All quiet on the Thai-Cambodian front: Drivers,dynamics,directions

Introduction: A puzzle

Since its most recent military coup in May 2014, Thailand’s relatively peaceful and stable relationship with Cambodia has been counterintuitive and contrary to trends and dynamics that had prevailed over the preceding decade. When this putsch transpired, the pattern in Thailand’s polarised and volatile politics so far in the 21st century had already been established. It centred on the rise, rule, legacy and latent political power of Thaksin Shinawatra, whose forces won elections in January 2001, February 2005, December 2007 and July 2011 under three different banners, namely the Thai Rak Thai (‘Thais Love Thais’), Palang Prachachon (‘People’s Power’) and Pheu Thai (‘For Thais’) parties. Each time the Thaksin-aligned government took office from 2005, it faced an oppositional movement led by incumbent centres of power from the military, bureaucracy and royalist circles, supported by Bangkok-based ‘yellow-clad’ street demonstrators. These pro-Establishment ‘yellow shirts’ viewed Thaksin and what he stood for as profligate and corrupt, an upstart and a usurper bent on undermining and supplanting the status quo long dominated by the military, monarchy and bureaucracy (Thitinan, 2008, 2013). Each time the anti-Thaksin yellow shirts demonstrated in the streets of Bangkok – from August 2005 to September 2006, May to December 2008 and October 2013 to May 2014 – they succeeded by enabling and legitimising two military coups and several judicial manoeuvres, ¹ resulting in the invariable demise of Thaksin’s direct and proxy governments.

In turn, when anti-Thaksin forces protested in the streets to dislodge pro-Thaksin governments, most conspicuously in 2008 through the royalist-nationalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and its reincarnation in 2013–2014 as the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), Thai-Cambodian relations became tense and adversarial. The bone of contention in both instances was the status and management of the ancient Preah Vihear temple, which served as the fuel fanning domestic political considerations in both countries. When Thaksin-aligned governments were in office during these periods, led by Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat in 2008 and Thaksin’s youngest sister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2011–2014, relations between these two next-door neighbours in mainland Southeast Asia were noticeably warm and mutually accommodating. The May 2014 military seizure of power is thus anomalous, breaking a set pattern.

Its coup-making generals, led by Prayut Chan-ocha with close fraternal support from Prawit Wongsuwan and Anupong Paochinda, ² colluded with yellow-shirt protesters both in 2008 (Chambers, 2010) and again in 2013–2014 (McCargo, 2015). Yet this time, after initial rumblings at the Thai-Cambodian borders, the bilateral relationship reached a new, stable plateau of peace and partnership. No image spoke more to the full normalisation in Thai-Cambodian relations than the hearty hug between Prayut and Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh in September 2017 (Meta, 2017). Despite its vehemently anti-Thaksin posture, overthrow of Yingluck and collusion with yellow-shirted PAD and PDRC at Hun Sen’s expense, Prayut’s junta-led government has been embraced by the Cambodian strongman. From its earlier antagonism and hostility towards the Hun Sen government, Prayut and his military cohorts turned enmity into realignment, resulting in a ‘new normal’. This article delves into the drivers, dynamics and directions of this curious about-turn in Thai-Cambodian relations.

Research avenues and argument

The conventional understanding of contemporary Thai-Cambodian relations is rightly rooted in the enmeshed history of both sides, underpinned by the vicissitudes of geopolitical life in their immediate neighbourhood. Both Thailand and Cambodia have come up with respective narratives that suit their mutual sense of victimhood and injustice. But there is more to it than historical grievances. While history always informs and helps provide consequential context, it has been imprecise and inadequate in explaining the conditions under which Thai-Cambodian ties have ebbed and flowed over the past decade. Building on established lines of investigation from historiography, bilateral personal networks and domestic politics, this exposition adds explanatory elements into the collective mix of understanding. First, Prayut’s junta government demonstrated to Hun Sen its commitment and resolve at the outset of its putsch that it meant business and was intent on prevailing with Thailand’s domestic political change and restoration ahead of the looming royal succession. Moreover, Hun Sen was politically secure after winning the July 2013 general election, a position of strength which precluded the need to stir up domestic nationalist sentiment for poll outcomes. ³ Yet his government also became more electorally vulnerable, as the opposing Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) gained more popularity and momentum approaching the general election in 2018. ⁴ A major fight with a no-nonsense military government next door, while the Thaksin clan repeatedly kept losing power after winning elections, was inadvisable. Hun Sen had to bow to hard interests and survival instincts.

