Media Eyewitness Cambodia’ Navy Base with no Chinese Military

Short article and photos of Chhay Sophal

Cambodia News

Sihanoukville (26 July 2019): A group of journalists representing national and international news agencies on Friday eyed at Cambodia’s navy base in Ream of the coastal provincial town of Sihanoukville and there is no Chinese military in.

The trip here is organised by the government to proof the media and the world that Ream Navy Base has no any single Chinese soldier.

Puy Kea, a Kyodo News Agency correspondent who is among some 70 journalists on the trip, said that he did not see any foreigner.

“This place is not suitable for foreign military as the space is not big enough for big ship and the water is also shallow,. So how can foreign military base here?” he told Cambodia News.

In its report on 21 July, the Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed U.S official as saying that Cambodia permitted China in a secret deal to use Ream Navy Base for 3 decades with renewals every 10 years and that China can post its military personnel, store weapons and berth warships.

Ream Navy Base – one of the only two navy bases in Cambodia — was built in 1954, a year after Cambodia got Independence from France. Another one is in Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian government has strongly rejected the report saying that it’s the worst “Fake News” of the paper.

General Chhum Socheath, Defence Ministry Under Secretary of State and Spokesperson who accompanied the journalists said nothing is hidden here.

“We open our heart to show the world that we have nothing like what the report said,” he told journalists at the Ream Navy Base.

Prime Minister Hun Sen early this week also denied the reports saying that there is no such thing in his sovereign nation.