The Boeung Kak development has been the most often cited negative example of Chinese investment in Cambodia since 2006. All NGO reports and Western news articles talk about how Boeung Kak Lake has been given to a secretive Chinese company to develop, which has started to move residents out but then stalled amidst their opposition. The case is cited as an example of environmental malfeasance (turning a lake into luxury real estate), cultural insensitivity (the area is said to be of symbolic significance to Phnom Penh residents), rights violations (forcible evictions without proper compensation), greedy tycoons and venal officials in cahoots with China (the developer, Shukaku, is owned by Lau Meng Khin, an ethnic Chinese business strongmen close to the dictatorial prime minister). A Sino-Khmer businessman assured me that the development was certainly not off the agenda, as Prime Minister Hun Sen personally supported it, and that it stalled simply because of the financial downturn and lack of investors.
Now, unusually, the generally nationalistic Global Times, an offshoot of People’s Daily, published an article that cites a Voice of America report and a Phnom Penh Post article alleging that locals are so angry about the affair that they want to boycott Chinese goods. The Phnom Penh Post reported that Shukaku recently signed a partnership with 鄂尔多斯鸿骏, a company from Inner Mongolia, which agreed to invest $40 million. Hun Sen initialed the agreement, which, according to Chinese media reports cited by the Post, was “part of a US$3 billion package of investment deals that also included a 750-megawatt power station in Sihanoukville,” presumable a coal-fired plant also owned by a Lau Meng Khin company in the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone, “and a bauxite exploration project in Mondulkiri province.”
The lakeside development… rights groups say will ultimately displace more than 4,000 families … . Protests by Boeung Kak residents have become a weekly occurrence in Phnom Penh … villagers charge that they are being denied market value in compensation for their homes. (…)
“We will starve to death if they do not find a solution for us and
forcibly evict us from our homes,” 32-year-old lakeside resident Naon Sok Nen said yesterday. City Hall claims around 2,000 families from the lack have already accepted compensation packages. Those facing eviction have received varying compensation options, including cash payments of $8500.
According to Global Times, the demonstrators who demanded more compensation were paid by an NGO that “did not want to be named” to join the protest. The article makes the impression that this too is gleaned from the Post, but this is not the case. Global Times ominously, but in this case correctly, writes that the protests have been organised by “some human rights groups inside and outside Cambodia,” leaving no doubt that once again we are dealing with a Western plot to undermine China.
The article generated some discussion: over 6,000 people posted or reacted to around 160 comments to date. The most popular comment recommends the demolition team to go to Japan instead of Cambodia. But interestingly, aside from this anti-Japanese but irrelevant comment, the next most popular ones reflect that Chinese readers are not “buying” the account. They are critical both of the company and what they see as China “exporting” the way it deals with resettling populations, using the affair to criticise the government and thus in fact linking the investment to state behaviour in the same way as Western critics often do.
Exporting China's Development to the World 