Cambodia is packing it in on a 25-year-old regional agreement with neighboring Laos and Vietnam. In a surprise move, Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, former Prime Minister Hun Sen—who stepped down a year ago but remains the head of the all-powerful Cambodian People’s Party—announced the country’s withdrawal from the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area, or CLV, in late September. The announcement came after a protest movement and subsequent crackdown fueled by fears of Vietnamese encroachment, raising questions about Cambodia’s future role in regional affairs.
The CLV has long roots. It was first broached in 1999 at an unofficial meeting between the then-leaders of the three countries—including Hun Sen himself—as a way to strengthen stability and trilateral interconnectivity, while also acknowledging that many of the countries’ provincial communities have long had transborder cultural, social and business ties. When it was officially launched in 2004, the agreement covered 10 border provinces—four in Vietnam and three each in Laos and Cambodia—with an additional province in each country added in 2009.
For nearly two decades, investments and development through the CLV gathered pace without incident. Then, earlier this year, an online movement of Cambodians began objecting en masse to the agreement, citing border security and sovereignty as their key sources of concern.