Cambodia to Journalists: Let Us Now Praise Sihanoukville

[geovalin]

Cambodia tells journalists to present the hive of Chinese investment as ‘a city of miracles’ set to rival a mash-up of Silicon Valley, Las Vegas, and Singapore.

 

PHNOM PENH — 

Singapore. Las Vegas. Silicon Valley. These are the models the Cambodian government says it is hoping to emulate in the coastal port city of Sihanoukville, now awash in Chinese investment.

 

Government spokesman Phay Siphan on Monday gave a nearly two-hour press conference to drill the message home to reporters from a pulpit at the Council of Ministers building, itself build with Chinese money.

 

Public discontent over massive Chinese investment and associated immigration to Sihanoukville is rising, as billions of dollars pour into the real estate market and casinos spring up seemingly overnight to cater to Chinese tourists.

 

“You know what?” Siphan said at the meeting on Monday. “It has only been eight months since my last visit [to Preah Sihanouk province] and I went there again and I got lost, it changed quite fast from my memory of the [city’s] old landscape.”

“I traveled around the city’s streets at night, it was just a picture of Las Vegas,” he added.

 

A Chinese man shops at a supermarket inside Min Hui International Mall, Sihanoukville province, Cambodia, February 13, 2019. (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)

 

Sooner or later, Siphan says, the region will be transformed into a financial and tech hubs like Silicon Valley or Singapore, he insists, calling on the media to write “positive” articles about the “developmental phenomenon”.

 

Sihanoukville “is a city of development with a desire to be a modern city which I would call a city of miracles that we should be proud of as Khmer,” he said.

 

“I cannot imagine if [Sihanoukville] can be the next Silicon Valley in California as a tech hub, but I think it may be on the way to be one.”

Sihanoukville’s rapid transformation comes amid a global push back against China’s Belt and Road Initiative, with growing concern Beijing is practicing “debt-trap diplomacy”.

 

Cambodia has grown closer to China as relations with Europe and the United States continue to sour over Prime Minister Hun Sen’s human rights record and the dissolution of the country’s main opposition party ahead of elections last year.

New commercial advertisements are seen posted on a newly-built building in Sihanoukville province, Cambodia, February 13, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)

Claims were made that China was planning to turn a port being built by one of its state-owned companies in Koh Kong into a naval base have been roundly denied. Siphan called such claims a “smear campaign”.

 

Chinese tourists made up one-third of the 6.2 million visitors to Cambodia last year. In Sihanoukville, some 90 percent of the permanent expatriate community are Chinese, according to officials.

 

The influx of immigrants and finance follows a visit to Cambodia in October 2016 by Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.

Meas Ny, a political analyst in Cambodia, said large-scale Chinese investment came with benefits, but also put the country’s independence at risk.

“With most development projects run by Chinese, social dialogue usually does not happen. They don’t care to ask about local concerns until huge impacts take place—and they solve it later.”

 

source https://www.voacambodia.com/a/cambodia-to-journalists-let-us-now-praise-sihanoukville/4829091.html

[natway09]

What he is saying is that they have ruined the beautiful place for any other than Chinese

born in China

[yellowboat]

It was nice while it lasted. 

 

Heard say the Cambodian government resisted Thai guidance in making Snooky in the image of Pattaya.   The Chinese wish to turn it into Macao with a pinch of Shenzhen

[Destiny1990]

Adding some casinos has a big impact.

[Tomtomtom69]

On 3/15/2019 at 11:24 PM, yellowboat said:

It was nice while it lasted. 

 

Heard say the Cambodian government resisted Thai guidance in making Snooky in the image of Pattaya.   The Chinese wish to turn it into Macao with a pinch of Shenzhen 

Why would they resist that? Pattaya, for all it's faults is WAY better than what Snooky has turned into. I think the Cambodian government must really regret the decision they have made.

 

As for the misguided "tech hub" along the lines of Silicon valley all I can say is LOL!!!

 

Such a tech hub could be realized in China, but in low skill Cambodia, dream on!

Edited March 31, 2019 by Tomtomtom69