In Cambodian mine clearance, China Replaces USAID
Newsweek
February 8, 2025
A warning sign during a training session on demining in Cambodia on January 19, 2023. Photo by TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP via Getty Images
China has provided a grant to help a Cambodian project clearing land mines and unexploded bombs days after the freeze on payments by USAID to its partners had forced it to suspend work, the head of the group said.
Neither the U.S. State Department nor China's embassy in Cambodia responded to requests for comment.
Why It Matters
Critics of the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to pause foreign aid for 90 days through the United States Agency for International Development had said it would open the way for China to expand its influence around the world.
The Southeast Asian country of Cambodia is already one of China's closest allies and had a strained relationship in recent years with the United States, which criticized it for alleged human rights abuses and lack of democracy.
What To Know
Days after saying that operations of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre had been brought to a temporary halt because of the USAID freeze in payments to partner groups, director general Heng Ratana said in a Facebook post on Feb. 5 that a $4.4 million grant from China would support a Cambodia Landmine Elimination Project for one year from March 1, 2025.
"This is a 12-month project and will support over 400 CMAC technical experts," he wrote in a post on Facebook. He said the project would work in seven provinces of the country of 17 million people.
Cambodia was devastated by war in the 1970s as a result of both U.S. bombing in a spillover from the war in Vietnam and by the takeover of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, which had Chinese backing.
Millions of landmines remain scattered across the country. The Halo Trust, which campaigns against landmines and works to remove them, says over 18,800 have been killed by landmines since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 and a further 45,000 have been wounded.
The U.S. Embassy in Cambodia said last year it expected to spend $12 million on demining and removing other unexploded ordnance in Cambodia in 2025.
What Happened to USAID?
Cambodia's government said in a statement on Friday that U.S. funding for demining operations came from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement of the U.S. State Department rather than directly from USAID.
"Mine and cluster munition clearance, along with the removal of other explosive remnants of war, will continue with financial support from the Cambodian government and other donor countries outside of the US," it said, according to the Phnom Penh Post.
USAID delivered tens of billions of dollars in foreign humanitarian aid. The Trump administration plans to merge it with the State Department and thousands of employees are set to lose their jobs. The changes are happening under the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of Elon Musk.
What People Are Saying
Former USAID administrator Samantha Power in a New York Times oped: "Future generations will marvel that it wasn't China's actions that eroded U.S. standing and global security, paving the way for Beijing to become the partner of choice around the world."
President Donald Trump told reporters on February 2: "USAID, run by radical lunatics, and we're getting them out, and then we'll make a decision."
Seun Sam, a policy analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, quoted in Kiripost: "If China does not help, CMAC will not have enough funds to continue demining in Cambodia, making the support from China particularly important for the ongoing clearance efforts."
What Happens Next
While USAID decides which projects it will support, it is likely that China may see opportunities to step in where the United States has cut funding, but that does not necessarily preclude a later U.S. return.
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