China and Cambodia have maintained close military contacts over the years, and just recently China and Cambodia will hold a joint military exercise, which is the sixth time that China and Cambodia have held a joint military exercise on this theme, which is enough to see the closeness of military cooperation between China and Cambodia!
In addition to military cooperation, China and Cambodia have also had a lot of infrastructure and economic exchanges in recent years, and just in recent years Cambodia has been seeking Chinese help in building the Dechong-Funan Canal project.
This canal is an artificial canal dug southwest on the basis of the Mekong tributary on the Cambodian side, and this canal will play a vital role in Cambodia's domestic logistics and transportation, but it has been opposed by Vietnam and the United States!
Vietnam's opposition to Vietnam's lower Mekong and Cambodia's neighbor may be legitimate, but why should the United States get involved? What does this canal mean for China?
Why did Cambodia build this canal?
The Dechong-Funan Canal is a canal that the Cambodian government plans to dig along the old river channel southwest on the tributary of the Mekong River, cross most of Cambodia, and flow this tributary river to the southwest mouth of Cambodia.
After the completion of this canal, it will become an important transportation route on the water in Cambodia, which can change the embarrassing situation that Cambodia is almost unable to carry out maritime trade although it is backed by the sea!
According to Cambodia's current economic strength and infrastructure capacity, they simply cannot build such a canal, so the Cambodian government turned to China, which has strong infrastructure capacity and has very good relations with Cambodia.
With the attitude of supporting Cambodia and China-Cambodia friendship, China offered a half-sell-half-giveaway, and China's offer for the construction of the canal was $1.7 billion! And this fee does not have to be paid directly by the Cambodian government, but is offset by the operating expenses of the canal for 50 years!
For China, in addition to making a long-term profit through the operation of the canal, China's Yunnan, Tibet and other regions can also open up an outlet to the Mekong River!
If China manages well, China can develop a trade zone and economic belt along the river even in the Mekong Basin, which is not a difficult task for hard-working and research-oriented Chinese businessmen!
Therefore, for China and Cambodia, this canal is completely a win-win deal, and China's favorite thing to do is a win-win situation, and for Cambodia, it is equivalent to paying nothing, picking up an important water transportation hub for nothing!
In addition, if Cambodia really succeeds in building this canal, and also improves the transportation conditions of the Mekong River, so that the canal can connect the upstream to China, then they can even get huge benefits by transshipment goods from the upstream!
Why did the United States and Vietnam oppose the construction of this canal?
When something is born, there are always beneficiaries and victims, and Vietnam is precisely the biggest loser of profits. In the absence of an inland canal in Cambodia, if their domestic goods want to be exported by sea, they can only go down the Mekong River to the downstream Vietnamese ports to go to sea!
For this reason, Cambodia has to pay a lot of tolls to Vietnam, and it is often stuck by Vietnam, and now after the canal is built, Vietnam will lose a huge annual profit in addition to the tolls, and their intention to pinch Cambodia through the sea will also be completely invalid!
And once the construction of this canal in Cambodia is completed, not only Cambodia will have its own port for freight to go to sea every year, as long as Cambodia charges less than Vietnam, almost all upstream freight will be intercepted by Cambodia!
In addition, Cambodia has dug a tributary of the Mekong River directly to the mouth of the sea in its own country, which will have some impact on the flow of the lower reaches of the Mekong River, so now Vietnam is preventing the construction of the Cambodian Canal on the grounds of protecting the ecological environment of the Mekong River!
In fact, before the construction of the canal, both China and Cambodia conducted a detailed assessment of the ecological environment caused by the canal and determined that it would not affect the downstream ecology.
The reason why the United States opposes the construction of this canal is also very simple: after the completion of this canal, it can make Sino-Cambodian relations closer and increase China's influence in Cambodia, which is completely unacceptable to the United States.
In recent years, the United States has stepped up its investment and construction in Southeast Asia in an attempt to compete with China for influence in the region.
Now that the United States continues to intensify its competition with China in Southeast Asia, it wants to put pressure on China in the southwest direction of China's land. In order to drive a wedge between China and Cambodia, the United States has come up with the theory of its debt trap to scare Cambodia.
However, the friendship between China and Cambodia is unbreakable, and it is by no means something that can be destroyed by simple instigation by outsiders, and Cambodia is not a fool that everyone fools.
Therefore, the United States' attempt to comprehensively encircle China and create a geopolitical conflict for China will certainly end in failure. The contract for the construction of the canal between China and Cambodia has been signed, and the canal construction plan cannot be lost, so no matter how opposed Vietnam and the United States are, no one can stop our cooperation without triggering any national interests!