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PHNOM PENH, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian academics said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visits to Cambodia and Laos this weekend aim at strengthening bilateral ties and countering the rising influence of China on the Southeast Asian nations.
“Under the Abe’s leadership, Japan has become more strategically assertive in the region,” Chheang Vannarith, lecturer of Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Leeds in Britain, told Xinhua on Friday. “Japan has invested in strengthening strategic partnership with ASEAN in order to increase Japan's comprehensive role in the region and particularly to check the rise of China.”
He said China and Japan are the second and third largest world economies. Both countries have played a significant role in building an East Asian community, noting that China and Japan, after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, have come closer together in building an ASEAN Plus Three economic cooperation to recover and strengthen regional economic development.
“It needs to be noted that without a stable Sino-Japanese relations, East Asian community building is impossible and the ASEAN Community building would face with both political and economic challenges,” he said. “The increasing tensions between China and Japan over the territorial disputes are putting ASEAN into a strategic dilemma.”
Japan is seeking to enhance good relations with its Asian countries in order to realize its economic development goals, he added.
Abe will start today (Saturday) two-day trips to Cambodia and Laos to enhance cooperation in a wide range of fields including economy, politics, security and cultural exchanges with the countries, Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Thursday.
Cambodia and Laos are the last members of the ten ASEAN countries that Abe has not yet visited since he took office last December.
Sok Touch, deputy director general of the Royal Academy of Cambodia's International Relations Institute, said Japan is the right hand of the United States in Asia Pacific region.
“Want or not want, the Abe’s visits are to counter China’s rising influence on ASEAN, particularly in the Indochina—Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar,” he told Xinhua. “His visits are also to further enhance both economic and political ties between Japan and these countries.”
Both Japan and China are the key development partners of Cambodia. According to the Cambodian government's reports, Japan has provided grants and loans of around 2 billion U.S. dollars to Cambodia as China has given around 2.89 billion U.S. dollars to the country.
However, in terms of trade and investment, Japan’s presence in Cambodia is far behind China.
Japan-Cambodia trade volume was valued at only 591 million U.S. dollars in the first nine months of this year as China-Cambodia trade hit 2.83 billion U.S. dollars during the same period.
On the investment side, Japanese investment in Cambodia totaled 300 million U.S. dollars, while Chinese investment here was around 9.2 billion U.S. dollars.
Ros Chantrabot, advisor to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, said it would be the first Abe’s visit to Cambodia in order to further strengthen and expand bilateral ties and cooperation.
“In my opinion, Abe’s trips to both Cambodia and Laos this weekend are not to counter the rising influence of China on ASEAN, but to express Japan’s commitment in maintaining and strengthening ties with ASEAN as a whole and with each ASEAN member state in particular,” he told Xinhua on Friday.
The Cambodian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Abe’s visit to Cambodia came at the invitation of Prime Minister Hun Sen. During the stay, Abe will hold an official talk with Hun Sen and then, the two premiers will preside over the signing ceremony of two documents concerning training Cambodian peacekeepers for the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and cooperation on health sector.
