ASIA DEMOCRACY CHRONICLES: Scams, Leaks, Border Disputes

This story was produced and published by Asia Democracy Chronicles.

brief military exchange of fire in a jungle on the Thailand-Cambodia border last May 28 has escalated in a territorial row that shows no sign of ending anytime soon. But an incident that happened on the sidelines may well turn out to be key in understanding the sudden political flare-up between two neighboring nations, and the burning of bridges between two powerful families: one from Thailand, the other from Cambodia. 

That incident — a leaked phone call between Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Cambodian Senate President and former Prime Minister Hun Sen – has since overshadowed the border tiff even as Thais and Cambodians continue to exchange insults on social media and Phnom Penh has submitted a petition to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a ruling on three disputed ancient temple complexes, as well as the Emerald Triangle. 

For Paetongtarn, the aftermath has been serious; she was suspended from her PM duties on July 1 as the Constitutional Court investigated whether she had committed ethical violations with the phone call, particularly in telling Hun Sen to ignore a Thai military commander who she said was “on the other side.” The subsequent withdrawal from the coalition government by a major political ally also means the bloc led by Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party in Parliament now has only a razor-thin majority. And while both Thailand and Cambodia are taking hits to their respective economies because of the dispute, the political instability indirectly caused by the leaked call has pummeled that of the former harder.

These have led many to believe the border issue was not really Hun Sen’s top of mind when he leaked the June 15 phone call that – as Paetongtarn’s father Thaksin tells it – the Cambodian ex-premier had requested and made. Although there is an emerging theory in Thailand that the Thai deep state is behind all the ruckus, several local and international observers are leaning more toward the suspicion that by leaking the call, Hun Sen aimed to avert a possible transnational crackdown on the scam hubs proliferating in Cambodia, as well as divert his own people’s attention to growing allegations that these are thriving in connivance with local authorities.

Whether or not that suspicion is correct is anyone’s guess. Hun Sen himself has explained his decision to leak the call and cut ties with the Shinawatras (he had even once appointed Thaksin, then in exile, as economic adviser) by saying that “they betrayed me, so now I must expose them.” Interestingly, he remarked that Paetongtarn had said that the border closures begun by the Thai military on June 7 were targeted at “suppressing scams, when in fact your intention was aggression.”

Scam centers and casinos

In any case, just this June 26, the international rights watchdog Amnesty International released a report in which it accused the Cambodian government of “deliberately ignoring a litany of human rights abuses including slavery, human trafficking, child labor, and torture being carried out by criminal gangs on a vast scale in more than 50 scamming compounds located across the country.”

Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard went further by saying that the criminal enterprises “are operating with apparent consent from the Cambodian government.”

Last April, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) also released a report that among other things showed a map of “known and reported” scam centers in Cambodia, as well as in Laos and Myanmar.

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who is on self-exile overseas, posted on X at the end of June: “Hun Sen’s fury on Thailand stems from the Thai determination to defeat the organized crime in Cambodia which sustains his regime. His nationalist rhetoric is designed to distract the public.”

On June 27, Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Vice Minister Ras Chaleechan posted on Facebook, saying in part: “I want to ask, has anyone noticed anything about the news on the Thai-Cambodian conflict recently? Lately, whether it’s about releasing phone call audio clips (which no leader with manners and national dignity would do), saying that the Thai PM will change in three months, spoken by a leader of another country. And most recently threatening to reveal more things – I’ve noticed that it barely mentions or is directly related to border disputes.”

“This indicates,” Ras continued, “that:  In reality, the border issue is not the main cause of the Thai-Cambodian conflict.  The true objective of the Cambodian leader is likely to undermine the current Thai government to bring about a change in government, or what is called a regime change.”

“As for why he wants to undermine our current government,” the Thai official wrote, “part of the answer probably lies in the Thai government’s serious policy of suppressing all forms of illegal businesses around our country, which have caused great suffering to many Thais, directly hitting their livelihood. This also includes the entertainment complex policy that neighboring countries don’t want to see happen, because if it succeeds, theirs would likely struggle to compete.”

The “entertaining complex policy” Ras was referring to is the Paetongtarn administration’s entertainment bill, which includes the setting up of casinos, to boost Thailand’s flagging tourism sector. Many Thais are against the bill because of the casino provision, although the government has said that these would constitute only 10 percent of the proposed entertainment complex. Some observers also believe that Hun Sen was not too keen to see the bill pass, as Cambodia’s own casinos would have yet another rival.

The bill was shelved a week after Paetongtarn’s suspension. Yet that caused another controversy when Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of Pheu Thai’s erstwhile coalition partner Bhumjaithai Party, alleged that it was withdrawn at Beijing’s behest. Paetongtarn denied this, as well as Anutin’s allegation that Chinese tourist numbers to Thailand had dropped drastically because of the bill.

