Frenemies: The Long History Between Thailand & Cambodia [S8.E25]

Greg Jorgensen 00:00:06 On a super sized episode. To finish 2025, we take a cue from current events to discuss the long history between Thailand and Cambodia.

Ed Knuth 00:00:13 So if you want some educated layman's take on the complex friendship and rivalry between these two countries, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg Jorgensen 00:00:39 Sawa. Welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who shaved his head when he got to Thailand in 2001 and now feels like a dirty hippie when the stubble gets beyond a few millimeters long. Thanks. Tropical heat.

Ed Knuth 00:00:54 And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, I fell in love with watching Thai people shiver when it gets down to the nearly Arctic temperature of 75°F. That's 24°C, so I never left.

Greg Jorgensen 00:01:10 Thanks for the conversion. I wasn't sure what we were talking about there.

Ed Knuth 00:01:13 I kid, you know, it's some schadenfreude. I kind of enjoy seeing Thai people literally shiver and put on jackets when it when it hits 24°C.

Greg Jorgensen 00:01:23 I've told you this story years ago when I took my son to Dream World and we went into the snow world, which is basically just a big, a big gigantic meat locker with with fake snow.

Greg Jorgensen 00:01:33 And I was like, oh, this will be easy. And I had, I had like sandals on and stuff like that. And, and I went in and it was, I think it was six degrees and I nearly, I nearly died. I thought I was going to die as well.

Ed Knuth 00:01:46 They used to be, on, Soi 22, there was a bar on 22 that had an ice bar. So it was, you know, it was a regular bar. You go upstairs and they had an ice bar.

Greg Jorgensen 00:01:57 That's titanium.

Ed Knuth 00:01:58 Titanium, right? it's no longer there, but, it was genuinely cold in there, you know, because we'd be partying. Let's go do an ice shot, and then you step in there and. And it was. It was okay. Makes us fast. Like, do it by the shots. Like, let's let's get this over with.

Greg Jorgensen 00:02:16 Yeah. The bar was literally made out of a gigantic block of ice that never melts. Correct.

Ed Knuth 00:02:21 Yeah. And it was, as soon as you step in there, you want to leave? Yeah.

Ed Knuth 00:02:27 All right. We want to give you a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics. On this week's bonus show, we chatted about the meetup that we had last week, which was almost derailed at the last moment but ended up being a very enjoyable evening. Discussions about Gregg's almost eye surgery. A check in on the Thai movie dream that I helped a little bit out on, and discussions on how in 2026, we're going to try to get into topics that appeal more to women, a demographic that has had a traditionally tiny percentage of the Bangkok Podcast pie, to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff.

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Greg Jorgensen 00:03:30 And we also want to mention that Ed and I, as is our want and keeping in the spirit of previous years, are taking the last few weeks of 2025 off. We're not going to have any new shows coming out for the rest of the year, but we will be back in the first week of January as per usual with our usual schedule, but we might be throwing up some old shows there for some rerun goodness. So just after no new shows for the rest of 2025. Ed and I are going to be sipping pina coladas on a beach earning 20%. I wish that is, of course, a line by Hans Gruber from Die Hard, the best Christmas movie ever. Well, on this episode, we get inspired by the unfortunate escalation of the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. Now, by the time you hear this, the whole situation will probably have gone one of two ways.

Greg Jorgensen 00:04:16 It will either have died back down to nothing or been ratcheted up to alarming levels. It could go either way at this point as we record this on December 10th. So we thought we'd look at the history between Cambodia and Thailand, which, personally speaking, still has a lot of black holes for me. I've never read any books on it. I've never done very deep research myself. Now, the relationship between the two countries, of course, goes back centuries. So there's a lot of baggage here that's been brought up in the current conflict. But we want to talk about how all of this past history may influence the ongoing conflict right now, especially what we've seen in the 20th century, which has been a scene a lot of change and how that might inform us and clue us in onto how this conflict might be resolved, hopefully sooner rather than later. Now add your this is sort of your wheelhouse. Your you're a sort of a Southeast Asian history politics guy. So so you're much more familiar with the current history than I am, but I thought maybe we could start off with some some quick overview of the the ancient history between the Khmer Empire and the Uta empire and how Thailand basically kind of emerged on top with that, and how they sort of kept that going for a few hundred years up until the modern era.

Greg Jorgensen 00:05:32 What do you think of that?