The writing on contemporary Thai-Cambodian relations is voluminous. However, historiography has served as its dominant strand, although additional standpoints from domestic politics and personal ties among elites and military leaders between Thailand and Cambodia have also been proffered. This article accepts and builds on this body of literature towards a more nuanced and updated line of enquiry, reinforced by interviews with some of the key decision-makers and thought leaders on the subject from both sides. The intended outcome is to arrive at a more balanced analysis of why it is suddenly all quiet on the Thai-Cambodian front in defiance of recent patterns and trends to the contrary. The article now proceeds with sections on the historical backdrop of Thai-Cambodian relations, the different lines of established literature, as well as additional factors that may add up to a more rounded perspective.

The usual culprits from history

It is especially difficult during peacetime to imagine what a war might look like. Although Thailand and Cambodia did not engage in a full-scale war, their deadly military clashes at times gripped both countries and attracted global news headlines. For example, a military showdown just three years before Thailand’s May 2014 coup involved war-grade weaponry, including heavy artillery, main battle tanks, multiple rocket launchers and even cluster bombs (De Launey, 2011; ICG, 2011). All told, the long string of military skirmishes from July 2008 to May 2011 claimed more than 20 military and civilian lives, and caused several hundred injuries and many thousands of internally displaced persons (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, 2011). ⁵ At its most virulent and violent, the bilateral conflict convulsed societies on both sides, laid conditions for the demise of two Thai governments, flustered the Association of South East Asian Nations and found its way to the UN Security Council. ⁶

The Thai-Cambodian conflict over Preah Vihear is multifaceted and multilayered. How it all began depends on how far back history is invoked. Preah Vihear temple is part and parcel of the vast, sprawling humanmade stone complexes that stretched in multiple directions from its Khmer Empire ⁷ base in what is today’s Siem Reap province in western Cambodia. At its height, Khmer footprints and the famed Hindu temples of Angkor reached into present-day Laos, Thailand ⁸ and Vietnam. Preah Vihear temple itself dates back some 1000 years, when heavy construction was first undertaken (Burgess, 2015). This long-lost Angkorian civilisational glory is the genesis of modern Cambodia’s historical grievances. From supremacy in their neighbourhood, the Cambodians were taken over by a European great power, namely France, and pushed around by their bigger neighbours Thailand and Vietnam (Chandler, 2008: Chs. 1–3 and 6). Yet all post-colonial states harbour historical resentment of this nature, an inferiority complex vis-a-vis former colonial masters and more powerful neighbours.

While it is not a post-colonial state, Thailand nevertheless is beset with its own sense of victimhood. While its Sukhothai kingdom arose from the 13th century on the decline of the Khmer Empire, it was the succeeding Ayutthaya kingdom that became Thailand’s nostalgic era of historical glory. At its zenith in the 17th century, Ayutthaya as the heart of Siam was prosperous and cosmopolitan, a trading hub and the third most popular destination and market after China and Japan, with conquest and suzerainty over nearby lands, including Preah Vihear and much of the former Angkorian empire (Baker and Pasuk, 2017). In turn, when Ayutthaya was razed to the ground by Burmese invaders in 1767, it was etched in the Thai collective imagination as lost glory and wounded national pride. The historical record on Preah Vihear ownership is thus subjective and inconclusive, contingent on points of departure. While it was a ‘love-hate’ bilateral relationship over the centuries (Charnvit, 2003), both Thailand and Cambodia draw proud roots from their histories, which in fact should be viewed in tandem as entwined (Manich, 1987; Silverman, 2011).

With such a historical backdrop, state sovereignty over Preah Vihear is conventionally attributable to French imperialism during the two decades either side of 1900. This was a time of state formation and cartographic demarcation in the region, when maps made and remade nation-states, reinforced by local elites intent on protecting and perpetuating their vested interests (Thongchai, 2003). While Cambodia had become a French protectorate by 1867 and Burma had lost its second of three wars against the British in 1852–1853, Siam kept both European imperial powers at bay over the next two decades. But eventually, France was bent on expanding its Indochina territories to include Siam, which resisted through a mix of military engagement, playing off Britain and France against one another and territorial concessions. However, by 1893, brewing Franco-Siamese tensions came to a head over a series of military confrontations in Siam-controlled Laos. The French sent two gunboats up the Chao Phraya River to issue an ultimatum for land occupation. Owing to military inferiority, underestimation of French ambition and overestimation of British intervention, the Siamese royals in charge of government at the time were forced to cede large swathes of Laos east of the Mekong River to French Indochina in a treaty signed on 3 October 1893. Yet French imperial belligerence in Laos crept into Cambodia, putting Siam on the back foot for another decade before two more critical treaties came into place (Chandler, 2008: Ch. 8; Terwiel, 1984: Ch. 8; Wyatt, 2003: Ch. 7). Thus began Siam’s (and later Thailand’s) historical grievances and sense of ‘national humiliation’ over ‘lost territories’ (Strate, 2015).