Paetongtarn, who is also the Culture Minister, said that while Chinese President Xi Jing Ping did tell her that he “did not support casinos,” the Chinese leader only said that Beijing “would observe” what Chinese citizens would do in countries that have these.

“Former interior minister Anutin seems to have forgotten that the decline in Chinese tourism is linked to safety issues, not the casino bill,” she added.

Human trafficking and temple feuds

It was, in fact, the trafficking of a Chinese actor from Thailand to a Myanmar scam center that had spooked many Chinese tourists from visiting Thailand. Thai police rescued him from Myanmar in early January, just days after he was reported missing in a Thai border town, but his story nevertheless had thousands of Chinese cancelling their Thailand trips.

By January’s end, China and Thailand, along with Myanmar, were pledging a joint crackdown on the scam hubs in Myanmar. In early February, Thailand cut water and power supplies to Myanmar border areas that were believed to be hosting several scam centers. 

Coincidentally, in February, Thai soldiers in a disputed border area got into an argument with their Cambodian counterparts who had brought some members of their families to a temple there and sang the Cambodian national anthem. 

Weeks later came news that Thailand was thinking of building a wall on the Thai-Cambodia border “to prevent illegal crossings and travels of call-center [workers] as well as drugs and contraband trade.”

Then on May 28, Thai and Cambodian troops at yet another disputed border area exchanged fire; a Cambodian soldier died. By June 1, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet – Hun Sen’s son – announced on social media that Phnom Penh would be asking ICJ for a ruling on Emerald Triangle (Mom Bei), a border area currently shared by Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos, and on the Ta Moan Thom, Ta Moan Tauch, and Ta Krabei temple complexes.

At Thailand’s request, Cambodia agreed to hold the 6th Thai-Cambodia Joint Boundary Committee (JBC) meeting in Phnom Penh on June 14-15, but said that the areas it was submitting for an ICJ ruling were off the table. 

Cambodian media would later also report that Phnom Penh asked Thailand to join it in its ICJ petition. Bangkok has denied having been approached with such a request, however. 

Thailand has steadfastly declined to recognize the ICJ’s jurisdiction on such matters, preferring bilateral negotiations. In 1962, ICJ ruled in Cambodia’s favor regarding the Preah Vihear temple. It reaffirmed this decision in 2013, but as historian Milton Osborne noted, ICJ “effectively ruled that the topographic ‘peninsula’ on which the Preah Vihear temple is built is Cambodian territory while land beyond the peninsula is Thai.”  

Cambodia submitted its latest petition to ICJ on June 15, while the JBC meeting was ongoing. The controversial phone call between Paetongtarn and Hun Sen took place the same day. 

Bilateral bickering

Established under a 2000 Memorandum of Understanding, the Thai-Cambodia JBC through the years has managed to locate 48 of the 73 border markers planted more than a century ago, based on “a series of conventions and treaties signed between the French protectorate of Cambodia and Siam [Thailand’s previous name] between 1903 and 1907,” according to political scientist Nicole Jenne.

“Of these,” Jenne wrote in a 2017 paper, “33 had been agreed upon and 15 were scheduled to be dealt with in future negotiations.”

Those “future negotiations” presumably include last June’s JBC meeting. In its official statement after the meeting, Thailand said in part, “Both sides agreed on the result of fact finding mission for 74 BPs, in which the location of 45 boundary pillars mutually agreed upon and also agreed to use LiDAR technology for the production of Orthophoto Maps to expedite the survey and demarcation process.”

Cambodia’s own official post-JBC meeting statement made no mention of the markers. A Thai delegation member said that Cambodia declined to issue a joint statement.

Another JBC meeting is scheduled for September in Bangkok. But Hun Manet has reportedly said that “there will be no more JBC or bilateral meetings if Thailand does not unilaterally restore the border crossings to normal.”

So far, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where both Thailand and Cambodia are members, has yet to make a move to help ease the tensions between the two countries. That is, save for separate phone calls that Malaysian Prime Minister and current ASEAN Chair Anwar Ibrahim said he made in early June to his Thai and Cambodian counterparts to convey his “appreciation for their commitment to resolving the ongoing border issue through negotiations and diplomatic channels.”

More recently, China has offered to mediate in the Thai-Cambodia border tiff. According to Reuters, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi brought up the matter with Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa at an ASEAN summit in Malaysia. Wang also broached the topic separately to Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, Reuters reported, and “emphasized security measures to protect Chinese and Cambodians,” as well as “calling for tougher action to ‘completely eradicate the tumor’ of cross-border crimes such as online gambling, wire fraud, counterfeiting and smuggling.”