Link To Article: https://english.news.cn/asiapacific/20230916/d549ad6a4375478ea0e89d73ae63f859/c.html
On September 16, China and Cambodia arranged a joint humanitarian exercise, “Peace Angel-2023”, and was held in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. This joint exercise was created by the two militaries for two main reasons. First, this exercise is to share and exchange mutual learning of medical services and experiences in order to improve their own countries army’s. The second and bigger reason is that this marks the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia’s long friendship. General Sareth, deputy commander-in-chief of the Cambodian Armed Forces, stated that this joint exercise reflects the unbreakable traditional friendship between the two countries. The exercises were closely following the actual situation of a disaster where both countries worked together with their medical rescue teams and militaries.
This is an important event to have happened for both countries. This event ensures that there is a strong alliance between the two countries and will with no doubt work together in the future for various problems. That is crucial for a global superpower like China to keep and/or strengthen a friendship because it shows that they are powerful with great influence. It is also very important for Cambodia because they will now improve in certain areas of knowledge which they did not have before. Cambodia will also have a bigger country to defend it if it were to be attacked by a threatening state. I think this one of many very smart decisions made by China to help countries surrounding them so they can keep gaining a massive amount of resources through trade. But it is also smart to spread their influence to those countries so it secures them as the big brother who is in power and is running Asia.
This relates to what we have been learning in class about the differences between stateless nations and states. Cambodia is a state with recognition from multiple countries, but mainly China, while others do not have that recognition from China. One way this important for China is what they can receive in materials and help from a country they recognize. This is a big factor and reason some states might not be recognized by the global superpowers.