Sovereignty over stones

As French Indochina expanded along Siam’s border with Laos and Cambodia, maps played a crucial role in resolving the Franco-Siamese conflict. ⁹ The final settlement between Siam and France stemmed from two related and one-sided treaties. Firstly, the 13 February 1904 document addressed French Indochina’s territorial acquisition in Laos east of the Mekong, and secondly, the treaty from 23 March 1907 handed over Battambang, Siem Reap and Sisophon to France. ¹⁰ Both Franco-Siamese treaties stipulated natural watershed lines as border demarcation and means of delimiting relevant frontiers, and each treaty was accompanied by a Franco-Siamese ‘mixed commission’ to chart maps accordingly. As the work of the first bilateral commission was incomplete without frontier delimitations, its successor pursued the crux of mapping surrounding Preah Vihear in the eastern sector of the Dangrek mountain range. Herein lies an intractable controversy.

The consequent map – which would come to be known with notoriety as ‘Annex I’ on a ‘1:200,000’ scale in subsequent Thai-Cambodian legal proceedings – from the second mixed commission was effectively crafted by four French surveyors, as the Siamese side did not have cartographic capacity at that time. Although Preah Vihear is situated on a high promontory accessible from the Siamese side with a corresponding watershed line, the map in contention had drawn the ancient temple and its promontory to be within Cambodian territory. However, at issue was Siamese acceptance and lack of protest against this and 10 other maps of the eastern Dangrek sector that were produced and printed. On the contrary, altogether 160 sets of these 11 maps, including that which covered Preah Vihear, were produced and distributed among diplomatic circles in Europe. Fifty of the sets were allocated to the Siamese government (Oliver, 1962: 1037–1040). After years of passivity over the Preah Vihear map, the Siamese did not help themselves when, in January 1930, Prince Damrong Rajanubhab visited Preah Vihear and was received by the officially-dressed French Resident for the adjoining Cambodian province with the French flag flying. A former interior minister and president of the Royal Institute of Siam at the time, the prince was an uncle of the then-King Prachadipok (who reigned from 1925 to 1935) and half-brother of King Chulalongkorn (who ruled from 1868 to 1910). His visit and the official French reception were later construed and legally ruled as Siam’s recognition of French sovereignty over Preah Vihear.

The intervening period leading up to and during the Second World War set the stage for what would become a bilateral showdown over Preah Vihear. By the late 1930s, Thailand had replaced its absolute monarchy with constitutionalism, but had turned nationalist and martial by the outbreak of war. A military dictatorship under Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsongkram (shortened here to ‘Phibun’) sided with Japan on the Axis side, whereas an underground ‘Free Thai’ movement at home and in the United States and Britain joined the Allies (Wyatt, 2003: Ch. 9). During this period, the Phibun government took advantage of the Axis’ short-lived upper hand and resorted to irredentism by reclaiming and reoccupying some of the earlier ‘lost territories’ in Laos and Cambodia, only to be forced to hand them back to France after the war’s end, except for Preah Vihear temple where Thai troops remained. Post-colonial independent movements then set in over much of South East Asia. Cambodian independence was achieved in November 1953 (Chandler, 2008: Chs. 9–10) and the country’s new leader, HRH Prince Norodom Sihanouk, began to campaign for the return of Preah Vihear, which the Thais have always referred to as ‘Phra Viharn’, a loaded linguistic distinction that implies self-perceived ownership.

Diplomatic tensions ensued until October 1959 when Cambodia instituted legal proceedings against Thailand before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for adjudication of the ownership and status of the Preah Vihear temple. Because it accepted the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction in 1950, Thailand’s protest and objection at the court’s acceptance of the case was unsuccessful. Around the same time, the court also rejected Cambodia’s request to expand its Preah Vihear claim to include the adjoining 4.6 km². On 15 June 1962, a day of infamy and catastrophe in the popular Thai mindset, the ICJ ruled – nine votes for and three against – that ‘the Temple of Preah Vihear is situated in territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia’. ¹¹ The three dissenting opinions from the Argentine, Chinese (then-Republic of China) and Australian judges supported and sympathised with Thailand’s position, lack of cartographic expertise and favourable watershed line in view of the country’s unequal and disadvantageous dealings with imperial France back in the 1900s. But in the majority opinion, the principal argument of Siam then and Thailand later was ultimately moot because of the ‘Annex I’ map. The ICJ ruling was akin to an imperial blow to the Thais, harking back to French imperialism, the 1893 crisis and Siam’s consequent ‘lost territories’. While Cambodia naturally rejoiced, the backlash in Thailand against the Preah Vihear decision was immediate and virulent.

