October 4, 20203:03 PM Updated 21 minutes ago
Cambodia says it razed U.S.-built naval facility to move it
By Prak Chan Thul
2 Min Read

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia razed a U.S.-built building on its largest naval base to allow for further expansion and will relocate the demolished facility, Cambodia’s government said on Sunday, denying reports of Chinese involvement in the redevelopment.

The Pentagon had said it was concerned about reports that the U.S.-funded Cambodian Navy tactical headquarters facility at Ream had been demolished and had asked the Cambodian government for an explanation. The building, roughly 30 metres (100 feet) long, had housed several small patrol boats.

“Cambodia razed the US-built facility at Ream Naval Base, for the building requires renovations,” Prime Minister HE’s office said in a Tweet.

Defence ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat said the facility was being moved to a new location at Koh Preap near the port of Sihanoukville to make way for an expansion of the naval base at Ream because “a lot of ships will need to dock”.

Nikkei Asia quoted a senior Cambodian naval official as saying China was helping with the expansion, but Chhum Socheat said China was not helping.

Last year the Pentagon asked Cambodia to explain why it turned down an offer to repair the base, saying the decision had raised speculation of possible plans for hosting China’s military.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-c ... KKBN26P0JC

NCMS Makes Clarification on Relocation of Tactical Command Headquarters
AKP Phnom Penh, October 05, 2020 --
The Secretariat of National Committee for Maritime Security (NCMS) has made a clarification on the relocation of the Tactical Command Headquarters of NCMS, following recent misinformation on various news outlets regarding the issue.

The full clarification dated Oct. 5 reads as follows:

“Since 2010 the NCMS Tactical Command Headquarters (TCH), which is an operational unit responsible for implementing multi-agency law enforcement, has temporarily set up its location in a small area within Ream Naval Base. Under the military cooperation programme along with international partners; the United States, and Australia, have provided support with small-scale infrastructure and training to Tactical Command Headquarters. Despite this, these TCH operations have provided mixed results, successes and difficulties, which require consideration for relocation.

Based on these findings, the Secretariat initiated a relocation plan in late 2017. Due to necessity and under the spirit of cooperation, the Secretariat informed and explained the reasons for this decision to international partners, particularly the United States, and have not received any official objection to this relocation plan.

This relocation is based on the following reasons:

The current TCH location belongs to the Royal Cambodian Navy, which is small in size, and limits the capacity of multi-agency operations. For instance, it has no docking facilities, limitations of further infrastructural expansion, and difficulty for non-military personnel to work in this particular restricted area.

As a national institution, the TCH requires an independent location which can facilitate and enhance its operations, interventions, and rescue efforts. In addition, the TCH needs to develop its capacity through infrastructure and operational effectiveness which cannot be achieved in its current location.

The new location, Koh Preab, is favourable for addressing all of the aforementioned issues. The NCMS Secretariat is constructing a new Tactical Command Headquarters, which is larger in scale, and will avoid any detrimental impact on the support provided by its international partners. This new location will facilitate increased operational efficiency through its own docking facilities, simplify liaison between relevant national institutions, provide freedom for further infrastructure expansion, and promote cooperation with international partners.

The NCMS Secretariat is strongly committed to keeping and promoting close cooperation with all international partners through transparency and respect of mutual interests. The NCMS warmly welcomes the participation of various international partners in order to enhance future operational capabilities of the TCH. We hope that the people of Cambodia, national, and international institutions will understand the genuine reasons behind this relocation process. Our ultimate objective is to increase NCMS capacity so that it complies with the Royal Government policy of managing Cambodia's maritime security, and continues to strengthen international cooperation with transparency and respect of mutual interests.”

By Heng Panha
- AKP

Well quite frankly right now I don't give a flying flock who does what where, so long as they are not in my part of town, the north half of the kingdom's coastline.

It would not have been safe anyway, building a secret naval base on the tourist pier at Botum Sakor, surrounded by all that shallow water...
Still worried about all those mysterious torpedos tho'

'better pass this on to Intell
targeting

fire

ka boom

confirmed, definitely from commie submarine (you can tell by the colour of the periscope)

who to believe;

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a report on October 2 detailing the apparent demolition of a US-funded and constructed naval facility at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base. The base, which opens on to the Gulf of Thailand, is the Cambodian Royal Navy’s largest.

