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U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is scheduled to visit Cambodia next month as Washington negotiates with the country’s new U.S.-educated prime minister to wean the country from China.
After attending the Shangri-La Defense Forum in Singapore, Secretary Austin will travel to Phnom Penh on June 4 to discuss Indo-Pacific challenges with U.S. allies and partners and meet for the first time with Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun.
Austin is scheduled to meet in Cambodia with Prime Minister Hun Manet, the son of former leader Hun Sen, who succeeded his father in August 2023, according to three U.S. officials.
He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and New York University. Washington hopes the emergence of a new generation of leaders will encourage the country to cooperate more closely with the United States.
“We are clear about some of our concerns in Cambodia, but at the same time we believe the new leadership will allow us to explore new opportunities,” one U.S. official said.
The stepped-up efforts come amid U.S. concerns over the expansion of the Chinese-built Ream Naval Base, which the U.S. believes is building a permanent naval base in a strategic location off the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. Those concerns have been further heightened by the presence of two Chinese warships at Ream since December.
Cambodia denies the facility is a Chinese base and says the warships are there for joint military exercises. U.S. officials said Washington continues to raise concerns about the naval base.
The second official said Washington also sees an opportunity to work more closely with Cambodia as China spends less money on its Belt and Road infrastructure projects. “Over the past few years, and especially since the pandemic, funding for the Belt and Road has dried up, and Cambodia is one of the countries that has felt the funding shortfall the most,” the official said.
Austin will deliver a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue outlining U.S. efforts to strengthen alliances and partnerships as the United States moves from a “hub-and-spoke” security architecture in the Indo-Pacific to a “lattice” security architecture in which U.S. allies such as Japan, Australia, the Philippines and South Korea cooperate with each other.
The defense secretary is also scheduled to meet for the first time with Tung, who was appointed defense minister in December, and U.S. officials said he will express concerns to Tung about several issues, including China’s increasingly assertive military actions around Taiwan.
Austin is also expected to raise concerns about Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea that lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, where Chinese coast guard ships have used water cannon in recent months to try to block Manila from resupplying troops stationed on the stranded Sierra Madre.
Second Thomas Shoal is expected to be a major talking point at a three-day defense forum hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, especially since Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is scheduled to speak at the event on Friday night.
Austin is also due to meet Singapore’s new Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, and will hold trilateral talks with the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea, as well as meetings with other Southeast Asian leaders.