Then-Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman called it a ‘miscarriage of justice’, insinuated that the Polish president of the ICJ was a communist, labelled some of the judges as nationals of colonial powers and criticised and questioned the US’ objectives in South East Asia for allowing Dean Acheson to plead the Cambodian case. As a sign of protest, Thailand withdrew its delegation from SEATO Council ¹² and the Geneva Conference on Laos, recalled its ambassador to France and turned back a Polish trade delegation. Echoing scenes to come years later, thousands of university students protested in the streets of Bangkok to ‘protect Phra Viharn’ (Singh, 1962: 24–25). By early July, after reaffirming Thailand’s adherence to the United Nations Charter, Prime Minister Marshal Sarit Thanarat announced the country’s withdrawal of personnel from Preah Vihear temple itself but not the adjoining vicinity. This meant, in effect, that access to the temple remained on the Thai side although Cambodia possessed sovereignty over the temple. In other words, the contested sovereignty over ancient stones at Preah Vihear was only partially resolved. Because the 4.6 km² area on the mountaintop that cradled Preah Vihear was left unaddressed, it eventually returned to mar bilateral relations again under different circumstances.

When history met politics in Thailand

The ICJ’s landmark ruling in June 1962 was naturally traumatic for Thailand; it was as if the country had lost yet another colonial concession to France through surrogate Cambodia and its legal victory. The Thai legal, emotional, social and political trauma over Preah Vihear has been variously conceptualised. As mentioned above, Terwiel (1984) has described it as ‘humiliation’ and Strate (2013, 2015) as ‘national humiliation’ over ‘lost territories’, ¹³ while Pavin (2012, 2015) saw it as ‘embittered history’ and ‘historical overhang’. Ganesan (2015) uses the term ‘bilateral legacies’ to examine territorial tensions and conflicts between next-door neighbours in East Asia. Unsurprisingly, Thailand is not alone in seeing itself as the aggrieved party and victim. China has its ‘century of humiliation’ or ‘hundred years of national humiliation’ (e.g. Scott, 2008) which energises and emboldens its current reclamation of national glory and greatness through such ambitious projects as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, challenging and overtaking its former colonial masters. South Korea similarly harbours a sense of ‘humiliation’ dating to its annexation by Japan on 29 August 1910 (e.g. Soh, 2003). For Thailand, it was more like a sense of being repeatedly ‘cheated’ and ‘ripped off’ some 60–70 years apart whereby old wounds from the trade-off of territorial concessions for continued independence were exposed once again.

Geopolitical winds and domestic political changes effectively swept Preah Vihear under the carpet of history for the next three decades. After 1962, Thailand and Cambodia both faced the existential threat of communist expansionism that was about to engulf Indochina in view of the intensifying Cold War, and each had to navigate its own treacherous path in pursuit of independence. Partly due to its geographical proximity to Vietnam, smaller size and aspired neutrality, Cambodia was unable to overcome the march of communism and great-power rivalry between the US on one side and the Soviet Union and China on the other. By April 1975, five years after Sihanouk was deposed by Marshal Lon Nol’s pro-US regime, the Khmer Rouge took over, only to be forced out by communist Vietnam in January 1979 (Chandler, 2008: Chs. 11–12). On the other hand, Thailand capitalised on its US treaty alliance to contain a local communist insurgency and forestall the communist upsurge from Indochina, thereby serving as a military platform for American armed forces (Wyatt, 2003: Ch. 10). By the 1980s, both Sihanouk and the Khmer Rouge ironically aligned with Thailand in opposing Soviet-backed Vietnam (Weatherbee, 1985). ¹⁴ As the Cold War came to a close, Vietnam’s withdrawal and the end of its civil war in 1990–1991 enabled Cambodia to regain a semblance of normality following a UN-organised election in May 1993. ¹⁵ The full gamut of Thai-Cambodian relations resumed thereafter.

