China and Cambodia: cassava diplomacy

China’s push to increase its power and influence in south-east Asia is proceeding apace. Hun Sen, Cambodia’s long-serving prime minister, is the latest leader to make the pilgrimage to Beijing.

After a welcoming ceremony with a military band, Hun Sen held talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. He was also scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and top lawmaker Wu Bangguo during his five-day stay. But it wasn’t just energy and infrastructure on the menu.

“China and Cambodia continue to strengthen friendly cooperation. This is in the interest of the people of the two nations and also in the interest of regional peace and stability,” Wen told Hun Sen.

Bilateral agreements between the two countries include roads and bridges - continuing a Chinese push to improve the regional transport infrastructure - and a power station. China and Chinese companies are by far the largest source of funds for Cambodia, with $8bn of investments promised in just the first seven months of this year.

But perhaps most notable was talk of a deal for China to buy Cambodia’s cassava. The root vegetable is widely used in cooking in Africa and South America, where it is used to make fufu flour, tapioca, and cassava French fries. Cassava can also be used for biofuel, a market where China is looking to expand. From the China Daily:

Hun Sen told the Xinhua News Agency that “in the past, we signed rice export agreements with China already, and we hope to sign the cassava exports to China during the visit and we are suggesting for corn export deals with China also.

“Our farmers will make use of rice and cassava exports because the Chinese market is very big,” he said, adding that he is looking forward to more cooperation in the agricultural field.

China’s largesse in straitened times has bought new friends in south-east Asia, an area where its power has traditionally created a degree of unease. It is funding an $8bn pipeline project in Burma, railways and a sports stadium in Laos, and when Xi Jinping, the Chinese vice-president, visited Phnom Penh last December, the two countries signed $850m worth of deals.

General Than Shwe, Burma’s strongman, visited Beijing in September and Choummaly Sayasone, the Laotian president was in China at the end of last year.

In return, China gets friends.

According to a June 2009 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew said that the Association of South East Asian Nations’ three poorest members were China’s eyes and ears in the region.

Within hours, everything that is discussed in ASEAN meetings is known in Beijing, thanks to China’s close ties with Laos, Cambodia, and Burma, he stated.