Cambodia Denies Hosting Chinese Naval Base, but Two Ships Raise Suspicions
Two Chinese navy corvettes have been docked at Ream Naval Base almost continuously since December
REAM, Cambodia—Residents of this village on the Gulf of Thailand say they have been warned not to talk about the big expansion taking place at the nearby naval base or the two hulking gray Chinese warships docked there, dominating the waterfront. On a wooded hilltop dotted with Buddhist shrines that overlooks the base, security arrived quickly to tell visitors not to take photos.
But the two Chinese navy corvettes, which arrived in December, are hard to miss. Docked at a 1,000-foot pier, they are visible from the village’s main road. Initially, the Cambodian military said the ships were there to help with training.
More than half a year later, they are still there, serving as evidence to many in Washington that China’s military has set up a permanent foothold in a waterway that is set to play a key role in any conflict over Taiwan or the South China Sea.
Officials in Washington have been watching the base closely in recent years. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that the Chinese and Cambodian governments had signed a secret agreement allowing Beijing to base its naval vessels there. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in early June, the first time a Pentagon chief has ever visited the country outside of regional summits, according to the American embassy in Cambodia.
While China’s global military footprint pales in comparison to that of the U.S., the ships at Ream show the growing capabilities and ambitions of Beijing’s armed forces. Cambodia is China’s closest partner in Southeast Asia, with a coveted location near waters claimed by Beijing and a half dozen of its neighbors to the south.
Ream is connected to Cambodia’s capital by a $2 billion Chinese-funded expressway that opened in 2022. The naval base is now dotted with construction cranes, and the view through its southern gate reveals an extensive worksite covered with rubble.
“There has been massive construction,” said a fisherman as he and his crew loaded blocks of ice onto their boat, which was tied up on a palm-lined beach near where the ships are moored.
A Ream resident with relatives who work on the base said that Chinese construction workers, who are bused in at night, have been assisting in the redevelopment work. The base is now divided, with an area reserved for the Chinese navy and a separate area for the Cambodian navy, the resident said.
“The Chinese navy doesn’t want Cambodian workers and navy to go close to its part,” the resident said.
Expanding presence, shifting explanation
Cambodia has offered varying explanations for the presence of the Chinese ships. After first saying they were there to help with training, Cambodia later said the Chinese were also helping to prepare for military exercises between the two countries in May. But after those drills wrapped up, satellite images from Maxar Technologies showed the two corvettes were still docked there.
The ships appear to have left the base at times. Satellite imagery showed the pier was empty during brief periods in January and March, according to an April report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.
Cambodia’s defense ministry, which didn’t reply to comment requests, said in May that the country was in the market to buy type 056 corvettes from China—the model that has docked in Ream and which China has sold to Algeria, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Asked about the ships and the base expansion, Beijing said it was there at Cambodia’s request. “China supports Cambodia in advancing the Ream Naval Base upgrade and reconstruction project, which is conducive to enhancing Cambodia’s ability to safeguard national independence and sovereignty,” China’s Foreign Ministry said. “It is the result of mutual respect and equal consultation between China and Cambodia.”
When Austin visited Cambodia, he raised the prospect of reviving military ties with Cambodia, according to the Pentagon, which didn’t address whether he posed questions about a Chinese presence at the Ream Naval Base. President Biden expressed concerns about China’s use of the base during a visit to Cambodia for regional summits in 2022.
China and Cambodia have both vigorously denied the Journal’s 2019 reporting that they had signed a secret deal granting China’s military exclusive use of part of a naval installation. Since then, China’s presence at the Ream Naval Base has only grown more conspicuous.
Two years ago, Cambodia’s then Defense Minister Tea Banh swam in the Gulf of Thailand with China’s ambassador to Phnom Penh ahead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony to inaugurate extensive upgrades to the base. The refurbishment, which China has funded and helped carry out, included plans for the construction of two new piers, a warehouse and maintenance and repair facilities.
Over the past two years, satellite images show the construction of a new wharf, dry dock, administrative buildings and what appear to be living quarters, complete with basketball courts, according to the CSIS report. Two U.S.-funded buildings were demolished at the site despite an American offer to pay for upgrades to one, the Pentagon said in 2021.
More than 2,000 Cambodian and Chinese military personnel participated in the recent large-scale military exercises, known as Golden Dragon. The two weeks of exercises, which included demonstrations of the latest Chinese rifles and drones and counterterrorism and antipiracy drills, ended in late May.
Keeping the U.S. ‘out of the fight’
The U.S. and Cambodia had a fraught relationship during the Cold War. Large-scale American bombings beginning in the late 1960s to target communist insurgents and their North Vietnamese allies killed tens of thousands of civilians and left a legacy of deadly ordnance and toxic chemicals.
Modest improvements in ties between the U.S. and Cambodia have again deteriorated as the Southeast Asian nation has grown closer to China, the source of major infrastructure investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Those projects include Cambodia’s largest airport, which opened last year in the tourist center of Siem Reap, and a proposed canal that would link the Mekong River with the Cambodian coast, reducing dependency on Vietnam for shipping.
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Cambodia’s close relationship with China makes it tough for U.S. officials to make headway with the country. “There is nothing much Lloyd Austin could push without unnecessarily ruffling the Cambodians’ feathers,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. The Cambodians “are trying to argue that they are being maligned. They feel they are being victimized by the Sino-U.S. rivalry and they keep insisting that they are independent.”
While Cambodia says China doesn’t have exclusive access to Ream, no other foreign navy has visited since it was upgraded. Japanese navy ships that visited this year berthed at the commercial port in the nearby city of Sihanoukville, said John Bradford, executive director of the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies, a nonprofit in Japan.
The Ream pier appears very similar to a facility at a Chinese military base in Djibouti, strategically located on the Horn of Africa, said Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
The Ream pier has been lengthened and appears to be capable of handling all but the largest ships in China’s fleet, according to analysts, which now includes two operational aircraft carriers. But some cautioned that the depth of the berths and capacity of shoreside facilities are still unclear.
The base gives China a presence closer to the Strait of Malacca, which like the Red Sea is a chokepoint for the transport of goods and energy supplies at sea that could be squeezed in a conflict. It could also play a role in any fight over Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory.
“This new base serves as a platform for potential military action during a Taiwan contingency,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington. “China’s goal is to impede U.S. forces from safely transiting through the Malacca Strait to China’s periphery, in effect keeping them out of the fight.”
Warren P. Strobel in Washington and Sun Narin in Ream, Cambodia, contributed to this article.
Write to Austin Ramzy at austin.ramzy@wsj.com
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Appeared in the July 1, 2024, print edition as 'Chinese Ships in Cambodia Raise Suspicions'.