Even before the Cambodian election in 1993, Thailand already had discarded its Cold War confrontational approach as a ‘frontline’ state in favour of a commercial and developmental focus on trade and investment and a growth strategy to make the country the hub of mainland South East Asia by turning Indochina from ‘battlefields into marketplaces’ (French, 2002; Puangthong, 2013b). For the most part, ¹⁶ bilateral relations were significantly upgraded after 1993, facilitated by high-level visits including at the leaders’ level. In 1994, a Joint Commission (JC) was set up to oversee the overall relationship, complemented by the Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) to work together on a wide range of boundary issues including border trade and investment, tourism, immigration, migrant workers and work permits. In 1995, more bilateral border cooperation was institutionalised through the General Border Committee (GBC), Border Peace-Keeping Committee (BPKC) and the Regional Border Committee. These cooperative endeavours culminated in a crucial Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in June 2000 ¹⁷ which later became the basis for renewed controversy over Preah Vihear (Wacharin, 2011). At this stage, Thailand’s domestic political dynamics and directions became increasingly consequential for bilateral relations. Unbeatable at the polls time and again, Thaksin Shinawatra and his forces became a juggernaut. The deeply entrenched established centres of power – military, monarchy and bureaucracy, with broad support from the urban middle class in Bangkok – became desperate in constraining and putting down the Thaksin challenge as their electoral ally, the Democrat Party, was repeatedly trounced by Thaksin’s party machine. Yet it is worth remembering that Thaksin was pushed back only after his landslide election victory in February 2005 when he became the first prime minister to complete a full four-year term, to be re-elected and to head a one-party government. For much of 2001–2005, his so-called ‘populist’ policy programmes were viewed favourably by the establishment as the answer to Thailand’s debilitating 1997–1998 crisis and tough bailout conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund. But as an always active and long wealthy businessman overseeing a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, with a vast network of associates, military and police classmates and business associates, Thaksin was also hounded by corruption allegations and conflicts of interest. His shortcomings on integrity and accountability gave his opponents an opening. Coalescing under the yellow-clad People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), street protests against what became known as the ‘Thaksin regime’ began in earnest in August 2005, remarkably just six months after his Thai Rak Thai party had secured an overwhelming poll triumph and control over 75 per cent of the elected assembly (Thitinan, 2008, 2013). ¹⁸

In a prescient piece, Montesano (2007) noted how the crisis and turmoil from August 2005 to the military coup on 19 September 2006 was just the beginning of a larger and longer flow of unfolding forces of history that were bound to challenge Thailand’s incumbent political order emanating and cascading from the established centres of power in the military, monarchy and bureaucracy. While he was effectively driven into exile and his Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court, Thaksin’s second-generation party, Palang Prachachon, still became the biggest winner in the December 2007 election, just short of simple majority. As head of government, Thaksin chose a wily old conservative but new personal ally, Samak Sundaravej, as prime minister. By May 2008, street mayhem pitting the PAD’s yellow shirts against the Samak government reappeared in full force (Ockey, 2009; Sothirak, 2013). Unable to oust the Samak government after taking over Government House, the PAD seized on Cambodia’s listing of Preah Vihear temple as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 7 July 2008 as fuel for its rampage. The PAD insisted that the Preah Vihear listing involved territorial considerations that required parliamentary approval owing to Article 190 of the new 2007 constitution. ¹⁹ Fighting between Thai and Cambodian armed forces soon followed, and continued sporadically for the ensuing months (Silverman, 2011). For having signed the joint communiqué with his Cambodian counterpart three weeks earlier to enable the Preah Vihear listing, then-Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama was forced to resign after he came under intense pressure from the PAD’s accusation of ‘treason’ and for ‘selling out the country’. ²⁰ In the event, Noppadon’s defence was that the World Heritage listing actually protected Thailand’s interests by excluding the ‘buffer zone’, or the 4.6 km² to the north and west of the temple, from Cambodia’s application. Subsequently, Noppadon was acquitted in court for the charge of corruption related to the Preah Vihear listing and wrote a book about the saga (Noppadon, 2016).

What the PAD tried to do was to politicise Cambodia’s World Heritage listing of Preah Vihear as another loss of territory. It would have been the third such loss after Siam’s initial territorial concessions in the 1890s and 1900s and the ICJ’s 1962 decision. But unlike the two earlier cases of ‘lost territories’, the Preah Vihear listing was not viewed in unison but in divisive terms. Supporters of the Thaksin side took it in their stride as sovereignty over the temple had already been adjudicated, but the Thaksin opponents were looking for any sufficient cause to bring down the Samak government. Eventually, the PAD’s street protests spread to and closed Bangkok’s main international airport for eight days until the Constitutional Court dissolved the Palang Prachachon party and upended the Thaksin-aligned government on 2 December 2008. ²¹ The court’s intervention marked the end of Thailand’s year of chaos and mayhem (Puangthong 2013a, 2013b). Disenfranchising Palang Prachachon’s voters by dissolving the party also led to the formation of the ‘red shirts’ under the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), which staged its own street protests against the succeeding government of Abhisit Vejjajiva. Unsuccessful in pressuring Abhisit to resign and hold new a new election, the UDD-led red shirts were dispersed by force amidst violence in April 2009 and again in April–May 2010.

