From Cambodia, Condolences for a Dear Friend

This 1975 photo shows Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s head of state in exile, meeting with then-North Korean President Kim Il Sung. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

December 20, 2011
By Jacob M. Schlesinger
The Wall Street Journal

As Cambodia manages to transition from its communist past to a more capitalist future, the government here was one of the few to issue heartfelt condolences on the passing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Cambodian information minister Khieu Kanharith called the death “a great loss,” the Phnom Penh Post reported in its Tuesday editions. A separate government spokesman was quoted saying “the friendship and bilateral cooperation between North Korea and Cambodia will never die.”

As the report noted, the ties had less to do with ideology, or even the regional realpolitik, than with the eclectic past of Cambodia’s own longtime great leader, King Father Norodom Sihanouk.

Mr. Sihanouk met Kim Il Sung at the Bandung Conference, an anti-colonialist, non-aligned movement banquet in Jakarta hosted by then-Indonesia leader Sukarno in 1965. Mr. Sihanouk wrote musical scores in 1970 celebrating “friendship and fraternity” between the two countries, the Post reported. And Mr. Sihanouk stayed in a 60-room palace outside Pyongyang during his period of exile; even after his return to power, he regularly vacationed there.

But Cambodia is now aggressively seeking ties with, and investment from, the Western societies North Korea reviles. A large Nokia smartphone billboard hangs over the Phnom Penh intersection of Kim Il Sung and Russian Federation boulevards.

Cambodia is particularly welcoming to Pyongyang’s regional archenemies, South Korea and Japan. Samsung smart TV billboards hang over many main roads, which are clogged with Honda scooters and Toyota cars — including more than a few Land Cruisers.

The Cambodia Daily reported Monday that Minebea Co. Ltd., the large Japanese manufacturer, opened a new, expanded 28,000-square-meter factory over the weekend here. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen personally attended, declaring “I am like a midwife giving birth to this factory, and I will never let the child die.”