A Small State's Limited Playbook: Cambodia Exploits Thailand's Weakness

The Diplomat

15 hours ago

The recent leaking of a phone conversation between the Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Cambodian leader Hun Sen marked an unexpected twist in the escalating border dispute between the two countries. Hun Sen's subsequent prediction that there would be a new Thai prime minister in 3 months and that he knows who it would be further exacerbated bilateral tensions. Days later, the Constitutional Court suspended Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office amidst a pending court case seeking her dismissal.
A small state managed to inflict extraordinary repercussions on the domestic situation of its larger neighbor with a phone call.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra reasoned that Hun Sen leaked the recording in order to 'boost his popularity without regard for the impact on bilateral ties.' A poll by the National Institute of Development Administration found that most Thais hold a similar perspective. This assessment is reminiscent of regional media discussions about the role of domestic politics during the 2008-2011 conflict over the Preah Vihear temple, an eleventh-century Angkorian ruin perched on the two nations' disputed border. However, this latest development is best understood as a product of the asymmetry of power between Cambodia and its larger neighbors, and the lessons that the Cambodian government – and Hun Sen – learned from the Preah Vihear conflict.
There are important differences between the 2008-2011 conflict and the current stand-off. First, the domestic political situation in Cambodia is much more stable today than in 2008. While domestic political competition was at its height during the Preah Vihear conflict, which ignited just prior to the 2008 national election, Cambodia has had no proper opposition party since the dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party in 2017. The ruling Cambodian People's Party has also since undergone a gradual leadership transition to a younger generation, which culminated in Hun Sen handing the prime ministership to his son Hun Manet in 2023. As a result, the government's recent actions should not be reduced to domestic political factors.
Second, Cambodia and Thailand have forged a much closer economic relationship over the last decade. Bilateral trade amounted to just $1 billion in 2006; this rose to $4.29 billion in 2024, and the two nations have set an ambitious bilateral trade target of $15 billion by 2027. Similarly, in 2006, there were an estimated 180,000 Cambodian workers in Thailand. In 2024, this had risen to 1.2 million, according to Cambodian government estimates. Remittances from the 1.38 million Cambodian migrants working abroad amounted to $2.95 billion last year. What then explains Cambodia's – or Hun Sen's – willingness to jeopardize such a pivotal economic relationship?
While the border issues faded from regional and international attention after 2011, the border has remained a top national security concern for the Cambodian government. Notably, the 2013 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Preah Vihear temple area, which granted the temple and its surrounding promontory to Cambodia, was never formally implemented. Former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra denied accepting the court's decision and insisted on parliamentary approval of the ICJ judgment, which has not been passed to date. In an indication of the fragile situation at the border, Thai officials did not publicly discuss the possibility of reopening the border checkpoint at the Preah Vihear temple until last year. Negotiations over their overlapping claims area in the Gulf of Thailand resumed in January 2023, but this only reignited the dormant dispute over the island of Koh Kood in the Gulf of Thailand.
Cambodia's willingness to jeopardize its economic relationship with Thailand over the border dispute needs to be viewed in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The invasion highlighted the vulnerability of small states with larger neighbors and their apparent dependence on international law for survival. Cambodia co-sponsored the United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions in 2022. Explaining Cambodia's decision, Hun Sen stated, 'If our neighbors did that to us, would we get angry? We must stand for the principle of law.' On June 15, the Cambodian government submitted an official letter to the ICJ asking it to resolve disputes over four areas of the border with Thailand. However, Thailand has rejected any ICJ involvement, saying that it would prefer to resolve the disputes bilaterally. Accordingly, the Cambodian government cannot solely rely on international law to manage the current dispute.
A small state such as Cambodia has limited options for responding to a national security crisis. Even though the country has been increasing its annual military spending, the Thai military retains an overall advantage in relation to the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. A small state with limited material capabilities thus might resort to an unconventional strategy, such as leaking a phone recording, to influence the trajectory of an escalating dispute. There was precedent for this strategy: leaking phone recordings has long been a mainstay of Hun Sen's approach to Cambodian domestic politics. To make sense of this strategy in the realm of foreign policy, it is important to consider an important lesson that the Cambodian leadership learned about its relationship with Thailand in the wake of Preah Vihear.
This lesson concerned the risk that Thai domestic politics were highly sensitive to anything concerning the Cambodian border and could negatively impact Cambodia's security and economy. Up until the outbreak of the conflict in 2008, the Cambodian government was preoccupied with integrating into the global and regional economy and recovering from decades of conflict. After the Khmer Rouge surrendered at their last stronghold in the Preah Vihear area, the government turned its attention to preserving its cultural heritage in the 2000s. It submitted a letter to UNESCO proposing the temple as a World Heritage Site in January 2006. Pre-occupied with internal affairs, the Cambodian leadership might not have anticipated the extent to which Thai domestic politics would react negatively to UNESCO's decision to list the Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site in July 2008. It also might not have anticipated that the inscription would touch off a border conflict, especially after joining Thailand in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1999.
The Preah Vihear conflict demonstrated the considerable constraint that domestic politics imposed on the actions of the Thai government in its relations with Cambodia, particularly regarding the border. From this perspective, leaking the phone conversation could be a means of exploiting a key Thai weakness: the country's fractious domestic politics. It remains to be seen if this strategy will pay off or backfire for the small state, but it at least has shifted the focus of the discussion onto Thai domestic politics for now. Similarly, Cambodia's submission of an official letter to the ICJ shifts the attention to the Thai side, and whether it plans to adhere to international law. Whether or not all of this works out remains to be seen, but it's a sign that, confronted with limited resources, a small state might choose to deploy unconventional strategies.