Preah Vihear’s role in Thai politics did not stop there. A whole new round of political crisis and confrontation began after Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s youngest sister, led the third-generation Pheu Thai party to triumph with a simple majority in the July 2011 election. Within 45 days after stepping down as chief executive of a Shinawatra family-owned real estate firm, Yingluck became the first female Thai prime minister and doubled as defence minister. Her government overcame Thailand’s worst floods in the central provinces for decades, particularly in Bangkok, and found governing traction by early 2012. But eventually the recurrent yellow-shirt animosity towards the Thaksin regime found a new front for attack. In October 2013, the Yingluck government passed an ‘amnesty’ bill that would have exonerated past political crimes, including those of Thaksin who had been convicted for corruption related to a land deal. The amnesty gambit reignited a yellow-clad maelstrom. Street demonstrations resurfaced and intensified, this time under a new yellow-shirt ²² banner called the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), led by erstwhile Democrat Party secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban. The PDRC succeeded in a ‘Bangkok shutdown’ campaign by immobilising government functions in the city for much of October 2013 until the May 2014 coup (McCargo, 2015). In a parallel to 2005–2006, Yingluck’s dissolution of the lower house and call for fresh election for February 2014 did not defuse the PDRC’s political tempest. As in 2006, the PDRC’s brinkmanship and street demonstrations paved the way for the coup on 22 May 2014, the sequel to the putsch in September 2006, carried out by the same set of military officers led by the Queen’s Guard (see footnote 2).

During the initial period of the PDRC’s movement, Preah Vihear took front and centre stage. Because of periodic armed clashes between Thai and Cambodian militaries since the World Heritage listing in July 2008, particularly in April–May 2011, compounded by mutual antagonism between the Abhisit and Hun Sen governments throughout, Cambodia petitioned the ICJ on 28 April 2011 to interpret its 1962 judgment (ICG, 2011). As the PDRC’s campaign to overthrow Yingluck picked up steam, the ICJ’s pending decision for late 2013 became momentous and potentially decisive. The Preah Vihear issue was politicised, exploited and thrust into the political spotlight as a make-or-break imperative for the Yingluck government. At issue was Preah Vihear’s adjoining 4.6 km², which the ICJ did not address in 1962. As with the PAD earlier, the PDRC was looking for any catalyst sufficient to tip over the Yingluck government. In the event, the ICJ ruled on 11 November 2013 that the promontory of Preah Vihear belonged to Cambodia in addition to the temple itself (Chechi, 2016; Ciorciari, 2014; Jenn, 2017). But the scope of the promontory depended on precise cartographic measurements of the land features mentioned in the ICJ’s interpretation. ²³ Cambodia was granted related land features but fell well short of its claim for the 4.6 km², whereas Thailand retained much of the contested area but not in full. Both sides were able to claim victory from the interpretation. Preah Vihear this time was not sufficient for the PDRC to bring down the Thaksin-aligned government, but a less compromising decision by the court would likely have yielded more severe political repercussions.

When history met politics in Cambodia

The Preah Vihear controversy is more often associated with politics in Thailand rather than Cambodia. However, this largely one-sided emphasis is misplaced because Preah Vihear is equally politicised in Cambodia, although much less attention has been paid to it. Since the UN-sponsored democratic transition in May 1993, Cambodia has held elections every five years with remarkable regularity compared to Thailand’s unsteady and uncertain polls. Juxtaposed next to its coup-prone neighbour next door, contemporary Cambodia has had two military coups, in 1994 and 1997, each time strengthening Hun Sen’s grip on power (Adams, 2014; Chandler, 2008: 290–292). While Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has been entrenched in power for more than two decades, its political fortune has been on the wane in recent years as the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party has been gaining ground since the merger between the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party (see footnote 4; see also Strangio, 2014).

After consolidating his CPP power base within the wider political environment after the 1993 and 1998 polls, Hun Sen stirred up nationalist sentiments vis-a-vis Thailand prior to elections in 2003, 2008 and 2013. But for the July 2018 poll, he appealed to anti-Western and anti-US emotions within the Cambodian electorate rather than against Thailand as before. This is an instructive shift in bilateral relations, a principal point of this article. Hinton (2006) has well dissected Hun Sen’s anti-Thai politicisation and exploitation of ‘Khmerness’ in the lead-up to the July 2003 poll. Following a Thai actress’ chauvinistic remarks about Cambodia’s Khmer past and how the country should return Angkor Wat to Thailand, popular tempers in Cambodia erupted, deliberately fanned by Hun Sen himself. ²⁴ Anti-Thai protests in Phnom Penh led to the torching of the Thai embassy in January 2003, after which the Thai ambassador was recalled to Bangkok as a gesture of protest. This was the ‘lowest point’ in contemporary Thai-Cambodian relations. ²⁵ In the 2003 poll, Hun Sen’s CPP secured 59 per cent of the national assembly, or 73 seats out of 123, thanks to playing up nationalist instincts and using Preah Vihear as a rallying instrument (Rattanasengchanh, 2017; Strangio, 2014).

