Hun Sen cites ‘complex challenges’ at Future of Asia conference in Tokyo

Speaking in Japan on Thursday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Asia is facing complex challenges and Cambodia is ready to contribute to
promoting globalisation and a rule-based free trade system which provides fair benefits for all.

The prime minister was delivering a speech at the 25th International Conference on the Future of Asia. At the event, which is being held on
Thursday and Friday in Tokyo, Hun Sen shared his perspective on the future of the region.

“The conference’s theme Seeking a New Global Order – Overcoming the Chaos is highly relevant to the current context and the future of the region, which is facing complex challenges due to various threats and the fragility of the architecture of the world."

“I express firm hope that the conference will contribute to strengthening the goodwill and solidarity among nations in the region in an effective response to the various challenges the region and the world are encountering."

“Cambodia is ready to further contribute to strengthening cooperation with all relevant partners in the context of the new multi-polar world, aiming to promote globalisation, a spirit of pluralism and a rule-based free trade system which provides equitable and fair benefits to all relevant stakeholders,” the prime minister said.

Hun Sen said peace and security are the essential foundations of development.

“I am confident that all of us are keen to have a world in which all countries and people can live together – with peace, stability and prosperity and mutual respect of sovereignty and territory integrity – and are collectively committed to strengthening cooperation,” he said.

Political analyst Lao Mong Hay said the poles that Hun Sen was referring to when he spoke of a “multi-polar world” comprised at least America and China, and Cambodia has now moved into China’s orbit.

By so doing, he said, Cambodia has abandoned its neutrality as internationally guaranteed under the 1991 Paris Peace Accords and subsequently proclaimed in the Kingdom’s 1993 constitution.

“By unilaterally denouncing its neutrality and siding with China, Cambodia is now sucked into the current cold war between the two superpowers and, as happened during the last cold war, it can only be badly affected should a war actually break out,” Mong Hay said.