The demolition, exposed in satellite imagery in the ATMI report, comes after Cambodia refused Washington’s offer to repair the US-funded facilities after previously requesting and receiving assistance, most recently in April 2019. Prime Minister HE’s government later informed the US that it no longer required the funding.

It also comes amid reports that China has secured a 30-year lease of the base, which if true would potentially give China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy a new southern flank in the South China Sea disputes and improve its ability to respond to potential contingencies in the Strait of Malacca, through which an estimated 80% of China’s fuel imports travel. The Cambodian government has denied the reports.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/cambodia- ... d7ff190aa4

Would Access to Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base Really Benefit China?
Gaining access to a Cambodian naval facility would give China’s navy little discernible strategic advantage.
By Chen Heang
April 07, 2021
The potential establishment of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia has received extensive attention since the publication of report by the Wall Street Journal in mid-2019, claiming that Cambodia had signed a secret agreement granting the People’s Liberation Army Navy access to the Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand. Much of this attention has been devoted to speculation over what this means in terms of Cambodia’s relationship with China and the United States, and also its potential to augment China’s expanding military presence in the region.

The attention paid to the possible Chinese access to Cambodian naval facilities, however, too often ignores the realities of Cambodia’s geography. As we know, geography is crucial to understanding the strategic significance of military operations, and has profoundly informed the capabilities, limitations, and vulnerabilities of armed forces throughout human history. In this specific case, the geography of Cambodia suggests that China does not stand to gain much strategic advantage by equipping military facilities on the Kingdom’s shores.

Most notably, the waters off Cambodia’s coasts are not deep enough to be useful to a powerful navy. These waters, in the Gulf of Thailand, are on average about 50 meters deep. Where this base is allegedly to be situated, on the bay of Kampong Som, the water is only five to 10 meters deep.

These depths would not permit China to undertake major naval actions in the Gulf, and the use of submarines, among the most powerful weapons in any naval operation, would be rendered impractical. To assure a strike capability, a submarine must create low noise and electromagnetic waves in order to avoid radar, something that would be challenging in shallow waters like those found in the Gulf of Thailand.

In addition to the logistical limitations caused by these shallow waters, there is the question of its location, which is simply not that important in relation to international sea lanes of communication.

Some commentators have attempted to explain the Ream Naval Base’s geographical significance by pointing out that it could serve as a stopover point for China to protect and control its shipping lanes in the Malacca Strait – a piracy-infested choke-point which is strategically significant for China, given its reliance on energy imports through the strait.

This explanation, however, is not convincing. Does China need access to Ream Naval Base for this purpose when it already has access to an outpost at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands?
https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/would-a ... fit-china/

^^^

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 10:52 pm Would Access to Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base Really Benefit China?
Gaining access to a Cambodian naval facility would give China’s navy little discernible strategic advantage.
By Chen Heang
April 07, 2021
This explanation, however, is not convincing. Does China need access to Ream Naval Base for this purpose when it already has access to an outpost at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands?
https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/would-a ... fit-china/

You didn't need the Diplomat to pull all this BS by the West's greatest Intell orgs to pieces in 5 minutes.
Some idiot on a kayak did that yonks ago - simply by taking a look around for himself (for birds, otters and dolphins) and by having a bit of basic common sense about strategic/military matters.

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 5:22 pm The fifth option - that this whole tourist concession/development is just a cover for secret air and naval bases by a foreign power.
I have seriously worried about that too - and it has been discussed on related threads - but have come to the conclusion, for now, that this is the most unlikely of the explanations.
a. The colonisation /development makes perfect sense on it's own.
b. None of the necessary heavy-duty infrastructure a military base needs is in evidence, yet. Zero, and they are not just tack-ons. Including heavy rail or road transport links probably.
c. I'm not convinced of the strategic value of this location these days anyway. That's outdated.
China has much more suitable bases available right in the South China Sea and all over the Indian Ocean nowadays. The Cambodian coast is in a very hemmed in location for military bases, surrounded by the potential foes, and very limited manoeuvrability all around for both air and sea operations. Not what you want.

