Cambodia and Japan are moving towards a more mutually beneficial partnership focused on co-creation, capacity building and the exchange of expertise and resources, particularly in soft and hard infrastructure, according to Dr Kei Koga, Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University.
Dr Kei Koga is an Associate Professor at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
He is also a Nonresident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) in the United States and a member of the RIPS Research Committee at the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) in Japan. His research focuses on international security, international and regional institutions, particularly ASEAN, and East Asian and Indo-Pacific security.
After attending the “Strategic Synergies: Advancing the Cambodia-Japan Partnership in a Regional Context” event, organised by the Cambodian Center for Regional Studies and the Embassy of Japan in Cambodia, Dr Koga said:
«I think there is going to be more the co-creation, so Japan and Cambodia have the co-creation plan. And then what they are actually going to do is they are going to actually intensify the dialogue in terms of their needs and requirements that the Cambodia wants, and then what Japan can provide and what Cambodia can provide as well. So it’s going to be more kind of mutually beneficial partnership rather than just kind of one way of providing the assistance to Cambodia.
So I see this kind of the projects going on. I think one important way is the capacity building. Even though Cambodia is actually rapidly developing, they also need to have more kind of capacity to do in terms of soft infrastructure and hard infrastructure.
And then Japan is actually providing, trying to provide both to Cambodia so that they could actually be more autonomous and also resilient co-creation. So again, as I talk, I think their embassy also started kind of some of the discussion too. But then Cambodia has their certain kind of expertise in demining after years of Cambodia internal conflicts.
And then they have those kinds of knowledge. And then Japan can provide resources. So they are cooperating with each other.
Then they can actually provide those kinds of contributions to the third countries, like particularly the post-war countries.»