VOA Exclusive: US Ambassador Targets Improved US-Cambodian Trade Ties
With the
US-Cambodia relationship in the spotlight, VOA Khmer’s Neou Vannarin sat
down for a comprehensive discussion on Wednesday with William A. Heidt,
the American ambassador in Phnom Penh.
PHNOM PENH—Editor’s note: The leaders of the 10 ASEAN countries,
including Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, are about to travel to an
unprecedented US-hosted meeting with US President Barack Obama at the
Sunnylands estate, California, set for Feb 15-16. The meeting comes as
the US looks to step up its foreign policy initiative known as the
pivot, or the rebalance to Asia, an attempt to counter growing Chinese
influence in the region. The government of Cambodia, which has close
trade and diplomatic ties with China, has said it does not want to pick
sides in a contest between superpowers. With the US-Cambodia
relationship in the spotlight, VOA Khmer’s Neou Vannarin sat down for a
comprehensive discussion on Wednesday with William A. Heidt, the
American ambassador in Phnom Penh. Heidt was sworn in as ambassador on
Sept. 14, 2015, and previously served as economic and commercial officer
at the US embassy in Cambodia from 1997 to 1999.
What are the priority sectors for your mission in Cambodia?
I think Secretary [of State John] Kerry touched on some of the things
we’re most excited about working with Cambodia. He mentioned, of
course, our work together on POW/MIAs [prisoners of war and soldiers
missing in action] over the years; our work on building our
people-to-people relationship; and he also talked about our hope to
build our economic relationship. My specialty in the foreign service for
28 years has really been economic trade and development. I feel very
lucky to be here in Cambodia at a time when really there are a lot of
interesting possibilities to work together more closely on those issues.
So I’m excited about making progress on those trade and economic
issues. I also note that the people-to-people relationship between the
United States and Cambodia is very strong. Of course, VOA helps a lot in
that respect. But there’s a lot of interest in studying in America and
learning about America. And our cultural exchanges—especially some of
the artifacts we have been able to return to Cambodia—that’s also an
area where I think there’s a lot of exciting things we’re going to be
able to do in the next three years.
How do you think the trade relationship between Cambodia and the US can be improved?
The United States is Cambodia’s largest single-country trading partner and largest single-country export market. We already have a big and strong trade relationship. But the trading world is changing now. The United States just signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement with 11 other countries. In fact, we just signed it last week in New Zealand. The text of that agreement is now made public. That’s going to change regional trade. That’s going to drive economic integration in the region.
That agreement is designed with an open architecture. Right now,
we’re focused on getting it through our own Congress—and all the other
parties to the agreement are getting it through their parliaments—but,
eventually, that’s going to be out there as a possibility for Cambodia.
We want to start looking at the issues with Cambodia, working on
concrete steps we can take that will both increase our trade now, but
[also] set Cambodia up, potentially, for some day coming into the TPP.
[That’s] one of the things we talked to [the Cambodian government]
about—we had a very good discussion last week when one of our delegation
from the US Trade Representative’s office was in town. We had a very
good discussion on the possibility of doing a bilateral investment
treaty [BIT]. That’s a treaty that gives American investors in Cambodia
additional legal protections, and the same thing for Cambodian investors
in America. We think that would help Cambodia attract higher-technology
investment that would enable Cambodia to manufacture and export
sophisticated [products] in what they called global value chains. That’s
the way trade works these days. It’s not so much products are made from
one country and exported directly to another. But now inputs come from
many countries and they get assembled in one country. They may get
shipped to a second country for final packaging and consolidation, and
then maybe get shipped to another country yet. So there are these
networks called global value chains, and Cambodia is just starting to
get into them. So what we want to do is—with things like a bilateral
investment treaty—help Cambodia to get into those global production
networks.
I’ll say that both sides are looking at the BIT—we haven’t made any
decisions. The Cambodians are trying to see if it’s in their interest,
and the United States is also looking at that issue as well—whether it’s
in our interest. But I think it’s potentially a very exciting step.
How important are ASEAN and Cambodia to the US?
