The resumption of US$18 million in U.S. aid to Cambodia just two months after it was suspended in protest against the legitimacy of the country's July 23 election does not mean the United States now recognizes the vote as fair, according to a spokesperson for the State Department.
A spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People's Party told The Khmer Times on Wednesday that the sudden unfreezing of the aid meant that the American government "has recognised the national election."
But that the reversal, which was revealed by Cambodia’s government after new Prime Minister Hun Manet met with Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on Sept. 22, was not tied to election legitimacy, a State Department spokesperson told Radio Free Asia speaking on condition of anonymity under rules set by the State Department.
“Of course we still have concerns about the elections, which we’ve conveyed clearly,” the spokesperson said in an email.
“We decided to make this gesture for two reasons: first, because these programs benefit the Cambodian people; second, to encourage the new government to live up to its stated intentions to be more open and democratic and to work more closely with us on shared priorities,” they said.
‘Free and fair’
Last month, Manet met with Nuland on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where he falsely told world leaders that the July 23 vote – the second in a row in which the country's main opposition party was prevented from participating – was " free and fair" and "credible and just."
The CPP won 120 of 125 available seats at the election, after which former Prime Minister Hun Sen subsequently handed formal power over to Hun Manet, his son, after 38 years in power himself.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the day after the election that the aid cut was because “the elections themselves were neither free nor fair” and that it would last beyond just this year.
“It’s a serious amount of money both this year, and in coming fiscal years,” Miller said at his regular press briefing on July 24.
But some in the State Department now seemingly hold out hope the 45-year-old West Point graduate could usher in improved ties after more than a decade of tensions over Hun Sen’s usurpation of the country’s fledgling democracy and the rise of China as an ally.
Business as usual
Cambodia’s government, meanwhile, has shown little interest in change, and has appeared at pains to show it’s business as usual.
Hun Sen penned a letter to Chinese Premier Li Qiang in late July saying that ties between the two countries would not change under his son, and Hun Manet made his overseas trip as prime minister to Beijing last month prior to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
Among the few positive steps in ties was the transfer of Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng – a prominent member of the country's opposition jailed on treason charges – from a remote prison on the northern border with Thailand to one in Phnom Penh.
The decision, revealed last week, was made on Sept. 23, the day after Hun Manet and Nuland's meeting, according to Cambodian officials.
Sophal Ear, author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia and an associate professor of global political economy at Arizona State University, said there were still open questions about the unfreezing of the aid just two months after it had been frozen due to a stage-managed election.
“It’s disappointing to see the U.S. not explain transparently why the $18 million was released,” Ear told RFA. “Releasing it is up to the U.S., but this strategic ambiguity is sometimes not helpful.”