Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday said potential closures of garment factories in coming months would be due to novel coronavirus quarantine measures cutting manufacturers off from Chinese materials suppliers, not the result of the E.U. suspending trade benefits.
UPDATED 9:25 a.m. — Prime Minister Hun Sen has opted to travel to Beijing on Wednesday, instead of China’s Wuhan, where a new strain of a respiratory virus that has spread to more than 20 nations was first detected, he said in a Facebook post on Wednesday morning.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday reaffirmed his decision not to evacuate Cambodians from China, where more than 300 people have died from a new strain of a respiratory virus, and vowed to visit citizens in Wuhan, where the virus was first detected.
Pressure from foreign states was forcing Cambodia to choose friends and enemies in the international arena, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Friday, repeating his frequent claim that the government would not exchange its sovereignty for aid from any country.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said the government has improved democracy, rights and the rule of law in Cambodia — despite “external pressures” — and there was “no justifiable reason” for outsiders to call for “restoring democracy and human rights” in the country.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday repeated a warning that Cambodia’s political opposition will be extinguished if the E.U. suspends duty-free trade, because the bloc will no longer have enough sway in the country to protect the party.
News media should dare to speak the truth — especially against the “fake news” spread by “the outlawed rebel group and opportunists with foreigners behind them,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a letter to the Cambodian Editor Forum.
Cambodia and the U.S. have been through “ups and downs” together, but their bonds of friendship can still be renewed, Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote in a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Asia Pacific Summit, convened at Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh Peace Palace on Tuesday, saw the prime minister boast of the country’s rule of law and pluralistic democracy, and receive a good governance and leadership award.
Several commentators were incredulous that Prime Minister Hun Sen would go so far as to restore the outlawed CNRP to appease the EU, Cambodia’s biggest export partner.
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