Well, of course the fact that we’re having the summit—the first time
any US President has ever invited all the leaders of ASEAN to come to
America—is a sign that it is an important region for us. Of course, the
Secretary was just here in Cambodia and Laos. He said when he was here
it was his seventh trip to the region. And that also shows how important
it is.
If you add it up, there are simple reasons why. [ASEAN] is the
world’s seventh largest economy. I believe it’s our fourth largest
trading partner, if you add all the ASEAN countries together. The
economies are growing rapidly in many countries, including Cambodia. So
it’s very natural for us, as we implement the policy we call the
rebalance to Asia—that is, giving Asia the appropriate amount of
diplomatic and economic attention it deserves. As we rebalance to Asia,
it’s very natural that ASEAN is a big part of that, and Cambodia is
right in the middle of ASEAN. So we want Cambodia to be part of that
process. That’s another one of the reasons that the Secretary was here.
We think there’s a lot we can do to improve our relationship. Cambodia
can benefit from integration inside of ASEAN with the United States. So
we’re very excited about that.
Do you think Cambodia will get something from the summit, like improved trade ties with the US?
After the summit itself, which is in Sunnylands, we’re going to have
what we call the trade roadshow. There’s going to be series of meetings
in the San Francisco Bay Area. After the summit, they are going to have
meetings to talk in detail about economic issues, also to meet big US
companies, potential investors in the region, so that all the countries
can have some good meetings with our important economic people out
there. That will be a part of the process. One of the sessions in the
summit is going to deal with innovation, entrepreneurship and economic
growth. So we’re going to have a good discussion on those issues at the
summit as well. I don’t think it’s going to be a concrete announcement.
There’s not going to be new trade agreement announced or anything like
that, but that’s certainly one of the three main topics that are going
to be discussed.
China has been growing in influence in Cambodia in recent years. How does that impact Cambodia’s relationship with the US?
Everyone wants to talk about that now. Look, we’re sophisticated
people. We understand Cambodia wants to have a good relationship with
many countries. We don’t ask Cambodia to choose between China and the
United States or anyone else. We understand, and we wouldn’t like it if a
country asked us to choose either.
We understand that it is in Cambodia’s interests to keep a good,
strong relationship with China and to keep a good, strong relationship
with the United States. I can see, having been here in the 1990s, China
has given Cambodia a lot of assistance on infrastructure. It’s much
easier to get around this country. There are new roads, there’s electric
infrastructure China has helped Cambodia to build. That’s all good. We
understand why Cambodia would be interested in that. But I think, as an
economist, in the next step for Cambodia’s development, America is going
to be very important to it. Those trade ties I described, the
integration—helping Cambodia move up the value chain in manufacturing.
Some observers have expressed concern that the US is not
putting enough pressure on the Cambodian government on human rights,
democracy and governance. How can your mission help on these issues?
To me, at the end of the day, it’s not that different than the
economic side. We hope for step-by-step improvement, just like in the
Cambodian economy. As the Cambodian economy develops, we hope that the
democracy develops too. The Secretary said we want to deepen our
relationship with Cambodia, but we also think that Cambodian people want
a democratic, multi-party system. That’s going to be important. That’s
going to affect the way our relationship develops. To me, Cambodia needs
to just keep making progress on democracy and human rights issues. I
think some of the civil society groups in Cambodia are really very good
for the country. They’ve brought Cambodia a lot of credit
internationally. Supporting civil society groups is something we have
done for 20 years, and we are going to continue to do.
Cambodia has had five elections now. Naturally, we hope that each
election gets a little bit better than the one before. We think that’s
what Cambodian people want too…. I think they want a full multi-party
competitive democracy, and we hope Cambodia will keep moving towards
that.
The political situation is currently quite tense, with
opposition leader Sam Rainsy outside of the country avoiding charges in
the courts. Do you have any suggestions about how to ease the political
tension in Cambodia?
I haven’t actually seen Mr. Rainsy since I’ve been back. He has only
been here for a couple of days since I came to Cambodia as ambassador.