In the run-up to the July 2008 poll, bilateral relations were already strained because of PAD protests against the Samak government using Preah Vihear and the ‘lost territories’ discourse as a call to action. As it was announced just 20 days prior to the election, the World Heritage listing of Preah Vihear was an electoral boon for the CPP. As Hughes (2009: 212) noted, the bilateral tensions were ‘fortunately timed to coincide with election campaigning; as the only party with any serious claims to military prowess, the CPP benefited vis-à-vis other parties at home’. Unsurprisingly, CPP electoral numbers went up to 73 per cent, or 90 out of 123 seats. For the following election in 2013, Hun Sen again found Preah Vihear to be a handy rallying tool in the face of the PDRC’s crusade to topple Yingluck in Bangkok. After petitioning the ICJ in April 2013 for interpretation of its 1962 decision, Hun Sen resorted more frequently to Preah Vihear in his campaign leading up to the polls (Rattanasengchanh, 2017: 79–81). But surprisingly, CPP’s assembly seats went down this time to 68 out of 123 seats, or just 55 per cent, as the CNRP narrowed the gap on the ruling party by gaining 26 seats for a total of 55. The 2013 election results were seen as the electorate’s potential ‘awakening’ (Bork, 2013) and ‘Cambodian spring’ (Strangio, 2014), as ‘winds of change’ were blowing through the country (Um, 2014).

The CPP’s weakening grip on power from 2013 has been attributable to the extensive and expansive financial fortune and widening corruption allegations against Hun Sen, his immediate family and business associates, not to mention intentions of dynastic rule as Hun Sen’s offspring rise up the hierarchy of military, society and politics (e.g. Global Witness, 2016). The CNRP also became more organised and visible in rural areas, where CPP traditionally drew electoral strength using social media outreach with positive results. In addition, Hun Sen’s authoritarian regime came under increasing pressure from Western democracies in the US and the European Union. His legitimacy centred on economic growth and development, especially infrastructure and education improvements; however, CPP was seen as weak on corruption as well as on drugs and crime. CNRP was viewed as stronger in tackling corruption and yet could still maintain growth and development. ²⁶ During the year prior to the July 2018 election, Hun Sen systematically dismantled the CNRP, from putting its leader Kem Sokha in jail on a fabricated charge of treason for earlier remarks about pro-democracy support from the US and wiping out independent media to dissolving the CNRP outright. The CPP thus became the only winning party in the July 2018 poll, garnering all 125 seats. Thus began Cambodia’s alarming new chapter as an elected dictatorship with a parliamentary monopoly in the absence of an opposition.

The new quiet on an age-old front

While Hun Sen’s domestic challenges from the increasingly formidable CNRP were critical in taming Cambodia’s posture after the Thai coup on 22 May 2014, the junta-led government in Bangkok also displayed clear and serious gestures. Just days after the putsch, the Thai army deported hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers back to their country. Rumours spread among these workers that, because of past animosity between Thai junta leaders and Hun Sen, uncooperative Cambodians would be shot on the spot (Keck, 2014). ²⁷ Although the actual number of Cambodian migrant workers is difficult to estimate because many of them travelled back and forth across the border for work in Thailand without legal documentation, estimates range from 650,000 to 1.1 million. The sudden return of such a large number of Cambodians rang alarm bells for Hun Sen. ²⁸ Most of these Cambodian workers had voted for CNRP in July 2013, travelling back to their domiciles at their own cost to do so. If they were to stay in Cambodia and no longer work as economic migrants in Thailand, Hun Sen would face the spectre of considerable unemployment, not to mention a large and restless chunk of the electorate who would opt for the opposition at the next poll.

When it staged the coup, Thailand’s junta government appeared resolute. Street protests and conflict between the PDRC and the Yingluck government had dragged on for more than six months. More importantly, the health of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 86 years of age at coup time, had been deteriorating, with a royal succession looming. The Thai military government had demonstrated its willingness to use heavy and deadly force during military clashes in April–May 2011, including the deployment of cluster bombs. It was the combination of the junta’s apparent conviction to perform its duty ahead of the succession and its war-ready sabre-rattling that likely added to Hun Sen’s calculation. ²⁹ As a long-time observer on the ground in Cambodia noted, the Hun Sen government’s:

close links with the deposed Thai premier, Yingluck Shinawatra, and her brother Thaksin – and its prickly relationship with the Thai military – Prime Minister Hun Sen soon made a series of conciliatory gestures that suggested he recognised that the junta was here to stay. (Ponniah, 2014)

