Cambodia’s scars: Xi’s visit stirs Khmer Rouge memories

The day of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s high-profile visit to Cambodia coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s establishment of its communist regime in Phnom Penh and the launch of a genocidal massacre.

Of course, this date was chosen deliberately by China — a gentle reminder to Cambodia that this day is worth “celebrating” nationwide: to remember the source of the water one drinks. Without communist China, there would have been no Khmer Rouge to massacre two million civilians, and no present-day Sihanoukville reminiscent of the infamous KK Park, filled with signs in simplified Chinese, foot massage parlours operating into the night, and proliferation of firearms.

Would this count as a second wound to a nation still unable to heal from its trauma? I am not sure, because the Cambodian government did not reject the arrival of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on what should be a day of national mourning for the Cambodian people.

Yet while Hong Kong can no longer serve as a model of “one country, two systems” and peaceful unification for Taiwan, Cambodia’s half-century of progress and development fortunately stands as a showcase example of China’s “guidance for humanity”.

For decades, mainstream American liberal discourse has consistently commemorated the Holocaust and the genocide of the Jews. But when it comes to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge genocide, the Western left shows little interest. On the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities, American human rights organisations, as well as former US presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, had nothing to say. The New York Times and CNN also did not produce any features. Netflix offers many documentaries about Nazi crimes during World War II, but not a single one reminds today’s audience to revisit and reflect on the dark chapter of Cambodia’s past half a century ago.

As for Trump, he certainly would not bother to give a damn. As Western leftists know, the ones massacred by the Khmer Rouge were mostly Chinese. According to the way I interpret the principles of the Black Lives Matter movement, the lives of black people are prioritised over the lives of Chinese people.

Logically, you would never be able to hold a public memorial commemorating the Khmer Rouge atrocities on an American university campus like Harvard or in California, nor claim that their crimes were a thousand times bloodier than the transatlantic slave trade. If you do, anti-Trump student organisations and the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs, effectively CCP-affiliated groups in US universities), might just join forces to crash the event and report you, accusing you of promoting “All Lives Matter”, which is equated with far-right fascism.

So, of course, the truth is: All Lives Don’t Equally Matter.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the point: in the 19th century, France engaged in peaceful rivalry with Britain for colonial dominance in Southeast Asia. While Britain led the colonisation of India, Burma, and Malaya, France was not to be outdone — it colonised Indochina: Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. From then on, two flowers bloomed, each with its own branch, bringing the sunshine of Western modern civilisation to the Far East.

For example, under French administration, the Cambodian royal family of the Norodom line became mere figureheads. France ordered the abolition of Cambodia’s millennia-old slavery system, allowed private land ownership, restored the ancient Angkor Wat ruins, and dispatched Indochinese cultural experts from Paris to translate ancient Angkorean texts. These efforts helped the Cambodian royal family trace their roots, and restored a sense of national pride and dignity among the Cambodian people.

The French also attempted to develop a Romanised script system for the Cambodian language, much like modern Vietnamese. Whether this was a blessing or a curse is open to interpretation.

Building on this foundation, France also assisted Cambodia in resisting Thai aggression and helped it reclaim Battambang.

However, by 1953, Cambodia’s royal family believed the time had come to “take charge of their own destiny” and joined forces with Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh in launching the so-called national independence movement. The French, seeing the tide turning, graciously relinquished control. Power was handed over to French-educated Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

Although Sihanouk was not the most intelligent, he had received a taste of civilised refinement and held a deep admiration for both French and Khmer traditional culture. His queen, Monique (also known as Monineath), of French and Italian descent, was elegant and dignified in both appearance and manner. In the 1970s, she accompanied her exiled husband on multiple visits to Beijing. When mainland Chinese watched the documentaries, they saw a Cambodian queen — albeit a deposed one — that exuded the aura of Audrey Hepburn. Then, in contrast, they looked at their own “national mother”, Jiang Qing, dressed in her masculine Maoist uniform, and felt an unspoken sense that something was off.

At the time, I had just entered secondary school in colonial Hong Kong and had already had quite a developed sense of taste. I candidly told some pro-communist Chinese acquaintances: if Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Mei-ling, sat beside the Cambodian queen, their elegance would be well matched. But congratulations to you all — you Chinese chose Mao Zedong and Jiang Qing.