Ed Knuth 00:05:32 Sure. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is, is it's not actually really my wheelhouse. My wheelhouse is American politics and maybe political ideology in general. But now that I've been here a quarter of a century, I have. I have tried to up my game on, you know, first, of course, came Thai history. And then I've gotten better about because I have to teach the Vietnam War in my international relations class. And of course, Cambodia and the relationship between Thailand and Cambodia and the US is is a key part of the story of the Vietnam War. Sure. That I've, I've kind of upped my game so I would not consider myself an expert, but, I might know more than the average listener, depending on who you are out there. And of course, you have accumulated knowledge as well as a travel guy and and also having been here a long time. So although neither of us are really experts, maybe we can help out our listeners a little bit with with background info and maybe a framework, because the relationship between Thai people and Cambodian people, it is complicated.

Ed Knuth 00:06:34 It's a long, complicated relationship. It's a long, complicated relationship where we're on the one hand, they're they're deeply related to each other and friends in many ways, but also kind of antagonistic in many other ways.

Greg Jorgensen 00:06:52 Yeah, yeah, it's funny. And I always say like it's interesting because. Because the people who have the most conflict with Asian people are other Asian people. You know, that's often.

Ed Knuth 00:07:01 Yeah.

Greg Jorgensen 00:07:01 Yeah. My view is outsider, you know.

Ed Knuth 00:07:04 Yes. and so we're we're going to do our best to give you guys a summary and just kind of show you where we're at, like, our understanding is. so, Greg, since I'm a little bit better on the, the, the post-World War two, like, Vietnam era moving forward, the details of that, Greg's going to talk more about the the ancient setup.

Greg Jorgensen 00:07:25 Yeah. I'm just I again, I'm not a historian and I'm not an expert on this, but I just did some reading on this as we were leading up to the show tonight.

Greg Jorgensen 00:07:33 and of course, this all started with a Khmer empire, and they sort of came to prominence, came to power around the eight hundreds, somewhere in the mid 1800s. And that's when they started building all their magnificent temples. Have you ever been to see Angkor Wat?

Ed Knuth 00:07:47 Of course. Yeah. Encore was, one of one of the few tourist places that I recommend.

Greg Jorgensen 00:07:52 Oh, really? Yeah.

Ed Knuth 00:07:53 Yeah, it's. I think I think encore is worth the. It's totally worth the hype.

Greg Jorgensen 00:07:56 Mind blowing. Mind blowing. I will say though, when I was there, I was like, oh my God, this is the hardest place on earth. I don't know how they built this in this heat.

Ed Knuth 00:08:04 It was incredibly hot when I was there, I agreed. Yeah.

Greg Jorgensen 00:08:07 So the interesting thing about the Khmer Empire, if, if, if people don't know, is that like, like I said, it came to prominence in sort of the mid 1800s, mid eight hundreds. And from there it grew and grew and grew.

Greg Jorgensen 00:08:17 And if you look at a map at the maximum extent of the Khmer Empire, it's crazy, man. It goes up and correct southern China. It goes all the way across Thailand into what is southern today, southern Burma, and and right down into the peninsula, almost down to where southern Thailand is today, almost to the Malay Peninsula.

Ed Knuth 00:08:37 So essentially, you know, the way I think about it is, and I don't think, I don't think a lot of people think about it this way, but I think Cambodia has something in common with maybe Egypt or Iraq or Iran, where they they they are the heirs to these ancient empires. So the encore Empire. They were they were essentially the Roman Empire of Southeast Asia. They dominated Southeast Asia. And I don't I don't know if every inch of modern Thailand, but most of modern Thailand was part of the empire, or at least paid tribute to the empire. So there were still there might have been Thai speaking people here, but they bent the knee to encore, and they were essentially absorbed into the encore Empire of the Roman Empire.

Ed Knuth 00:09:24 So, I mean, so essentially it so the Khmer Empire predates Siam.

Greg Jorgensen 00:09:31 Totally, totally. And the interesting thing about the Khmer Empire is that it was Hindu, which correct came originally, as far as I know, from from India, from influences from India. Right?

Ed Knuth 00:09:42 Yeah. I mean, it was Hindu and then Buddhism spread there as well. And so this is what gives, Cambodian Buddhism, Thai Buddhism. It's unique flavors because it's essentially a mix of Brahmanism, which is early Hinduism, Buddhism and then animism, which was here before those influences came. but, especially I mean, you're going to get to it, but, that main, influence is part of the Thai identity. And I think this is part of the tension, because I think Thai people don't want to admit or recognize this. For example, the Thai script is based on the the Khmer script. a lot of things that we think of as Thai dance actually comes from the, the main empire. Right? Like, there's so there, there, the cultures are, are intermingled in ways that probably neither side wants to admit that.

