Cambodia Begins Construction of China-Funded Expressway Linking Vietnam

A general view of the Cambodia's 400-megawatt Lower Sesan Two Dam in Stung Treng, Cambodia, on Dec. 17, 2018. (Ly Lay/AFP)

Cambodia has begun the construction of its second expressway, funded by a Chinese company, which will link the capital Phnom Penh with Bavet city on the eastern border with Vietnam.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen presided over a groundbreaking ceremony for the Phnom Penh-Bavet expressway on June 7, the second after the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville expressway—also funded by China—opened last year.

The 84-mile-long expressway is expected to be completed in four years and will cost $1.35 billion. China Road and Bridge Corporation, which funded the project, will operate it for 50 years before transferring it to the Cambodian side.

At the ceremony, Hun Sen said the expressway will help increase the investment, trade, tourism, and cross-border transportation between Cambodia and Vietnam while boosting his country’s relations with China.

“The Phnom Penh-Bavet expressway is another fruit of cooperation between Cambodia and China under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),” the Cambodian leader was quoted as saying by Chinese state media Xinhua.

Hun Sen said a feasibility study is underway for a third expressway that would link Phnom Penh to Siem Reap province, the site of the famous Angkor temples, and extend to Poipet on the western border with Thailand.

China is Cambodia’s biggest investor and closest political partner, whose assistance largely underpins the Southeast Asian nation’s economy.

In February, China offered Cambodia a grant package worth 300 million yuan (about $44 million) to support railway construction following Hun Sen’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Hun Sen said they agreed to expand cooperation in politics, production capacity, agriculture, energy, security, and people-to-people relations.

In a joint statement, Beijing pledged to support Cambodia in the preliminary work of railway planning, design, and feasibility studies to promote railway construction in Phnom Penh.

“Both sides look forward to early railway connection between Cambodia and China—Laos—Thailand railway,” the statement reads. It didn’t elaborate on the railway projects and the period of construction.

Xi pledged to encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in Cambodia and help in the construction of the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone, a flagship project under China’s BRI.

China’s Influence in Cambodia

Cambodia is already heavily indebted to China. The country owes $3 billion, or nearly half of its foreign debt, to China, according to multiple sources.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA), Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales, outlined the country’s financial burdens: It must pay back Chinese loans, in addition to shelling out maintenance costs for Chinese-financed infrastructure projects.

This could “result in Cambodia’s falling into the so-called debt trap,” Thayer said. “Chinese companies involved in providing infrastructure take possession of the infrastructure. This could hypothetically mean Chinese ownership of Cambodian ports and even airports.”

On April 19, 2019, the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh posted a message on its official Facebook page about Cambodia’s economic relationship with China.

“China is Cambodia’s largest trade partner, but this relationship is heavily skewed in China’s favor,” the embassy wrote.

The post included a graph showing that Cambodia imported $5.286 billion worth of goods from China in 2017 while exporting $753 million to China in the same year and that Cambodia enjoyed a trade surplus of about $2.67 billion with the United States in the same year.

Frank Fang and The Associated Press contributed to this report.