Published: Sunday, 12 Aug 2012
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Students in their
twenties sit behind old wooden desks in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh,
scribbling away as a teacher barks out phrases in a foreign language
above the roar of motorcycles outside.
Unlike
in most other countries in the region, the students at this private
language school and others nearby are not learning English -- it's
Chinese.
Along the
street, signs with golden Chinese letters on newly painted
red-and-yellow buildings offer cheap crash courses in Mandarin.
"Before,
people came to this area to study English but now it's Chinese," said
Gua Fa, a teacher and manager of the Ming Fa Chinese School. "The
students all want to be tour guides, Chinese translators, or work in
banks and restaurants."
It's
another sign of China's growing influence in Cambodia, something that
is upsetting the unity of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN).
China
has a good standing in impoverished Laos and Myanmar as well, ASEAN
members along with Cambodia, much to the chagrin of others in the bloc
such as Vietnam and the Philippines, which are at loggerheads with
Beijing over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Singapore,
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand make up the rest of the
grouping.
As
cash-strapped and underdeveloped Cambodia increasingly turns to Beijing,
the group is worried about being held hostage by China's economic power
over its poorest members.
"While
China's loans and infrastructure projects have benefited the region,
there has been growing resentment," said Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow
at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
"There are also worries of excessive dependence on China as well as fears of increased vulnerability to economic pressure."
Of ASEAN's three poorer members, Cambodia appears to be the most under Beijing's sway.
About
40,000 Cambodians have enrolled in Chinese language schools, according
to the Khmer Chinese Association in Cambodia, bucking the trend in a
region promoting English ahead of 2015 launch of an ASEAN Economic
Community (AEC) that wants to draw investors to a $2 trillion market of
10 countries and 600 million people.
"It
will be more useful than English," said Heng Guechly, a student at
another private school. "There's a lot of demand and China has a good
relationship with Cambodia, so more Chinese will come to do business
here."
Official
data shows Chinese investment in Cambodia was $1.9 billion last year,
more than double the combined amount of ASEAN countries and 10 times
more than the United States.
Phnom
Penh's low-rise skyline is dotted with Chinese cranes and construction
projects. The two countries' flags fly side-by-side on building sites,
where foremen shout in Mandarin at Cambodian laborers who grumble about
the unfamiliar Chinese food they get served.
Official
data showed 151,887 Chinese tourists visited Cambodia in the first half
of this year, up 33 percent from the same period in 2011, with the
tourism industry hoping to lure one million Chinese a year by 2020.
Agribusinesses are being set up by Chinese companies and 70 percent of
the 330 factories manufacturing garments -- Cambodia's biggest foreign
currency earner and source of employment -- are Chinese-owned.
ECONOMIC COERCION
China's
deep ties with Cambodia, and to a lesser extent with Laos and Myanmar,
have effectively given Beijing an outsider's veto over decisions in
ASEAN, which require consensus among all members.
That
was demonstrated last month when an ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in
Phnom Penh ended without a joint communiqué for the first time in the
group's 45-year history. The Philippines placed the blame on China,
saying it had leaned on hosts Cambodia to torpedo any mention of
territorial disputes in the oil- and gas-rich South China Sea.
According
to diplomats at the ASEAN meeting, Laos and Myanmar tacitly supported
Cambodia's determination to keep bilateral disputes with China out of
the communiqué.
In
recent years, China has been cozying up to Laos, weakening the
longstanding influence of neighboring Vietnam, building roads, bridges
and stadiums and offering new technology and free Chinese university
scholarships to hundreds of students.
Chinese
immigrant communities are swelling and at least two Chinese gambling
enclaves have been set up inside Lao territory, one of which visited by
Reuters featured casinos, hotels and karaoke bars under the watch of
uniformed Chinese police. Last year, two-way trade jumped 40 percent and
Chinese banks offered Laos $3 billion of loans, on top of promises to
build a $7 billion high-speed rail network.
It's
been much the same in Myanmar, which under Western sanctions moved into
Beijing's orbit. Border trade and Chinese investment in oil, gas and
hydropower boomed. However, with most sanctions suspended in reward for
political and economic reforms after the end of army rule, Myanmar's
uneasy dependence on China might soon come to an end.
SUITS STRATEGY
For
Beijing, keeping ASEAN splintered suits its strategy on the South China
Sea, the region's worst potential military flashpoint, where China
wants to negotiate bilaterally with its much weaker rivals.
A less than united ASEAN would also help keep the United States at bay.
China's
state Xinhua agency said this month the United States was trying to
present itself as an honest broker in the dispute, but that its real
intent was to stir up trouble and drive a wedge between China and its
neighbors for its own gain.
Washington
should "thoroughly abandon its plot to seek advantage from the chaos so
the South China Sea can resume its role as a sea of peace, friendship
and cooperation", Xinhua said in an angry commentary.
Lured
by ASEAN's growth and wary of China's spreading influence, the United
States is moving in swiftly as part of its strategic shift towards Asia,
signing military cooperation deals that have emboldened Vietnam and the
Philippines in their disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.
Last
month, Washington pledged millions of dollars for social,
environmental, health and educational development in Indochina and sent
two of its biggest-ever business delegations to Vietnam and Myanmar.
"Because
this region has grown so significantly, we have no choice but to be
here and be here in a profound, direct and visible way," Myron
Brilliant, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
international division, told Reuters.
"We're making money here, doing ok, but there's a lot more that can be done."
The
U.S. shift offers Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos a chance to hedge their
bets, but experts say China won't let its influence in ASEAN wane
without a fight.
"China
has gotten a strong head-start and is deeply entrenched in their
economies; a shift will not be easy," said Glaser of Washington's CSIS.
"Moreover,
as other countries move in, Beijing will undoubtedly seek to reinforce
its influence to avoid losing its preferential position and accompanying
leverage."
The competition between the two powers will turn up the heat on ASEAN at the most critical juncture in its history.
"If
we are not fully united and integrated, we can become the victim of
external powers," ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told the
Jakarta Post newspaper.
"We must develop an ASEAN perspective on every issue. We should not come in with separate individual interests."
(Editing by Alan Raybould and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
7 comments:
All khmer student should learn chinese language....
To all khmers, u should learn khmer and american english only if u want a better life. All chinese college students learn english and they all dying to come to US to learn. U will waste time and money to learn that communist country language.
Learn to cook chinese food would be better to learn its language
If you want to work as a maid in China as your future work, go ahead learn some chinese.
Stop blaming other.
The students in Cambodia may not just learn Chinese, but also English and other foreigner languages.
Am not from the Englisch speaking country, but still able to speak not bad this language.
4:08 PM, agree, at least you can open a chinese restaurant in america or england and make heaps of money. how much you can earn money if you work in china? peanuts!
if you can cook chinese food you can make millions by opening a restaurant or work in 5 star, 6 star and 7 star hotels.
Set aside one to two hours a day for study of the Chinese language. Because all variations of Chinese are tonal languages, they often take longer to learn than non-tonal languages. Thanks.
Regards,
Learn Chinese free
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