Ed Knuth 00:10:37 Oh, so there's probably stuff in Cambodia that actually came from Siamese people.

Greg Jorgensen 00:10:42 It's a bit of it. As a bit of an aside, this is very interesting to me because you and I come from cultures that are basically mutt cultures. I think, like was just a mix of immigrants from all over the place. Right. And and like a legit melting pot. So when someone says like what's Canadian food? I like poutine. That's really all we got. Like, you know.

Ed Knuth 00:11:02 And maple syrup.

Greg Jorgensen 00:11:04 Yeah. So so it's funny just to, to to compare ourselves with these, with these countries and cultures that have centuries long. They're so old in their culture. Right. But we come from, we come from, from from cultures that just don't really have that.

Ed Knuth 00:11:18 Especially especially as I mean, we're heirs, you know. You know, when I teach American stuff, I talk about ancient Greece, you know, so, so that there is cultural we have cultural roots. But as countries, we're so new that we don't have that, right.

Ed Knuth 00:11:35 We don't have to wrestle with an ancient identity. Like I said, I think it must be weird for modern Egyptians to to realize that, hey, you know, 2000 years ago, we were. We were the shit.

Greg Jorgensen 00:11:49 Right, right, right.

Ed Knuth 00:11:50 And today. Today, Egypt is actually quite poor. Other than tourism, like the, you know, they're quite poor. And of course, the same thing is true of, you know, Iraq is Mesopotamia, the world's first civilization. And I think so. I think encore fits. and I know, I know, Iran is like this with like, Persia just has an incredible history and cultural and intellectual influence. And today it's, you know, at best kind of a middle power, like, surrounded by potential enemies, you know. Right, right. And I think, I think Cambodia, this is part of their identity, you know, in other words, they a thousand years ago, 800 years ago, like they were super powerful.

Ed Knuth 00:12:30 And then it's been this long, slow, painful decline.

Greg Jorgensen 00:12:34 Right, right. It's funny you mentioned, Persia. I was just watching that really great documentary, 300 by Zack Snyder.

Ed Knuth 00:12:41 Yeah. That documentary.

Greg Jorgensen 00:12:43 Yeah. Click clips of that on YouTube, and it's, pretty fascinating. anyway, so it's funny because I don't like I said, I haven't read deeply into the Khmer Empire, but I'm fascinated by it, and I've always known that they were there, and then they kind of weren't there, and I never really thought about it beyond that. So I did some reading under basically what happened to the Khmer Empire. And, it sort of suffered the same fate that all these other big empires in history have when they get really big. You talk about the Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire, the Chinese Empire, or something like that. the Incas, the Aztecs, they just basically get too big to manage and then it starts being weakened. Splintering. Yeah. Splintering by internal disputes. They have weather and climate challenges that maybe affect the the harvests and the crop yields.

Greg Jorgensen 00:13:31 Then you get droughts and starvation and things like that. competition from your neighbors, changing trade routes, bigger and more powerful armies pressing in from the outside. So all. Bye bye. By the 1400s or so, all of this was happening to the Khmer Empire, and they were feeling the squeeze. And that kind of coincided with the rise of the Ayutthaya Empire coming out of Ayutthaya. And they really pushed eastward really, really strongly. And in the in sort of the early 1400s, 1420s or something like that. Usha kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And of course, Ayutthaya was, was I think they started as like basically not started. But I think by this time they were a vassal state that just became.

Ed Knuth 00:14:19 Yeah. I mean, I think, I think essentially what, what we think of as Thai people or Siamese people, originally they were subjugated to encore, right?

Greg Jorgensen 00:14:28 Like most people.

Ed Knuth 00:14:29 Were they, you know, you know, they had a language, they had a language and culture, but they they bent the need to encore.

Ed Knuth 00:14:36 But then eventually they built up their own strength. King rom com paying, you know, united, some, some warring Thai factions and eventually they were able to kind of break away from encore, stop paying tribute. So in Sukhothai. But then they essentially the rise of Siam is at the cost of encore.

Greg Jorgensen 00:14:58 Yes. Yeah. And they moved aggressively eastward. And this, this is where basically the Khmer Empire starts to fall apart and it kind of ends. Around 1430, UTA launched a huge military campaign on Angkor and all the Khmer forces. There was a big, big battles, but they were overpowered and they basically kind of retreated to the south and east into. That's right. Modern Phnom Penh is. And further further south and further east. And that was basically where the Khmer Empire ended in about the 1430s.

