Cambodia |
Vietnam |
Bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam were for long strained due to the Cambodian-Vietnamese War (1976 - 1990). Both nations have since taken steps to establish friendly ties.
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Cambodia shares a 1,137 kilometres long border with Vietnam in the east and southeast.[1] For much of history, Cambodia was dominated by Vietnam's political power in the region and paid tribute to the rulers of Vietnam.[2] In the 19th century, both states became part of French Indochina. Vietnamese and Cambodian nationalists collaborated to fight French forces during the First Indochina War (1945-54) in order to gain independence.[2] During the Vietnam War, the Communist National Liberation Front guerrillas used Cambodia to launch attacks inside South Vietnam. Another result of this was the US bombing of Cambodian territory in an attempt to deplete Vietnamese forces hiding in Cambodia. This resulted in up to 150,000 Cambodian deaths. (source, Kiernan, B, How Pol Pot Came to Power) With the withdraw of U.S. forces and communist victories in Vietnam and Cambodia by 1975, both Vietnam and Cambodia as well as their northern neighbor Laos came under communist control.[2]
Contrary to expectations in the West, the establishment of communist regimes did not bring Cambodia and Vietnam closer.[2] Rivalry between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge developed into open hostility when the latter blamed Vietnam for the Geneva Agreement of 1962, which did not secure a place for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodian politics.[2] Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot adopted openly anti-Vietnamese stances, seeking to counter fears of Vietnamese domination, and demanded that Vietnam return territory it conquered from Cambodia centuries before.[2] Skirmishes between the two countries broke out even as the Vietnamese Communists seized control of Saigon and Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital.[2] After repeated Khmer Rouge attacks and civilian killings in Vietnamese territory and attempts to start talks failed, Vietnamese forces began a full-scale invasion in December 1978, overthrew Pol Pot's regime and captured most of Cambodia within a month.[2] Vietnam's actions were condemned by the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the People's Republic of China, which engaged in a brief war in 1979 with Vietnam, attempting to discourage Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia.[3][4][2] Pro-Vietnamese Cambodian communists founded the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party, with Vietnamese support. Vietnam, Soviet Union and their allies recognized the PRK as the legitimate government of Cambodia whereas Western countries and China continued to consider Democratic Kampuchea as the government of Cambodia. Vietnam began to withdraw troops steadily in the 1980s and completed the withdrawal by 1990.[2]
Since the 1990s, relations between both nations have begun to improve. Both Vietnam and Cambodia are members of multilateral regional organizations such as ASEAN and the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation. Both nations have opened and developed cross-border trade and sought to relax visa regulations to that end.[1] Both governments have set official targets of increasing bilateral trade by 27% to USD 2.3 billion by 2010 and to USD 6.5 billion by 2015.[5][1] Viet Nam exported USD 1.2 billion worth of goods to Cambodia in 2007. While Cambodia is only the 16th largest importer of Vietnamese goods, Vietnam is Cambodia's third-largest export market.[1]
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