United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a blistering condemnation of China this week, accusing it of conducting massive cyberattacks against America and its allies.

“The United States and countries around the world are holding the People’s Republic of China (PRC) accountable for its pattern of irresponsible, disruptive, and destabilizing behavior in cyberspace, which poses a major threat to our economic and national security,” said the top U.S. diplomat in an unprecedented statement.

Significantly, the grave accusations against China were coordinated with U.S. allies in the Five Eyes intelligence group – including Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Beijing dismissed the cyberattack claims as a “huge lie” orchestrated by Washington to stir up “major conflict among countries”. It is notable that similar accusations have been leveled against Russia which is alleged to be a base for cybercrime gangs to extort Western infrastructure companies. It is all part of Washington’s new Cold War agenda to polarize the world into enemy camps.

When Blinken follows through with calls on “our partners and allies to promote responsible state behavior in cyberspace, counter cybercrime, and oppose digital authoritarianism” it is obvious that what Washington is seeking to achieve is the isolation and undermining of China (and Russia).

If China can be smeared as a cyber felon then that serves to scupper Beijing’s strategic ambitions of promoting trade and investment deals under the rubric of its global Belt and Road Initiative. Washington is trying to discredit China as a worthy international partner in its constructing swathes of social infrastructure to developing new-generation telecommunication networks.

The Biden administration has disclosed its priority focus on hampering China as the number one geopolitical rival. The Biden White House is going all out to cleave strategic partnership between the European Union and China. When those two signed a major trade and investment accord at the end of last year, the incoming Biden administration was palpably vexed by the prospect.

Washington’s moves have ever since been about derailing that EU-China deal. It may be posited that Biden is prepared to forgo American objections to Germany’s energy trade with Russia in order to keep Berlin in play for challenging Beijing. China’s rise as an economic superpower is perceived as the “greatest threat” to U.S. global dominance.

So much of American rhetoric is self-projection of its own guilt over malign conduct. Washington accuses China and Russia – with negligible evidence – of cybercrime, espionage and hacking when it is the biggest proven perpetrator. Likewise, Washington accuses its rivals of waging “hybrid warfare”. That too is just another look in the mirror.

Blinken’s foray into alleged China cybercrime this week can be seen as a global front to slander and damage Beijing. But in the arsenal of American hybrid warfare, there are national-level forays to sabotage China’s interests. The sum total is aimed at disrupting the ambitious Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI was launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping and in a short span, it has grown to fuel economic development in over 100 nations, ranging from Southeast Asia to Africa, and from Europe to Latin America. Washington is livid with envy. Talking points often accuse China of using development as a debt trap. But, on balance, the giant investment and economic planning for “people-centered” development do seem to have been a tremendous and, for the most part, welcome success.

China, Russia and Southeast Asia have become a vital engine for the global economy over the next century. Each nation in Eurasia is an important node in the multipolar firmament which is challenging the U.S.-dominated Western order. It is in this context that the United States has taken to destabilizing countries as a way to thwart the China-led BRI and its global juggernaut.

Analysts point to growing U.S. support for political opposition groups in Southeast Asia, such as in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, in conjunction with Western media flagging allegations of human rights violations. Each of these nations has seen colossal investment from China in infrastructure projects to facilitate regional trade and transport. They are key nodes in expanding the China-led BRI.

Wendy Sherman, Blinken’s deputy at the State Department, signaled the U.S. agenda when she arrived in Cambodia last month for what was seen as the most important visit so far to Southeast Asia by the Biden administration.

Sherman’s visit can be viewed as an overture by the United States to disrupt China’s longtime partnership in Cambodia. She claimed that China’s construction projects at the deepwater port city of Sihanoukville were a cover for building a military naval base. China and the Cambodian government reject that claim. They say the development is part of a trade and transport plan to boost Cambodia’s logistical network with the region. Since Beijing launched its BRI projects in 2013, Cambodia was an early participant among Southeast Asian nations and has accrued major economic successes.

The American diplomat “urged Cambodia’s leadership to maintain an independent and balanced foreign policy in the best interests of the Cambodian people.” In other words, this was Washington telling Cambodia to curb its strategic economic partnership with China.

Sherman also notified the Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen that her visit included holding meetings with opposition figures whom Phnom Penh accuse of being sponsored by U.S. government-linked foundations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED has been a major backer of “color revolutions” in various countries which critics say is a polite term for Washington-designated “regime change”.

