Chinese money has made properties in the seaside village of Sihanoukville as expensive as Byron Bay. But now, crowded out by casinos and resorts, the locals are pushing back – literally.

Sihanoukville, once a sleepy coastal hamlet popular with backpackers, has been progressively populated by Chinese workers, developers, casinos and investors. It’s being touted by developers as the first port of call on Beijing’s $US1-trillion Belt and Road Initiative and some are saying that this little tourist town, carved out of jungle in the 1960s, will be the next Macau.

The city houses a deep-water port and a joint-country special economic zone which accommodates 121 mostly Chinese companies producing textiles, garments, machinery and electronics.

The 11-square-kilometre economic zone is being upgraded to accommodate 300 companies providing jobs for up to 100,000 workers, and a four-lane highway is proposed to link Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, 220 kilometres to the north.

In Sihanoukville, where backpackers came for years to party on some of Asia’s most pristine beaches, many Cambodians see the arrival of tens of thousands of mainland Chinese as a takeover.

English and Cambodian-language signs are being replaced by signs written in Mandarin. Some Cambodian coastal and island locations have been given new Chinese names. Supermarkets are packed with Chinese goods. Chinese people are gambling around the clock at more than 50 mostly Chinese-owned and run casinos and many more illegal online gambling dens.

Along once potholed roads, people from mainland China drive Bentleys, Porsches and Ferraris.

Hun’s power play

Cambodian leader HE, a notorious autocrat, has become China’s most reliable regional partner as he shuns links with Western countries critical of his regime’s human rights abuses.

In a speech in February, the Cambodian leader lavished praise on China and castigated those worried about the extent of its stake and influence in his country.
Now China has growing ties with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces – including supplying most of their weaponry.

But Carl Thayer says Cambodia is more likely to become a Chinese dependency than a formal military ally.

“As Prime Minister HE burns his bridges to Europe and the United States, he has little option … [he] needs China’s political support and cash, in the forms of investment, aid and loans to keep his regime in power.”