Chinese Influx Brings Trash, High Prices to Cambodia’s Sihanoukville

[geovalin]

A surge in Chinese investment and in the numbers of migrant workers in Cambodia’s port city of Sihanoukville has left local beaches polluted and Cambodian residents struggling to meet higher prices as the cost of living rises, Cambodian sources say.

Speaking to RFA’s Khmer Service on Wednesday, Muong Sony—a youth leader in the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association—said following a recent visit that conditions in the city have declined dramatically over the last year.

“The situation in this area has now changed a lot,” he said.

“I visited four beaches and saw pollution and poor sanitation everywhere. There were no garbage containers on hand, and plastic bags were everywhere, along with a flow of foul-smelling sewage.”

Trash now piles up not only on the beaches, but on the city streets as well, he said.

The presence in the city of over 100,000 Chinese nationals, many of them workers brought in from China as Chinese firms set up casinos or operate power plants and offshore oil platforms in the area, has only made matters worse, Muong Sony said.

“I was told by several local residents that most of the Chinese coming to the area are not educated,” he said.

“Many of them were formerly convicted of crimes and were freed from prisons in China, or have bad backgrounds of other kinds. So they just throw trash anywhere they want, and some have even caused security problems in the area too.”

Prices climb higher

Traffic police now try mainly to stop Chinese nationals who break the traffic laws, because they will get more money from the Chinese than from Cambodians, Muong Son said.

“And many Chinese have bought local shops and run them on their own, making the prices of products rise too high for local people to pay,” he said, adding that many of the city’s new Chinese residents take jobs from Cambodians.

“My impression is that China wants to control the city and make it their own economic zone,” he said. “They are building skyscrapers in order to turn the city into a Chinese town in Cambodia.”

Also speaking to RFA, fellow Association member Soeun Piseth voiced his own concern over the influx of Chinese nationals and businesses into the city.

“The Chinese are causing a lot of trouble for Cambodians in the area. They are completely destroying the environment in this coastal city,” he said.

As the world’s second-largest economic power, China sees Cambodia as a source of benefit only for itself, Souen Pisoth said.

“I urge local authorities to enforce the city’s laws and regulations and to better manage the Chinese presence here,” he said.

Decline in tourism

Meanwhile, an Oct. 10 report by Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism has pointed to a sharp decline in the numbers of tourists visiting Sihanoukville during the final days of the country’s annual Pchum Ben Festival, blaming the fall-off on poor infrastructure in the area.

Security concerns focusing on the growing Chinese presence in the traditionally popular tourist destination are more likely to blame, though, Network for Social Accountability President San Chey said.

“Chinese have even been involved in shooting sprees,” San Chey said, speaking to RFA.

In September, outgoing Chinese ambassador to Cambodia Xiong Bo acknowledged the climbing rates of crime among Chinese living in Cambodia—including drug and sex trafficking and online or telephone scams—and thanked Cambodian authorities for helping to crack down, according to a Sept. 28 report in the Khmer Times.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Vanrith Chrea. Written in English by Richard Finney.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/influx-10112018140456.html

Copyright © 1998-2016, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036

 

 

-- © Copyright RFA 12/10

[KhunHeineken]

I have started a thread in the Cambodia Travel section about this rapid change.  Next month I will go and see it for myself.  I expect to be shocked and disappointed and will most likely never return to Sihanoukville.  

[petermik]

8 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

 Next month I will go and see it for myself.  I expect to be shocked and disappointed and will most likely never return to Sihanoukville.  

It,s probably worse than you are expecting......many friends have said the same

[AhFarangJa]

4 hours ago, geovalin said:

“I visited four beaches and saw pollution and poor sanitation everywhere. There were no garbage containers on hand, and plastic bags were everywhere, along with a flow of foul-smelling sewage.”

Sound familiar ???

[KhunHeineken]

49 minutes ago, petermik said:

It,s probably worse than you are expecting......many friends have said the same

It probably will be but I will try to adapt and make the most of what I can. 

 

Even if a small percentage of what I have been told and read is accurate, that would still be enough for me to say it will be my last visit to Sihanoukville. 

[rskdev]

This sucks!!! I was planning on moving there. Now I will have to make different plans. I have seen how the Damn Chinese just take over. Cambodian Government should take care of there own people first. They only want to line there pockets as is the way with most of Top officials in these Asian countries. Maybe Phnom Penh is not like it. I wanted to live by the beach though.

