Why Of All Days Is Xi Visiting Cambodia On April 17?

2025-04-09 05:02:18

(MENAFN- Asia Times) Could Chinese President Xi Jinping have picked a more inconvenient moment to swan into Cambodia than April 17? Not only is it the anniversary of the Fall of Phnom Penh, when the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge marched into the capital in 1975.

It's also over Khmer New Year, Cambodia's biggest and most sacred national holiday, when for the entire week (although it's technically just a holiday between April 13-16) the cities empty and seemingly the entire population heads to the provinces.

Anyone who's lived in Cambodia for more than two minutes knows this: don't plan anything formal during Khmer New Year. The cities are deserted. The shops are shut. Officials are on holiday. The police are off spending their“tea money” in provincial karaoke bars.

I've heard from a good many bureaucrats who are justifiably pissed off that they'll now be at the office next week-so, too, one imagines, are the police and soldiers and translators and journalists, etc, etc, who'll have to traipse back to the capital early to manage the state visit.

However, the timing seems quite deliberate. Beijing knows full well what Khmer New Year means. It knows how ASEAN governments treat their calendars. I'm struggling to remember Cambodia hosting another state visit over the holiday, just as China itself almost never hosts a state visit during Lunar New Year.

So why would an“ironclad friend” choose to spoil your most important holiday of the year? A show of force; a demonstration of the power imbalance? What was Cambodia going to do? Politely decline the visit?“Sorry, Mr Xi, we're too busy that week. How about another day?”

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