It takes quite a brass neck for a senior U.S. government representative to fly into a foreign country that has strong political ties with China and then to proceed to lecture the leaders of that country that Washington disapproves of economic partnership with Beijing, and by way of threatening future trouble the U.S. official makes it clear that she is communicating with American-sponsored opposition groups.

Washington’s overarching motive and objective are to try to stymie China’s global economic growth and its strategic partnerships. On one level, the American tactic is a country-by-country effort to unravel BRI as seen in Sherman’s audacious visit to Cambodia. At another level, there is a full-on effort to smear and isolate China internationally as a cyber rogue state and human rights pariah with dubious allegations of genocide against its Uyghur people in Xinjiang province.

China’s vastness as an economic power and its indispensable integration as a global partner with so many nations will not allow the American tactics to work so easily. However, in that case, the upshot of frustration for Washington may lead to direct confrontation with Beijing.

Forty-nine years ago, on the evening of April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon appeared on television to address the nation. Although his administration was in the process of withdrawing US forces from Vietnam, the purpose of Nixon’s presentation was to announce an expansion of the ongoing conflict. As he spoke, American and South Vietnamese (ARVN) combat units were crossing into Cambodia, a nominally neutral country that had long served as a de facto sanctuary and logistics base for the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).

Nixon framed his decision to invade Cambodia as an essential response to an existential threat. “My fellow Americans,” he announced, “we live in an age of anarchy, both abroad and at home.”  The situation was dire, not simply (or even especially) in Southeast Asia, but domestically and globally. “We see mindless attacks,” he continued, “on all the great institutions which have been created by free civilizations in the last 500 years.” Within the United States itself, “great universities are being systematically destroyed” even as “small nations all over the world find themselves under attack from within and from without.”

Then came Nixon’s nut graf, in which the president scaled the Mount Everest of hyperbole:   “If, when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.” Take Nixon’s words at face value and the real mission of the troops entering Cambodia was to avert the collapse of civilization itself.

Most of this was nonsense, of course. By putting a big enough hurt on the NVA, the invasion of Cambodia might buy a bit more time for ARVN to prepare itself to fight without the assistance of US ground troops. That was about the most that could be hoped for. Sadly, however, the operation failed to accomplish even that. After a few weeks, US and ARVN forces withdrew back into South Vietnam. The NVA repaired the damage it had sustained. Overall, the Cambodia campaign proved irrelevant to the war’s ultimate outcome.

At home, meanwhile, Nixon’s decision touched off a wave of protests on campuses across the nation, culminating in the shooting of unarmed student protestors at Kent State University and Jackson State College. Offended at not having been consulted in advance about Nixon’s intentions, the Congress retaliated by rescinding the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution that had first given the previous administration a green light to initiate combat operations in Vietnam. This was an empty gesture, however, which had no practical effect on the events unfolding on the ground.

Except perhaps among those former G.Is who participated, the Cambodian invasion has long since disappeared down the American memory hole. Yet even today in the so-called Age of Trump, I believe that it retains at least modest significance. If nothing else, it offers an instructive example of how wildly inflammatory language serves to camouflage reality and to incite and divide rather than to inform and unify.

The nation is today awash with inflammatory language that might make Nixon himself blush. Some of that language comes from President Trump and his supporters. As much or more emanates from the anti-Trump camp. On both sides, reason has seemingly taken flight. The hysterical tone of public discourse might suggest that totalitarianism, anarchy, and the collapse of Western civilization are lurking right around the corner.

Yet just as that was not the case in 1970, it is not the case today. The United States currently confronts a myriad of challenges, political, economic, diplomatic, and perhaps above all moral.Included among those challenges is the president himself, duly elected but lamentably ill-equipped to fulfill the responsibilities of the office he holds. Yet a mature democracy should fear none of these challenges, which will yield to patient resolve and prudently conceived action—assuming, that is, that those in positions of power and influence will attend to their duties.

In his televised speech about Cambodia, Nixon insisted that it all came down to a question of character. As “the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world,” the United States needed to stand firm in the midst of the current crisis. “If we fail to meet this challenge,” he continued, “all other nations will be on notice that despite its overwhelming power the United States, when a real crisis comes, will be found wanting.”

