Hun Sen, Marcos, and the Anatomy of an American Smile. (Article)
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Hun Sen, Marcos, and the Anatomy of an American Smile. (Article)
August 18, 2022
There’s an old adage among U.S. diplomats about how to handle a necessary meeting with a strongman, whether in Asia, Africa, or elsewhere. One U.S. diplomat in Cambodia—where the adage has applied for nearly four decades—explained it simply enough a few years ago. “Shake their hand,” the advisor tells their principal, whether an ambassador or secretary of state, “but don’t smile, especially if there are cameras.”
U.S. leaders have taken this lesson to heart in Cambodia for years. When U.S. president Barack Obama visited Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in 2012, he had to meet with his host, Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen—an autocratic leader who has ruled for nearly 38 years. When it was time to take their photo together, Obama offered what could barely be described as even a faint smile. It would probably be better described as the politest possible demonstration of disdain. A toothy grin, however, swept across Hun Sen’s cheeks.
U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken followed the diplomat’s adage while in Phnom Penh from August 3–5 for this year’s ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting. When Blinken met with Hun Sen—who in the intervening years has only cracked down harder on his opposition and aligned more with China—he offered a facial expression remarkably like that of Obama 10 years prior. More interesting was Hun Sen. Following a decade of declining relations with the United States, he finally matched his American counterpart with a muted smile. Not a single tooth could be seen.
This crash course in diplomatic body language offers some helpful insight into Blinken’s recent Southeast Asia trip. Just by looking at the images, one can better understand the U.S. approach to the two countries the secretary recently visited: Cambodia and the Philippines. The contours of a smile tend to give away the contours of a relationship.
This conundrum is reflective of the problem facing Blinken and his team: they want to foster more productive ties with Cambodia—because Cambodia sits in a neighborhood too important to ignore—without ignoring Hun Sen’s poor human rights record. Washington knows that it would be unwise to maintain a sanctions-first policy that offers Phnom Penh little in the way of geopolitical or economic benefits (which is one reason why it was such a mistake to not invite Cambodia to join the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, or IPEF).
Ironically, U.S. neglect of Cambodia produced troubling enough consequences for Washington policymakers to see Cambodia as strategically important once again.
For lack of a better analogy, Blinken’s meeting with Hun Sen was something of an awkward middle school-like diplomatic dance—engaging the strongman while leaving enough space for governance concerns in between—while his meeting with Marcos was a more mature embrace. The key difference is that while the United States and the Philippines have a mutual attraction, no such affection exists with Cambodia.
When it comes to Cambodia, neither side wants to make the first move. Much like the middle schooler, both sides fear unrequited affection, and neither side wants to be embarrassed. Phnom Penh will not offer meaningful governance improvements until Washington offers meaningful economic benefits and ratchets back sanctions, which the United States will not do until Cambodia stops repressing political opposition. And so, the United States and Cambodia are stuck in an uncomfortable dance of détente, in which nobody is happy and both sides want more.
It remains to be seen, however, if the United States will offer enough to bring the two Southeast Asian leaders—one a long-serving strongman, the other a newly inaugurated son of one—at least a little bit more on board. Successfully doing so will require much more than smiles.
Full article link https://www.csis.org/analysis/hun-sen-m ... ican-smile
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