Despite evident tension between the Thai junta and Hun Sen, they also enjoyed a measure of camaraderie from past cooperation. Hailing from the Queen’s Guard regiment among the ‘eastern tigers’ division, the Thai junta leaders rose up through the ranks along the Thai-Cambodian border (see footnote 2). This is why, at the most violent junctures of hostilities in 2008–2011, the bilateral military conflict was kept to a ‘low-intensity’ (Wagener, 2011), with some leeway and flexibility due to familiarity between seniors military officers of both sides (Jenn, 2017). For example, Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, the Thai defence minister in 2008–2011 and from the May 2014 coup to the time of writing, holds close personal ties with his counterpart, Cambodian Defence Minister Gen. Tea Banh. ³⁰ The two were about the same age while they rose up their respective ranks in parallel. So when Hun Sen extended an olive branch by sending his son to seek peace and accommodation, the Thai junta was all too ready to reciprocate. By early 2016, Thai-Cambodian relations appeared to have reached a relatively more peaceful and stable plateau, a new quiet on an age-old front.

Conclusion: Limitations and research directions

This article has sought to illustrate the trajectory of Thai-Cambodian relations on the back of mutual victimhood and perceived historical injustice rooted in Thailand’s discourse on ‘national humiliation’ and ‘lost territories’ and Cambodia’s embedded civilisational yearnings. Thailand after 1939, and Siam before then, saw itself as having suffered under the claws of avaricious imperial powers, namely France in this case. The Siamese felt cheated in the 1900s for their lack of mapping expertise and inability to anticipate longer-term legal repercussions, just as the Thais saw the ICJ’s 1962 verdict on Preah Vihear as territorial robbery. For the Cambodians and their Khmer forebears, their gripes and claims stem from a lost civilisational glory and greatness from a thousand years ago that has been subjugated by the Siamese and later the French. After the Cold War, bilateral relations were on the mend as both countries emerged with an eagerness for trade and investment, domestic peace and stability.

But after Thaksin’s rise and rule and consequent pushback from his adversaries in the establishment, Thailand’s political polarisation adversely impinged on what had been a promising new path for both countries. One side of the Thai divide – the PAD in 2005–2006 and the PDRC in 2013–2014 – seized on Cambodia’s World Heritage listing of Preah Vihear and request for ICJ interpretation of its 1962 – as instruments of attack and destabilisation against Thaksin-aligned governments. Cambodia was drawn into Thai political machinations because of its World Heritage listing of Preah Vihear and because Hun Sen was chastised by the PAD, the PDRC and their allied Democrat Party-led government to take sides. Yet the politicisation of Preah Vihear went both ways. When he faced elections in 2003, 2008 and 2013, Hun Sen appealed to anti-Thai, anti-Siamese sentiments among Cambodians, first exploiting a Thai actress’ chauvinistic remarks to culminate with the torching of the Thai embassy and later using Preah Vihear’s ownership as a clarion call for votes. Thailand’s May 2014 military coup has restored bilateral relations and situated it on new ground, as the Thai army brooked no dissent and showed Hun Sen its commitment and resolve to succeed. On the other hand, Hun Sen was hemmed in at home by a strengthening opposition party in the CNRP. Thus Cambodia’s July 2018 election, unlike its precursors, was not politicised and exploitative of historical grievances. Hun Sen turned against the West and eliminated and coerced the domestic opposition to win instead.

This article could have done more with greater space and time. As future research output might consider, it could have explored the intersection between domestic politics and regional relations. Asean was briefly mentioned without elaboration. In fact, the Thai-Cambodian military clashes may have debunked the myth of Asean’s peaceful era and the axiom that Asean’s and, more broadly East Asia’s, economic success stemmed from its long period of peace (Natalegawa, 2018; Tonnesson, 2017; Mahbubani, 2017). While the Thai-Cambodian military conflict was short of an outright war, it was serious and deadly enough to re-examine Asean’s role in regional conflict resolution and basic claims of peace and stability. Cambodia’s 1999 entry into Asean with Thai support may have yielded limited benefit to bilateral relations. Moreover, French imperialism has been documented but not Britain’s. Why did Siam and Thailand not suffer the same sort of ‘humiliation’ and trauma of ‘lost territories’ with the British as compared to the French? Further, China’s role merits attention, in that Hun Sen’s July 2018 poll campaign against the West, rather than against Thailand, may have been attributable to China’s superpower backing of an increasingly authoritarian Cambodia. Finally, what might be the conditions that could change all that is currently quiet on the Thai-Cambodian front into noise, tension and conflict once again? Or is bilateral peace and stability at hand for the long haul? Future research on this topsy-turvy bilateral relationship in a corner of the Asian landmass certainly has much to grapple with.