Cambodia and Her Neighbours

Bibliographic Data

ID2906037
AuthorsMichael Leifer (The University of Adelaide, corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume34
Issue4
Pages361
Publication date1961-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePacific Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0030-851X • E-ISSN: 1715-3379
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2752628
OpenAlexW2333403662
LanguageEN
Citations received7

A MONG THE SUCCESSOR STATES of Indo-China, Cambodia stands out in its attitude towards the former colonial power. The French are regarded with less bitterness than might be expected. One explanation for this attitude is that the establishment of the protectorate over Cambodia by France in i863 is believed to have preserved the independent identity of the country from the territorial aggrandisement of hostile neighbours to the east and west. Located at the southern end of the Indo-Chinese peninsula and opening out on the Gulf of Siam, Cambodia has common boundaries with Laos, Thailand and South Vietnam. The two latter countries, Thailand to the West and South Vietnam' to the east, have sustained over the years a variety of belligerent relationships with their mutual neighbour. These unhappy relationships, which more recently have been aggravated because of Cold War alignments, periodically erupt into open conflict. One such episode, involving both Thailand and South Vietnam, occurred in October i96i when Cambodia suspended diplomatic relations with the former country and was involved in troop clashes on the borders of the latter. The era of Khmer (Cambodian) dominance in the area known as IndoChina produced the monumental structures of Angkor, but was broken by Thai (Siamese) pressure from about the twelfth century on. These pressures were intensified until, after I42I, with the capture of Angkor, the removal of the capital elsewhere and the termination of religious building, Khmer power and culture went into steady decline. From the seventeenth century the Vietnamese (Annamese) began to undermine Cambodian authority in the east and by I70i had acquired Saigon and the Mekong delta. Cambodia was, thus, wedged between two competing forces with Vietnam succeeding in establishing the major suzerainty. In the nineteenth century the struggle for territorial inheritance was relieved only by the interposition of the French and the establishment of the protectorate. In Vietnam, provinces which had in former years been recognised as part of Cambodian dominion were both ceded to, and occupied by, the French authorities who incorporated them eventually in i874 into the separate colony of Cochin-China. In i887 the French signed a treaty with Thailand by which the latter renounced all claims to Cambodia in return for the French (acting on behalf of Cambodia) abandoning claims to certain westerly provinces, notably those of Battambang and Siem Reap

Geography · Political science · Cambodian History and Society · History · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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