But you gotta stay open (!!!) and even without the military bases it still suits China's strategic policy to be sitting on 50,000 hectares of the best coastline in the immediate region.
So, keep watching...

i sure hope we go into the next Asian adventure with better guidance from the trillion dollar intelligence professionals than we did in, eg 1960 - 1975. It sure don't look that way so far.
You should have seen some of the expensive "high production values" propaganda vids that *** military PR orgs were pumping out about Ream and Botum Sakor about a year ago
- headlining with shots of that fertiliser explosion in Beirut - "Cambodia destroys US Naval base at Ream".
It was actually two primary schoolroom sized wooden buildings the US had donated to Cambodia 30 years ago.
And all the crap about a "military grade only" airstrip at Botum Sakor - 10 minutes google showed it was totally in line with the specs of most new tourist destinations airports in the region. And with zero necessary military infrastructure.

ffs - pathetic. get your act together.
The Wests destiny in Asia absolutely depends on a bit of basic competency from the Intell guys - not wild paranoid theories mixed with propaganda and just plain cowboys and indians fantasies.
or hire me, believe it or not the rest of the Free World is actually on your side, just not impressed with some of the competency displayed - especially in this region over the past 60 years.

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:47 am ^^^

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 10:52 pm Would Access to Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base Really Benefit China?
Gaining access to a Cambodian naval facility would give China’s navy little discernible strategic advantage.
By Chen Heang
April 07, 2021
This explanation, however, is not convincing. Does China need access to Ream Naval Base for this purpose when it already has access to an outpost at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands?
https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/would-a ... fit-china/

You didn't need the Diplomat to pull all this BS by the West's greatest Intell orgs to pieces in 5 minutes.
Some idiot on a kayak did that yonks ago - simply by taking a look around for himself (for birds, otters and dolphins) and by having a bit of basic common sense about strategic/military matters.

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 5:22 pm The fifth option - that this whole tourist concession/development is just a cover for secret air and naval bases by a foreign power.
I have seriously worried about that too - and it has been discussed on related threads - but have come to the conclusion, for now, that this is the most unlikely of the explanations.
a. The colonisation /development makes perfect sense on it's own.
b. None of the necessary heavy-duty infrastructure a military base needs is in evidence, yet. Zero, and they are not just tack-ons. Including heavy rail or road transport links probably.
c. I'm not convinced of the strategic value of this location these days anyway. That's outdated.
China has much more suitable bases available right in the South China Sea and all over the Indian Ocean nowadays. The Cambodian coast is in a very hemmed in location for military bases, surrounded by the potential foes, and very limited manoeuvrability all around for both air and sea operations. Not what you want.

But you gotta stay open (!!!) and even without the military bases it still suits China's strategic policy to be sitting on 50,000 hectares of the best coastline in the immediate region.
So, keep watching...

i sure hope we go into the next Asian adventure with better guidance from the trillion dollar intelligence professionals than we did in, eg 1960 - 1975. It sure don't look that way so far.
You should have seen some of the expensive "high production values" propaganda vids that *** military PR orgs were pumping out about Ream and Botum Sakor about a year ago
- headlining with shots of that fertiliser explosion in Beirut - "Cambodia destroys US Naval base at Ream".
It was actually two primary schoolroom sized wooden buildings the US had donated to Cambodia 30 years ago.
And all the crap about a "military grade only" airstrip at Botum Sakor - 10 minutes google showed it was totally in line with the specs of most new tourist destinations airports in the region. And with zero necessary military infrastructure.

ffs - pathetic. get your act together.
The Wests destiny in Asia absolutely depends on a bit of basic competency from the Intell guys - not wild paranoid theories mixed with propaganda and just plain cowboys and indians fantasies.
or hire me, believe it or not the rest of the Free World is actually on your side, just not impressed with some of the competency displayed - especially in this region over the past 60 years.

Pretty staggering amount of misinformation is published about this country. Whether that's with these naval bases, air bases, or the Cambodian government deploying the military during the 2017 communal elections. I remember seeing photos of the same row of parked military vehicles from 4 different angles to make it seem like they were deployed all over the city.

It seems that once again Cambodia is being forced to carefully balance relations between greater powers. Doesn't help when the opposition sometimes seems to be actively sabotaging the country; lobbying for the EBA to be cancelled was never going to win any hearts over here or affect those who are actually responsible for any human rights violations. Little wonder the government is turning a cold shoulder to the West and accepting the fairly unconditional support of China.