In fact, however, the Cambodian incursion was not a test of American character, nor was the Vietnam War as a whole. They were expressions of misguided policies devised by a generation of leaders who failed utterly to discern the nation’s actual interests and who blindly proceeded down the road to folly.

Yet arguably, that real crisis of which Nixon warned in 1970 just might be upon us today, a crisis much bigger than Cambodia or Vietnam. Will we be found wanting?   Or will we demonstrate the character needed to set things right?   The preliminary indications are everywhere in evidence and they are not reassuring.

theamericanconservative.com

Washington’s friends in Southeast Asia, with only a few exceptions, have had a difficult time in recent years. Their favourite billionaire-politician Thaksin Shinawatra has been repeatedly ousted from politics in Thailand, Anwar Ibrahim now resides in jail in Malaysia and prospective friends in The Philippines and Indonesia appear more interested in doing business, or at least in smoothing over relations with Beijing, than investing too deeply in Washington’s various and risky regional projects.

Washington’s Man (Sometimes) in Phnom Penh

Then there is opposition leader Mr. Sam Rainsy of Cambodia. The US State Department’s VOA (Voice of America) media platform describes him as “self-exiled.” He has been an opposition politician in Cambodia for decades, and in between inciting unrest and subsequently fleeing abroad to France before being regularly pardoned and allowed to return home, he has served as a constant contributing factor to the nation’s instability.

Rainsy plays a balancing act between tapping into Cambodian nationalism, thus co-opting popular government stances such as cultivating greater ties with China, as well as seeking Western backing to weaken, even topple the government to pave his own way into power.

VOA’s recent article on Rainsy, “Cambodian Opposition Leader Says Europe Considering Sanctions,” does much in explaining the vector he serves through which pressure is exerted upon the ruling circles in Phnom Penh by the West.

The article claims:

Self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy is lobbying the European Parliament (EP) to impose measures on Cambodia in the wake of a concerted government crackdown on dissent and the murder of a prominent government critic last week.

For a political leader to seek foreign sanctions against his own nation, especially in light of the demonstrable damage they have incurred elsewhere around the world, seems to indicate Rainsy’s motivation is less in serving the Cambodian people, and more in serving himself. For the Cambodian voters he seeks to court in upcoming elections, the fact that he has attempted to seek favour among the nation’s former colonial rulers in order to place economic pressure on the nation in a bid to place himself into power, seem to chaff against his own previous attempts to use nationalism politically.

In particular regards to “the murder of a prominent government critic,” VOA admits it is only “believed” to be a government-sponsored killing.

The Guardian in an article titled, “Cambodian PM orders ‘vigorous’ investigation into critic’s killing,” reported:

Kem Ley, a 46-year-old grassroots campaigner, was shot three times at a petrol station in Phnom Penh on Sunday while drinking his morning coffee. His attacker, arrested by police shortly afterwards, was filmed confessing and said the high-profile activist had failed to repay a US$3,000 (£2,322) loan.

It also reported that:

 Large crowds gathered at the petrol station on Sunday to accompany his body, covered by the Cambodian flag, through the streets of Phnom Penh, the capital.

It is curious that the opposition gathered at the crime scene so quickly, and with equal haste, turned his death into a public spectacle, all but preventing a proper forensic investigation from taking place.

That the opposition consisted of members of the National Rescue Party, headed by Rainsy himself, suggests at the very least, crude political opportunism at work, and at worst, invites much more sinister theories surrounding the possible role of the opposition itself in Kem Ley’s death, side-by-side theories promoted by VOA against Cambodia’s sitting government.

Triggering a Colour Revolution

Prime Minister Hun Sen has recently made comments regarding what he called “colour revolutions,” or, instability orchestrated by Washington across  MENA (Middle East and North Africa). It may have been a hint toward his own suspicions that similar manoeuvres are now being aimed at Southeast Asia and Cambodia itself.

These colour revolutions in the MENA region usually reached critical mass after particularly dramatic developments which included, in Tunisia the self-immolation of a street vendor, or sniper fire targeting demonstrations as was the case in Egypt, Libya and Syria.

Sam Rainsy, currently lobbying the European Union for support, which includes measures as drastic as sanctions, along with street demonstrations seeking critical mass, may be further warning signs of a planned colour revolution in the making, and one Prime Minister Hun Sen himself seems to allude to as being driven by the US.

