Thailand-Cambodia Conflict: Open-ending the truce is better than full-scale war

The Thailand-Cambodia truce which began July 29 is fragile but holding. It gives hope that conflict parties use the agreement as an opportunity to negotiate a long-term solution to the border conflict.

While guns are silent, conditions are susceptible to the resurgence of violence. Military units on both sides maintain positions without a third-party peacekeeping force to act as a buffer. The Thai army vows no retreat from 11 border positions. Cambodia also reinforced its military presence in border zones a day after the truce was agreed upon.

Between the two frontline forces are issues of un-retrieved corpses of Cambodian soldiers, other Cambodian soldiers held by Thai forces as prisoners-of-war, and landmines that date back to the Cambodian civil war and Vietnamese invasion against the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, displaced communities have lost opportunities for cross-border economic exchanges.

The points of contention are the Preah Vihear and Ta Muem Thom temples, ancient temples dedicated to the Lord Shiva. The majority of Thais and Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists who do not worship the Hindu deity. The border conflict has nothing to do with religion. It is about claims of sovereignty over cultural heritage and the pieces of territory around the temples etched in colonial cartography. These are competing claims that can go on for a long time, as it had been, without use of force and mainly through international arbitration of the International Court of Justice.

The July 24 escalation of violence was not driven by renewed desire for territorial conquest. It was triggered by internal struggles of power and rule. In Thailand, it was an opportunity for the Thai military, royalists, and the Yellow Shirt movement to dislodge the Shinawatra political dynasty.

In Cambodia, it was an opportunity for Hun Sen to secure indispensability and further solidify clan-based political succession with nationalism as a banner. His son, Hun Manet, is the Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. His other son, Hun Manith, is Head of Military Intelligence at the Defense Ministry. The youngest son, Hun Many, is Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Civil Service as well as President of the Union of Youth Federation of Cambodia. Hun Sen himself is in charge of the Cambodian People’s Party and Head of the Senate with authority to sign bills into law and act as head of state if the King is out of the country.

National political stakes do not necessarily represent the interests of the local people living near and around the temples and other zones along the 817-kilometer border. Communities on both sides use the border not as a barrier but as a bridge for social and economic exchanges. According to the International Organization for Migration, 251,312 Cambodians crossed over to Thailand while another 199,950 crossed back to Cambodia in May 2019.

This number pertains only to official movement based on records of border passes and passports. In July 2019, in two border posts alone (Ou Anlouk and O Rumdoul), 40,774 Cambodians crossed the border on foot (71.5%), by motorbike (16.5%), and the rest by car or by bicycle. The more than 260,000 people displaced on both sides of the border are eager to return to their homes and resume social and economic exchanges.

Neither Cambodia nor Thailand is prepared to engage in costly wars of conquest. No ASEAN member-country has waged war on another since the association was formed in 1967. (The 1978-1989 Vietnam-Cambodia war occurred when both countries were not yet members of the ASEAN.) There are larger stakes beyond internal struggles of power. Both countries can inform decisions based on broader national economic interests and welfare of citizens.

A full-scale war could propel the conflict into the orbit of US-China geo-political contests in Southeast Asia beyond the control of ASEAN. Thailand is one of only two countries in Southeast Asia (the other being the Philippines) with a bilateral security agreement with the United States. The military assistance agreement signed on Oct. 17, 1950 is reinforced by the Thanat-Rusk communiqué in March 1962 wherein the United States promised to come to Thailand’s aid if there is aggression by neighboring nations. The 1966 US-Thai Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations also gives special rights and benefits to American citizens and companies who wish to establish their businesses in Thailand.

China has big interests to protect in Cambodia even as it maintains economic relations with Thailand. It is Cambodia’s largest investor and trade partner. China’s investments in Cambodia averaged $466.75 million annually from 2003, reaching a total of $1.37 billion in 2023. Between January and November 2024, trade between the two countries reached nearly $14 billion. Cambodia also benefits from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) such as Chinese investments in the Sinahoukville Special Economic Zone, Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, and the $1.7-billion Funan Techo Canal that connects Phnom Penh to deep water ports along Cambodia’s coastline, including the Sihanoukville Port, which is also funded by China.

China has bound Cambodia to a basket of agreements: the 2022 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA), and the 2024 China-Cambodia “Diamond Hexagon” cooperation framework to deepen cooperation in various sectors. With the CCFTA, China has eliminated tariffs on 97.53% of Cambodian exports, while Cambodia has removed tariffs on 90% of Chinese imports.

Thailand and Cambodia need to protect economic gains not by war. The Cambodian economy is now worth $46.35 billion, more than 40 times bigger than it was at the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. The GDP per capita as of 2024 was $2,183. Remittances from Cambodian workers overseas rose from $1.15 billion in 2021 to $1.25 billion in 2022 comprising 4.4% of GDP. This has since risen to $2.6 billion in 2022, accounting for 9.2% of GDP, further rising to $2.95 billion in 2024.

Thailand is undoubtedly a bigger economy with a GDP of $526.41 billion and GDP per capita of $6,573 (as of 2024) but it needs migrant workers to ease labor shortages.

Migrant work in fishing, agriculture, construction, domestic work, and other services contributed 4.3% to 6.6% of Thailand’s GDP in 2010. As of 2013, there were 899,658 Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand out of a total of 3.6 million. This number has since grown to over a million in 2017. In 2018, Cambodian migrants comprised 32.12% of the total number of registered migrant workers in Thailand. As of 2021 it had an estimated 1.2 million Cambodian migrant workers.

Internal logics for waging war remain but there are weightier collective reasons for peaceful co-existence.

Ed Quitoriano specializes in peace and conflict studies. He works as senior advisor of the Council for Climate and Conflict Action Asia and principal consultant of Visus Consulting.