By Nirmal Ghosh
The Straits Times/Asia News Network
BANGKOK — What has China got to do with recent bloody clashes over a 900-year-old temple in Southeast Asia?
Beijing is not a party to the conflict, nor has it any stake in the territorial dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.
And yet China, with its growing presence and influence in Indochina, is changing the power dynamics in the region.
One key result has been the weakening of Thailand’s traditional economic domination in the neighborhood as China steps up trade and investment in countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion, which besides Thailand includes Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia.
With Cambodia less reliant on the Thai growth engine, its Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has become emboldened to put up a tough fight against Thailand in its border dispute, some analysts say. The border clashes early this month left at least three Thais and eight Cambodians dead.
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