Of course, protesters in the streets are only one element of any potential colour revolution. Armed elements are the other. These elements are usually prepared and deployed covertly, acting as snipers to escalate street protests into increasingly violent confrontations with government security forces until finally, these armed elements can pose as “armed resistance” fighting against government violence they themselves provoked.

For Southeast Asia whose economic rise is rooted in relative regional stability, Cambodia’s political crisis transforming into such a “colour revolution” would jeopardise peace and prosperity for both itself and its neighbours. It would also greatly complicate the developing row between Beijing and Washington, which has so far been neutralised by nations like Cambodia who have refused to side with Washington and drag Asia into a costly conflict with China. Many suspect this is one of the primary driving factors behind the West’s support of opposition figures like Rainsy and various attempts to put protesters in the streets.

However, as has been seen elsewhere around the world, if the opposition can be thoroughly exposed in both means and motivation, and violent elements quickly identified and neutralised before such a “revolution” begins, the destructive destabilisation Prime Minister Hun Sen referred to in recent comments, which consumed the Middle East, can be avoided in Southeast Asia and in Cambodia in particular.

globalresearch.ca

The first day of the trial aginst three senior surviving Khmer Roger leaders was spent by the court reading out half of the indictment. It says that the former leaders of the Pol Pot regime breached not only Cambodian criminal law but he international legislation as well. Among other charges, the former ministers are accused of ordering executions of members of the Lon Nol regime, which had been installed in 1970. Nevertheless, the indictment claims that many executions were 'unintentional', as a result of the defendants` neglect. Other charges include deporation of people, mainly the Vietnamese, illegal imprisoning and torture of tens of thousands of citizens, maltreatment of Buddhist monks and the Cham people. The indictment also blames the Khmer Rouge-controlled Democratic Kampuchea Socialist organization (which ruled Cambodia in 1975-1979) for an unprecedented genocide campaign which led to annihilation of about 20% of the country's population. The defendants deny all the charges.

(Oh photo, left to right: Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith – major defendants in Case №002 of the International Tribunal for Cambodia)

It must be mentioned that unlike media reports claiming that the Khmer Rouge regime is blamed for a genocide against its own nation, the court`s indictment tells us about the extermination of the Vietnamese people, not the Khmer (who make nealry 5% of Cambodian population). Also, unlike newspaper articles which say that the Khmer Rouge movement persecuted everyone who they believed was unloyal to their ideology, the indictment gives cautious statements, which describe the victims of the regime as people who 'died of starvation and malnutrition caused by the Socialist policies'. A few weeks which preceded the beginning of the process were quite tense for both the court and the UN which, actually, established the tribunal. Media reports appeared in July saying that the UN asked international judges working for the Tribunal to stop further investigation into the Khmer Rouge crimes. Although the UN denied the reports as false, the way things unfolded further proved that some difficulties did take place. In October the court ruled out that Andrew Cayley, co-prosecutor of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal, should recall his request for further investigation. The court said that Cayley had violated the principle of confidentiality, but the prosecutor responded by saying that he had been guided by another principle which is about informing the public on how the court proceedings were going on. Human Rights Watch then demanded the resignation of two judges (a Cambodian and a foreigner) responsible for investigating possible new cases. Cambodia`s Foreign Minister said that it is up to his country, and not the international tribunal, to decide whether to hold further investigation or not. A few days later, German judge Siegfried Blunk, responsible for indictments of Khmer Rouge war crimes suspects at Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal resigned, alleging government interference in the investigation. So, we see that the Cambodian authorities had been trying to control the court`s procedures, while the Tribunal`s aim is to maintain independence. A conflict of interest is obvious. In view of this, it should be stressed that the current Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, has been in office for more than 25 years already, after serving as a foreign minister for the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea starting from 1979! And prior to that, he was among the Khmer Rouge leaders. That is why further investigation may have tragic consequences for Hun Sen as well as for many of his allies. One should not rule out that the financing for the Tribunal was approved only in hope for unseating the longest-ruling Asian leader, who is just 59.

All existing international tribunals, especially those established for this or that country, are being used as a tool for external interference into a state`s home policies, sometimes rather diplomatically, and sometimes in a more dictatorial way. Look at the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Lebanon. Cambodia is not an exception… It means that the way things will unfold at the International Tribunal for Cambodia will demonstrate not just its ability to find out the truth about the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979 but will also determine the future of Cambodia, at least its political future.