Welcome back to Global Insider’s Friday feature: The Conversation. Each week a POLITICO journalist shares an interview with a global thinker, politician, power player or personality. This week, D.C.-based China Correspondent Phelim Kine talks to Cambodia’s diplomatic power couple in the U.S. about their roles representing a one-party authoritarian country at a time when the Biden administration is rallying allies and partners in a global pro-democracy face-off with China and Russia.

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In January, the career Cambodian diplomats Sophea Eat and Keo Chhea ended a 14-year stretch of separation in different foreign postings when Eat took a post as the Southeast Asian country’s ambassador to the U.N., moving to the U.S. where her husband Keo has been serving as Cambodia’s top diplomat in Washington since 2022. Their postings coincide with intense U.S. interest in Cambodia and other ASEAN member countries as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to rally regional support for its strategy to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.

That’s no cakewalk for the two envoys. The Biden administration is dismayed by Cambodia’s spiral into an increasingly repressive one-party authoritarian state that last month barred the country’s main opposition Candlelight Party from participating in the general election in July. The U.S. is also concerned that Cambodia is allowing Beijing to build a naval base on the Gulf of Thailand for exclusive use of China’s military. But President Joe Biden has also been appreciative of Cambodia’s support for U.S.-backed U.N. resolutions against Russia’s war against Ukraine over the past 15 months.

Keo and Eat have navigated difficult Cambodian foreign ministry internal politics under Prime Minister Hun Sen, the authoritarian leader who has ruled the country since 1985. Eat began her career that same year in the ministry’s Information Bureau and has risen to positions including Cambodia’s ambassador to Thailand and secretary of State for Asia-Pacific affairs. Keo’s foreign service chops include stints as first secretary in the Cambodian embassies in India and Brunei as well as positions representing Phnom Penh in ASEAN’s headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia.

I spoke with Keo and Eat about Cambodia’s efforts to balance its relations with China and the U.S., the Cambodian government’s ongoing crackdown on political dissent and independent media, and the prospects of the country becoming a dynastic dictatorship under Hun Sen’s politically ambitious son, Hun Manet.

How is the U.S.-Cambodian relationship doing these days?

KEO: It used to be bumpy, but after Cambodia’s successful chairing of the 2022 U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit, and our demonstration of our real position as a neutral country, U.S. politicians understand that we aren’t on the Chinese side and that has improved bilateral relations a lot.

We are not pro-Chinese per se, as the media in the U.S. says, but we need to survive. We believe in relations with the West and the U.S. But where are you? We need to do business with both sides and the Chinese are here, but where is the U.S.? Cambodian children are eager to study in the U.S. And even our leaders, all their children study either in the U.S., Australia or Europe, not in China.

The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy aims to explicitly counter China’s influence in the region. How does that affect Cambodia?

EAT: We feel under pressure. We know that the U.S. has great apprehension about China’s increasing power projection, but what we can do is provide some forum for all these powers to come together and work for the common good. We support the Indo-Pacific Strategy or any strategy that promotes peace, stability and progress in the region.

What we cannot accept is any strategy that would harm progress and stability in the region. We hope that the Indo-Pacific Strategy will avoid forcing us in a corner. We are trying to be friends with everyone. The Chinese provide a lot of investment in terms of infrastructure, and the U.S. is our largest market, so we need both to coexist and benefit equally. Cambodia is seen as a Chinese client state, but it’s just a small boat trying to maneuver in a sea of many big ships.

The U.S. is concerned that the Chinese government is developing Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base into a platform for the Chinese military. What do you say to that?

Keo: We are not going to allow them to build any naval base in our country. It’s against our constitution. And our prime minister in a meeting at the White House declared that Cambodia will never allow any Chinese naval base.

The Cambodian government has banned the main opposition party from competing in the general election in July, sentenced its leader Kem Sokha to 27 years in prison on what the U.S. says are politically motivated treason charges and has shuttered most of the country’s independent media outlets. How do you defend that record?

EAT: I’ve lived in this world for nearly six decades and gone through many different regime changes and lots of suffering, including genocide. I have gone through times when we did not have human rights at all during the Khmer Rouge time. So look around to see if there is anyone better than Hun Sen right now. I would vote for anyone who could do better than him.

But we are careful about drastic change. And Cambodia is not led by just one man.

Cambodia’s status as a one-party authoritarian state puts it on the wrong side of Biden’s narrative of a global “battle between democracy and autocracy.” How do you navigate that as Cambodia’s official representatives in the U.S.?

EAT: If you look at Cambodia compared to the U.S. or Sweden, Cambodia may not have the best record in terms of democracy. But if you compare Cambodia to other countries in the region, we’re not so bad.

KEO: We are moving toward democracy. We still make mistakes. There are still some rough issues. It looks authoritarian to you, but we need to educate our people first.

People understand about their own rights, but they forget about their neighbors’ rights, that by accessing their own rights, they are encroaching on their neighbors rights. So we have to implement a law to stop that. Does that mean we are authoritarian?

[Some journalists] use their media identity to blackmail traders along the road. That’s why the government says “You are not policemen — you are media. You can write whatever you want, but don’t ask people for money.” That’s why we stopped that kind of media.

Prime Minister Hun Sen warned foreign diplomats in April that if they have contacts with Cambodia’s now-banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party that they should “break diplomatic relations” with Cambodia. And he declared last month that such contacts “insult me, insult my sovereignty.” As career diplomats, how do you feel about Hun Sen’s hostility toward foreign diplomats?

KEO: He’s a man of the people. And he speaks the people’s language. He doesn’t speak politicians’ language. That’s how he connects with the people.

It appears that Hun Sen is prepping his son Hun Manet to succeed him, putting Cambodia on a path to becoming a North Korea-like dynastic authoritarian state. How healthy is that for Cambodia?

EAT: If Hun Manet does well, if he can win the support of the people, why can’t he become prime minister? Like children of other leaders around the world — I believe the U.S. had a leader whose father was a leader called Bush. We may have President Biden’s children becoming president of the U.S. someday, who knows? Just because Hun Manet is the son of the leader and may become the future leader, I don’t say this is wrong.

How easy or difficult is it to be husband and wife diplomats representing Cambodia in the U.S.?

EAT: Our postings in different countries separated us for a very long time — 14 years. We didn’t have much time to strengthen our relationship. Separation can break or strengthen your relationship. The good thing about us being stationed in the same country is that we can consult each other. The bad thing is that we never really have time together. It’s very difficult because of our jobs — we always have a lot to do.

KEO: It’s also a benefit to the U.S. The State Department can call me and say “Hey, can you ask your government to support this U.N. resolution that we proposed?” I then talk to my headquarters and then I talk to her and tell her “Be alert — the U.S. is asking us to support their resolution.”

Thanks to editor Heidi Vogt and producer Andrew Howard.

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