There is no need to go into how this foolish king Sihanouk was later manipulated by China and how he ended up enabling the Khmer Rouge to annihilate his own people, becoming a grotesque joke in modern history.

Here are a few simple numbers. Before the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, there was Cambodia’s traditional dance, known as Apsara: female dancers wore golden headdresses shaped like miniature stupas, their slender fingers gracefully bent backward like crescent moons. With elegant figures clothed in sparkling golden-threaded garments, they expressed the eternal truths of Hinduism and Buddhism through string music and timeless movement. It was a precious treasure of human cultural heritage.

After 1975, under the Khmer Rouge — led by Pol Pot, Mao Zedong’s prized student and a so-called “old friend of the Chinese people” — 90% of Cambodia’s Apsara dancers were executed. Out of the 190 ballet performers across the country, only 40 escaped abroad after the communist purge.

Of the country’s 380,000 intellectuals — including painters, musicians, writers and teachers — only about 300 remained alive after four years under Khmer Rouge rule.

By 1979, even neighbouring Vietnam’s communist regime could no longer turn a blind eye. They sent in troops to seize Cambodia, pushing the Khmer Rouge into the forests. But by then, Cambodia had already become a failed state. An estimated four to six million unexploded landmines remain, and have maimed countless civilians and children, turning many into amputees reliant on crutches for life.

Out of compassion, the Japanese government sent experts to oversee the restoration of the war-ravaged Angkor Wat and built a road to make the ruins accessible to tourists. To this day, if you visit Angkor Wat, your guide will warn you: “Stick to the broad path built by the Japanese. Don’t wander off. On both sides of the road, landmines planted by the communists decades ago may still be buried.”

It is at such moments that a reasonable person might even find themselves reflecting on Japan’s aborted Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. When Japan invaded Taiwan or Malaya, the indigenous peoples and Chinese resisted, and yes, the Japanese military committed numerous atrocities. But once the resistance ceased, so did the killing. In contrast, the Cambodian people had completely submitted to the Khmer Rouge, yet were still massacred.

Indeed, in this real world, there is a tacit acceptance by many Western intellectuals that not all nations are equal. Many ethnic groups in the Third World are arguably unsuited for self-rule, and if they had continued under Western colonial administration, it might have been better for them and their future generations.

Today, if one wishes to revisit pre-communist Cambodia on screen before the country was drenched in blood, there are very few visual records remaining, especially of Phnom Penh, once known as the “Little Paris of the East”.

There is, however, one little-known film produced by leftist Phoenix Studio in Hong Kong titled Love Across a Thousand Miles (千里姻缘一线牵). The leads were played by Gao Yuan and Han Ying, and the director was George Shen, a talented intellectual from old Shanghai who later became editor-in-chief of Hong Kong Economic Journal. In the first ten minutes of the film, the protagonists travel from Hong Kong to Cambodia; they tour Phnom Penh and then Angkor Wat, and watch a traditional Apsara dance performance. Shen himself appeared in a cameo, dressed in white, sitting in the front row as a member of the audience.

The film is obscure — few have ever seen it. Later, during the Cultural Revolution and the 1967 leftist riots in Hong Kong, Gao Yuan defected to Shaw Brothers Studio and eventually moved to Taiwan. According to filmmaker Ng See-yuen, the once-dashing actor spent his later years driving a taxi in Taipei and passed away two years ago.

Han Ying quietly married into the powerful family of former Chinese vice-president Rong Yiren, and lived a life of understated privilege. One of her sons went on to have a successful academic career and later became the PR manager for Dragonair (now Cathay Dragon).

Years ago, I had dinner with Auntie Han Ying. I spoke to her in Shanghainese: “Madam Rong, do you remember Mr Shen leading the crew to Cambodia to shoot that film?”

She gave a faint smile and said, “Oh, I remember.” Then, lifting a single peanut to her lips, she did not elaborate.

I took the hint and did not press the matter. As I observed her profile, marked by silvery hair and an elegant dark blue silk cheongsam, I suddenly thought: Madam Rong exuded a certain grace and poise that reminded me of Queen Monique.

Related: [Photos] Cambodia: A war-torn country that became China’s firm ally in Southeast Asia | From Cambodia to Myanmar: Can ASEAN and China broker another peace?