But it struck me that the ‘culture of dialogue,’ if you look at the
original provisions, was a very sensible thing. It’s not, honestly, the
way we do our politics in America. But I thought, for Cambodia, it was a
very sensible way to sort of turn down the political rhetoric, to try
to have open…respectful disagreements. To fight over policy issues, but
not over personalities. Like I say, we don’t have things like the
culture of dialogue in America, but to me I understand why Cambodia did,
and it made a great deal of sense to me.
That was last May when the culture of dialogue came, and it seemed to
break down pretty significantly in October/November. But things are a
little better now. I notice the opposition party is able to work more in
the provinces than it was. It’s doing its things, like a political
party should. But, to me, the question is: Can we get back?…
The first step is a more respectful political discourse, where we’re not
throwing insults at each other, but we’re disagreeing over policy. I
would note, incidentally, that on the Trade Union Law, they are doing
just that. The two parties are working pretty well together and having
very subjective discussions on how to reform the Trade Union Law. So I
think that’s the first step. That will help reduce tensions—to go back
to the principles of the culture of dialogue.
It’s not a natural situation to have the opposition leader in the
situation where he can’t return to Cambodia—or he feels he can’t return
to Cambodia. We’ve made that clear in our statements last Fall. I think
you’d like to see a process that results in him being able to come back
and resume his normal political life, and normal political situation.
Sam Rainsy has asked for President Obama’s help to mediate political discussions. Do you think that can happen?
You’re talking about the letter he wrote. I saw the copy of that
letter. Obviously, we made sure that got delivered to the President
[Obama]’s office. I don’t really know or have a comment for you on how
they’ll react to that. I do think they take it very seriously, but I am
not sure if that’s something we have to do during the Sunnylands
conference or not.
I also think that there’s been some progress recently in Cambodia and
that the parties are talking themselves. While we wait, while we look
at that letter, I think they should continue that talking and, really,
there’s much they can do without mediation as well.
Will the US provide any more funds for the Khmer Rouge tribunal?
The importance of bringing the Khmer Rouge leaders most responsible
for that era to trial, we’ve always supported that. Over the years we’ve
given…over $30 million, which makes us really one of the very largest
contributors, so our record in contributing the tribunal is clear. We do
our funding year by year. The Congress passes budgets every year. We’re
working with the Congress right now on what the size of our
contributions going into the future is going to be. But of course, as
the overall cost of the tribunal comes down, our contributions have gone
down as well.
Why does the US continue to support the tribunal?
That was the darkest era in Cambodia’s history. Those four years,
they continue to affect the country today, in big ways and small ways.
We’ll never know some of the personal trauma. How do you repair that?
All the trauma that millions of Cambodians went through during that
period. My wife was one of those—she was here in Cambodia during the
Khmer Rouge era, so she knows that personally.
The tribunal, of course, isn’t perfect. We agreed early on that we
were going to seek to bring to trial those most responsible for the
crimes of that era. You could argue, what good is it, to try [only the
top leaders]? Why focus on a few older people? But to me, it’s important
to do that, it’s symbolically important, it’s important for the
development of Cambodia’s legal system. It’s important to show
Cambodians from that era, even if they can’t get a full measure of
justice—as we say in America—there is some justice out there. We support
it because it is the right thing to do and we think it’s important for
Cambodia.
We also support, incidentally, other things, and prominent among
those is the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which is really doing a
lot to simply document what happened in that era, which most people
don’t know. Many younger Cambodians don’t really have a full idea of
what it was like to live in Srok Khmer back then, and so the
Documentation Center has put together a lot of good information that is
going to be available for the future generations so that Cambodians can
understand your own history.
It’s a young country and, rightfully so, it’s looking forward. I
think Cambodians are very future-oriented. Honestly, the parts of the
relationship that I am most excited about are those forward-looking
elements. We are trying to do a lot of science and technology, helping
Cambodia on coding and all those 21st century economic skills they’re
going to need. Young people in Cambodia, that’s what they are interested
in, I understand that. But I don’t think one should forget the past
either.
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