration in U.S.-China relations has continued unabated, with growing tensions over Taiwan and the spat over China’s purported surveillance balloon flying over the continental United States. Sitting at the heart of Southeast Asia, Cambodia has watched with growing unease the possibility of a military conflict between China and the U.S. that spill over to its immediate neighbourhood. If Cold War history is any guide, Cambodia understands that such a conflict would affect its domestic stability and regional stability.

Based on its constitutionally stipulated foreign policy principle of “non-interference”, Cambodia does not necessarily reject Australia’s sovereign decision to arm itself with advanced undersea capabilities under AUKUS. Nevertheless, AUKUS signifies a broader deterioration in stability and growing military tensions across the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, the regional maritime domain surrounding Cambodia and the critical sea routes upon which its trade rely has become increasingly complicated, with its bigger neighbours, Vietnam,  Thailand and other regional powers rushing to procure advanced and lethal maritime capabilities. Cambodia’s relatively nascent navy only compounds its growing unease. Some assert that AUKUS is about “deterrence”, not aggression. However, the fact that Canberra needs to beef up its deterrence underscores a grim reality — the possibility of accidental escalation or military conflict in Cambodia’s immediate neighbourhood.

Second, Cambodia is concerned about how AUKUS would affect the international non-proliferation regime. As a ratifying party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANFWZ), Cambodia has worked in tandem with the international community to strengthen the non-proliferation regime and prevent the spread of nuclear materials. For instance, it has complied strictly to United Nations sanctions levied against North Korea, with whom it has had traditional ties since the Cold War.

Given Australia’s robust  non-proliferation track record and the mature relationship it has fostered with Cambodia over the past 70 years, Cambodia seeks to understand Canberra’s rationale and explanation for AUKUS. Nonetheless, it cannot completely ignore the fact that Australia’s use of the loophole in the NPT that allows “fissile material utilised for non-explosive military use” in naval propulsion to be exempt from International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. This has set a precedent for other countries to follow. In that same vein, given the escalating tensions in U.S.-China relations, the possibility that Australia will use the NPT loophole to acquire nuclear weapons for its own “deterrence” throughout or after AUKUS’ 30-year timeline is low, but not zero. Cambodia is also mindful that Australia is not a member to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which Cambodia itself ratified in 2021.

Third, Cambodia’s reaction to AUKUS can be explained by what it perceives to be Western hypocrisy and double standards. On the one hand, the U.S. and its allies view AUKUS as a form of deterrence. On the other hand, Cambodia’s modernisation of its naval facility at Ream is seen by the U.S. and its allies as a sign that the country is a Chinese client state and a threat to regional security.

Cambodia’s reaction to AUKUS can be explained by what it perceives to be Western hypocrisy and double standards. On the one hand, the U.S. and its allies view AUKUS as a form of deterrence. On the other hand, Cambodia’s modernisation of its naval facility at Ream is seen by the U.S. and its allies as a sign that the country is a Chinese client state and a threat to regional security.

Here, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s comment on AUKUS on 17 March is illuminating. The prime minister said he “understood” that Australia’s AUKUS submarines will be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed. But he questioned why the U.S. and its allies do not understand Cambodia’s repeated assertions that there is no exclusive Chinese presence at the naval facility at Ream. The U.S. and its allies view the modernisation of Ream as problematic, when Cambodia is using the facility to resolve its logistical and strategic challenges. For years, Cambodia has had to send its patrol boats to neighbouring countries for expensive and time-consuming repairs. With Ream in operation, repairs can be done domestically. In addition, the water level at Ream is too shallow to accommodate larger vessels that can conduct more effective maritime security operations along its 443-kilometre coastline. But AUKUS submarines, which come with a certain degree of proliferation risks, are not seen to be problematic. These questions resonate among many Cambodians, who see a Western double standard at play.

Australia also cannot take as a given that, with  “more than 60 calls” by Canberra to regional states, these states will go along with the proposition that AUKUS has no adverse implications for the region, as what regional analysts Blake Herzinger and Alice Nason argue. This would be an oversimplified assessment of Southeast Asia. Worse, the two analysts dismiss Cambodia’s scepticism of AUKUS as “repetitive” based on their preconception of Phnom Penh’s defence relations with China. They fail to contextualise the origins of Cambodia’s concerns.

To address these concerns, a sustained and robust assurance about AUKUS by Australia, buttressed by strategic dialogues between Australian and ASEAN governments, academics, and think-tank communities, will go a long way to assuage the unease in Cambodia and other ASEAN capitals.

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