[natway09]

Money talks,,,, quality of life means nothing to the Chinese or to the Cambodian Government who allowed this to happen. Selling Citizenship to any Chinese for 100,000 USD

I posted on this decline in Cambodian loss of jobs & Chinese devastation a year ago

& it is only going to get worse

Wake up call for Thailand ,,,, do NOT koew toew to the Chinese

[phantomfiddler]

Everyone I have met here in Pattaya has said that they would never visit Sihanoukville again, very sad ????

[Burma Bill]

From what I understand Sihanoukville is now virtually a Chinese enclave for the sole purpose of GAMBLING. I bet there is no trash on the floors of the casinos!

 

 

[ross163103]

Countries need to be careful of the Chinese, they're looking out for themselves, not anyone else. Yes, the countries gain some things short term but there's a price to pay--like what's happening in Sihanoukville, and in the long term the price will be even more immense.

The Malaysian prime minister saw this happening with a project called Forest City, basically the Chinese were building it and marketing it for the Chinese, not Malaysians. Now the PM has seen the light and banned foreigners from buying any of the properties. It's good to see some world leaders can see through the short term financial gains that the Chinese offer and look ahead to the future. The belt and road initiative is a dangerous thing IMHO; as time goes by the belt gets tighter and tighter.

[balo]

5 hours ago, AhFarangJa said:

Sound familiar ???

Yes it sounds almost like Pattaya. Maybe less Chinese here but the locals do a good job already . 

 

[quandow]

7 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

Everyone I have met here in Pattaya has said that they would never visit Sihanoukville again, very sad ????

I don't think you and I have met, but I count myself in, too. Went there once, never go back again - ESPECIALLY if it's going from really bad to worse!

[soistalker]

Chinese will destroy and pollute everything they touch. It's not my opinion; it is a fact.

[ChakaKhan]

Sounds like up here in CM.......pretty clear to see and Im thinking of leaving as well.....

[Scouse123]

10 hours ago, ross163103 said:

Countries need to be careful of the Chinese, they're looking out for themselves, not anyone else. Yes, the countries gain some things short term but there's a price to pay--like what's happening in Sihanoukville, and in the long term the price will be even more immense.

The Malaysian prime minister saw this happening with a project called Forest City, basically the Chinese were building it and marketing it for the Chinese, not Malaysians. Now the PM has seen the light and banned foreigners from buying any of the properties. It's good to see some world leaders can see through the short term financial gains that the Chinese offer and look ahead to the future. The belt and road initiative is a dangerous thing IMHO; as time goes by the belt gets tighter and tighter.

 

I have been saying exactly this like a mantra for a long long time now.

 

Hun Sen does not and never did care about the welfare of the Cambodian people.

 

He has an entourage of greedy, so-called loyalists to his cause, and henchmen. as well as those who keep him in office, that he has to keep filling the coffers to support; otherwise he loses his grip on power.

 

The Chinese are like locusts and devour everything in their path. Without using generalizations, the majority descending to the shores of Sihanoukville are low quality, low-class evil scum. They care only self-interest and this will just become another Chinatown.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2018 by Scouse123

[Johnnyngai]

It is just third world vs. third world. 

I believe the Mainland Chinese will feel very much at home in Cambodia.

I went to visit the Eastern Qing tombs located 78 miles northeast of Beijing two summers ago.

I was surprise that the mid size villages in those locations has centralized garbage collection sites.

Give the cavemen another 30 years and they will be just as civilized as most developed people.

Before the 1980 economic reform, Mainland Chinese were not allow to even learn about life outside China.  

[KhunHeineken]

18 hours ago, Burma Bill said:

From what I understand Sihanoukville is now virtually a Chinese enclave for the sole purpose of GAMBLING. I bet there is no trash on the floors of the casinos!

 

 

When I was last in Sihanoukvile, not that long ago, there were around 32 casinos.  Now I believe there are 70.  The thing is, you didn't see bus loads of Chinese people coming and going from them or at the beach.  The casinos were a way to get people's money out of China so the building of the casinos didn't really bother anyone. 

 

Also, I was told, they do a lot of virtual online gambling in the casinos with webcams and real staff.  The player is in China, but the cards are being dealt in Sihanoukville.  

 

Now it looks like they actually want to make Sihanoukville a holiday destination for Chinese, gambling, or not.  That will bring in the bus loads of Chinese and change the place, if it hasn't already.

[fullcave]

On 10/12/2018 at 3:52 PM, natway09 said:

Wake up call for Thailand ,,,, do NOT koew toew to the Chinese

Too late (by a hundred or so years).