Two Chinese warships have recently arrived at Cambodia’s Ream naval base to replace the ones that had been there since December, a senior Cambodian official has said.
Defense ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat wrote on his Facebook page that the recent exchange of Chinese naval vessels was conducted "under an agreement between the two countries' defense ministries" in order to train the Cambodian navy.
Radio Free Asia first reported on the arrival of two Chinese corvettes last December, the first foreign warships allowed to dock at the new Chinese-built pier at Ream.
The Wall Street Journal suggested in a recent report that China's corvettes indicated it was establishing a permanent presence at the base on the Gulf of Thailand, near the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
“More than half a year later, they are still there, serving as evidence to many in Washington that China’s military has set up a permanent foothold” in Cambodia, the newspaper said.
It quoted a Ream resident who has relatives working at the base as saying that the base was divided into two separate areas, one reserved for the Chinese navy and the other one for the Cambodian navy.
The newspaper also said that China’s access to Ream “is set to play a key role in any conflict over Taiwan or the South China Sea.”
Chhum Socheat dismissed the WSJ report as “intentionally misleading and untrue,” adding that some areas were under construction and therefore off-limits to outsiders in accordance with Cambodian laws.
The U.S. State Department previously said it had “serious concerns” about China’s plans for exclusive control over portions of the Ream base.
Top officials in Phnom Penh have always maintained that allowing a foreign military to be based in Cambodia would be in contradiction to the country’s constitution.
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Type 056 corvettes
Satellite images obtained by Radio Free Asia from the imaging company Planet Labs on July 2 show two vessels docked at the new pier in Ream’s center-west.
A calculation by RFA based on the images indicated they were 90 meters (295 feet) in length, and similar in size and shape to the two Type 056 missile corvettes – Wenshan and Bazhong – that were first spotted at the base on Dec. 3, 2024.
RFA could not identify their hull numbers from the images to determine if they were the same ships or different ones. The Chinese navy’s South Sea Fleet, which is responsible for activities in the Southeast Asia region, has 20 such vessels.
“Unless we can verify it independently we have to assume the Cambodians would have every reason to say they’re new arrivals in order to dispel external concerns,” said Collin Koh, a regional military analyst.
“In fact, most analysts would assess that Cambodia had granted access for rotational deployment [of Chinese ships], but that’s strictly speaking not a basing arrangement,” said Koh, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
“Cambodia seems to go down this path in order to avoid contravening its constitution,” the analyst added.
Thomas Shugart, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington D.C. agreed that “it does sound like what you could call a rotational presence.”
However, he warned that there will be an at least semi-permanent logistical presence of the Chinese navy at the base to support visiting warships.
The Type 056 corvette, and its later version Type 056A, is similar to the U.S.-built littoral combat ship, suitable for mid-range and littoral missions and equipped for anti-submarine warfare.
They have been used for asserting control over sea lanes and enhancing the navy’s surveillance capabilities.
The two corvettes Wenshan and Bazhong were among 16 Chinese and Cambodian vessels taking part in the Golden Dragon bilateral exercise in May. They conducted a live-fire joint counter-terrorism operation in the waters off Sihanoukville port.
Chinese officials said at the time that assistance in upgrading and renovating the Cambodian naval base was aimed at enhancing Cambodia's ability to maintain maritime territorial integrity and combat maritime crime, not securing a potential military base.
Edited by Mike Firn.