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SINGAPORE – Former Singaporean senior diplomat Bilahari Kausikan on Thursday (October 29) dismissed claims by a group of Cambodian diplomats that he is acting as an “agent” for a foreign power.
A group claiming to be made up of retired and active Cambodian diplomats responded to Mr. Kausikan for comments he made at a webinar last Friday (October 23), in which he noted that Cambodia and Laos are “precariously teetering on the brink” of entrusting your agency to an outside power or trying to be passively neutral.
In an unsigned open letter published Tuesday on Cambodia’s pro-government news website Fresh News Asia, whose owner openly declares his support for China, they criticized Kausikan’s “barrage of misleading and flawed claims,” among other things.
In response, the retired diplomat said: “Being (as they point out) ‘senile and forgetful’, I cannot remember what it is about. But not even my confused wit can take seriously an argument that contains the phrase substance … ‘ .
“What were they saying before? Nonsense? I can’t take this rubbish seriously,” added Kausikan, who was permanent secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry.
During the webinar at the 35th ASEAN Roundtable hosted by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute on Friday, he said that neutrality does not mean staying low and hoping for the best.
True neutrality means “knowing your own interests, taking positions based on your own interests, and not allowing others to define your interests for you by default,” he added.
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During the panel discussion, Kausikan noted that ASEAN, for the first time in its history, failed to agree on a joint statement in 2012, because the then Cambodian Foreign Minister rejected any compromise on the South China Sea issue. .
China has overlapping claims with ASEAN members on the disputed waterway.
He also noted that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen later said that supporting China was “Cambodia’s political choice.”
This betrayed Cambodia’s lack of understanding of how the 10-member association works, he said.
“Cambodia’s right to make its own political decisions was never at stake. What was at stake was whether Cambodia had taken regional interest into account to any degree when making that political decision.”
He also said that if Cambodia and Laos make the wrong decisions, Asean as a whole will also face difficult decisions.
“We may have to let go of the two to save the eight (other members).”
[[nid:464189]]His comments drew a strong response from Cambodian diplomats. In an open letter posted on the Cambodian news website Fresh News Asia, they wrote that it is contradictory for Kausikan to postulate that ASEAN is an interstate and not a supranational organization, while at the same time promoting the idea that some member states should be expelled from the regional grouping.
“Somehow, it seems to forget or pretends to forget that ASEAN has never been designed to retain supranational authority to dictate the economic, political and strategic direction of its member states,” they said.
Cambodian diplomats also criticized the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute as a platform for “wolf warriors” to promote a narrative that Cambodia is China’s vassal state.
International analysts consider Cambodia to be one of China’s closest allies in Southeast Asia.
The term “wolf warrior”, named after an action movie, is often used to describe aggressive moves by Chinese diplomats to defend China’s national interests.
He said that as an independent research center, the institute examines long-term trends and challenges facing the region.
“In doing so, we allow individual researchers and guest speakers the freedom to give their own views and insights based on their analysis of the issues at hand.
“We believe in providing this platform to enable and facilitate candid assessments … in order to deepen our understanding of the region and its dynamics.”
This article was first published in The times of the strait. Permission is required for reproduction.
