🇹🇭🇰🇭 15 dead as border conflict reignites

Cambodia, Thailand on war footing

Hello friends!

I’m off on a quick trip this weekend, so my usual Monday email won’t be in your inboxes. But, given how much is happening, I dare say you’ll hear from me later in the week.

Thanks!

Hun Sen in the warroom (c/o his Facebook)

Thailand and Cambodia are back. Thailand launched an airstrike along the disputed border areas on Monday, following weeks of simmering tensions and small-scale spats. At least 13 soldiers and civilians have been killed in recent days, Al Jazeera reports. Half a million people on either side of the border have been sent scrambling for shelter.

I think this is very sad and very volatile, but it is not surprising. I really hate that this is being framed as a Trump failure internationally because we all know! We all know that the peace deal in July was simply theatre and a sideshow to the real work of hammering out plans between Cambodia, Thailand, ASEAN and others that can help. Which, of course, includes the many able US diplomats who remain in the service after Trump’s cuts. The (Western) world seeing everything strictly in relation to Trump is making me insane.

Thai PM Anutin Charnvirakul was explicit back in July — the ceremony was the start of things, it wasn’t drawing a line under the whole affair. He suspended the peace process last month after two soldiers were injured in landmine blasts along the border. “What happened (at the border) did not help reduce the adversary situation, and if it did not help reduce the conflict, we can’t do anything, and everything had to stop,” he told media, as reported by Nikkei.

Since then, there has been more attention paid to the border on both sides, though each party still accuses the other of violations.

“Cambodia had mobilised heavy weaponry, repositioned combat units, and prepared fire-support elements” and air strikes are to “deter and reduce Cambodia’s military capabilities to the minimum level necessary to safeguard national security and protect civilians,” the Thai Air Force said on Monday, as per Nikkei.

That’s simply “false information,” the Cambodian Defence Ministry said in response. “In fact, the Thai military forces launched the attack on the Cambodian forces at approximately 5 a.m. in the morning of December 8, 2025. It should be noted that this attack occurred after the Thai forces engaged in numerous provocative actions for many days, especially the incident yesterday at Prorlean Thmar area, with the objective of instigating confrontation,” it said in a statement.

I only seem to use Facebook during this specific crisis. Former prime minister Hun Sen is a prolific user, and if his posts of the last week are any indication, this isn’t going to be resolved quietly. Even with the garbled auto-translate option, it’s clear Hun Sen is really pushing the nationalist rhetoric that was familiar earlier this year. It’s causing some anxiety in Thailand, where the army has sought to reassure that it’s capable of fighting after Cambodia’s Chinese-made PHL-03 long-range multiple rocket launchers were spotted being deployed in Kampong Thom province.

Don’t expect hand-holding with friends and neighbours like earlier this year. Thailand has rejected any offer for mediation assistance, saying that it’s too late for that with so many dead Thais.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura was asked yesterday if diplomatic intervention was welcomed. Maybe one day, but “the timing is not now.”

Elsewhere, Cambodia has pulled its whole delegation from the SEA Games, citing security concerns. The Games, which kicked off at the start of the week and close on the 20th, are, obviously, hosted by Thailand this year and how unlucky is that. The decision has not been taken lightly, National Olympic Committee of Cambodia chief Vath Chamroeun said in a letter to the Southeast Asian Games Federation.

“Due to serious concerns and requests from the families of our athletes to have their relatives return home immediately, NOCC must withdraw all of our delegation and arrange for their prompt return to Cambodia for safety reasons,” he said.

Channel News Asia notes this is the first time in the Games’ history that a delegation has been pulled out. The SEA Games rarely gets an enormous run in international media but this story has certainly been picked up, which I’m sure is only a byproduct of the move and not the intention.

I think it’s becoming very clear that both governments are in this weird death spiral where this conflict distracts from domestic pains — both are facing serious issues with the scam compounds plaguing the region, while Anutin is on the ropes for flooding failures. Ringing the bell marked ‘nationalism’ is a good short-term distraction, but when tensions do calm, as they did in August, the domestic problems are worse than when they began.

Cambodia has struggled to make up the difference of the economic impact of the earlier conflict, with thousands of workers returning home from Thailand and imports/exports grounded. For his part, Anutin is meant to dissolve parliament within the next six weeks, give or take, and make a run for government. Hun Sen already claimed one Thai PM scalp, I wouldn’t take a punt against two.

And that’s just the political intrigue bullshit. For the second time this year, Thais and Cambodians living along the border have been forced to leave their homes, mourn for their communities and hope for the best.

More to come, no doubt.