Ed Knuth 00:15:32 Yeah. I mean, as a large empire, obviously the Khmer people continued on, but they were significant. They were significantly weakened. And the other problem is that, you know, part of that empire also extended east into the like the Viet Viet people.

Ed Knuth 00:15:46 But they also rebelled. So they were getting squeezed by both sides, you know. You know, essentially is what happened. And they were weakened a lot. And so with the rise of the Vietnam, those people, and I think also Vietnam was also colonized by China. So I think China played a role in this as well.

Greg Jorgensen 00:16:08 Yeah. And interestingly, as I was doing the reading, what I like, I assumed that the Siamese just sort of moved in or the Asia Kingdom just sort of moved in and was like, hey, Angkor. Great. We're nice, nice city. We'll take it kind of thing. But that's not what they did. And apparently it was quite common at the time to do something. What, the same thing that that Genghis Khan used to do. And they basically rounded up all the, the artisans, the scribes, the, the, the, the, the upper classes, the nobles. And they brought them back. They all brought them back to you.

Greg Jorgensen 00:16:40 Right? They they sort of redistributed them in the local area society. So. That's right. It's I think that's really interesting. So instead of just sort of showing up in a city, taking it by force and then planting your flag, they just basically took all of the most influential and smartest people and right and left, the left of the city, basically a hollow shell.

Ed Knuth 00:17:02 That's right. I mean, you and I were chatting about this just a little bit before we started recording. I think I think what what we call tie dance today, I think it's really, I think I think the Siamese, I think they captured Cambodian dancers and brought them back to the court of Usher.

Greg Jorgensen 00:17:21 Yes. That's the that's what I went to.

Ed Knuth 00:17:23 So, yeah. So they grabbed like they they grab artist, they grab artists, and they grab all the tools. They grab all the cool shit and bring it back.

Ed Knuth 00:17:32 And so. And then they absorbed.

Ed Knuth 00:17:33 So they basically kind of absorbed Khmer culture. Well, this is why they're so intertwined.

Ed Knuth 00:17:39 And, I'm not sure you can untangle it, because I think things were going in both directions where there was this for hundreds of years. Like you said, there's this Siamese influence in in, among Maine people, so they must have absorbed a huge amount of Thai stuff. So figuring out, figuring out where it all started. I don't think it is possible or meaningful. but but it's.

Ed Knuth 00:18:09 A key to understanding the current conflict. And once we get I have more to say once we get into the modern period. But I think the roots of this are necessary to understand the modern stuff.

Greg Jorgensen 00:18:21 Right, right. Well, let me just finish up by saying that I found one particular fact about the sort of fall of, of the Khmer Empire. Very, very fascinating. And basically, after all this, like I said, they retreated the the kings and the nobles and the elite classes.

Greg Jorgensen 00:18:38 They sort of retreated to Phnom Penh. and the reasons that they went to the Phnom Penh area was The Mekong River system allowed better trade and closer access to to the ocean, and it was also easier to defend from the Ayutthaya Empire if they decided to attack again. And I thought that was really interesting, because that's basically kind of the same thing that happened with the Ayutthaya Empire when it fell to the Burmese. They moved south to Bangkok on a more easily defensible position that was closer to the mouth of the river. I just thought that was kind of an interesting parallel.

Ed Knuth 00:19:15 No. Agreed. I think that's true. my my understanding as you move into a more modern period is, I think I think Cambodia or Khmer people, they found themselves in a situation where just they were in fact, weaker. They were surrounded by stronger, at least potential enemies. So they needed a stronger ally. So to to get back to what I was trying to talk about, I think in the 1800s, they they basically turned to the French as the French and British were coming into Asia, I think.

Ed Knuth 00:19:54 I think Cambodia more or less made a deal with the devil. So I think, you know, the monarchy, the, the Cambodian monarchy had survived, the, the Siamese empire and the, the Vietnamese Empire. and so then when these European powers came, who were stronger than the, the kind of local bullies like so. So from the Khmer point of view, the Siamese and the Vietnamese are like the local bullies, right?

Greg Jorgensen 00:20:19 The toughs.

Ed Knuth 00:20:20 You know, that have been that have been eating away at their at their former greatness. Right? Yeah. And so, so, so then when the European like, bigger bully shows up, I, I believe, and I'm sure among our listeners there's probably some true experts in Cambodian history, but I think the Cambodian king basically made a deal with the French to to protect them. So, you know, you know, you know, when you're like these colonizing European powers, most of the time they don't come in and say, hey, we're evil and we're just going to crush you.

Ed Knuth 00:20:52 They come in and say, oh, we're good Christian country. We're going to protect you.

Greg Jorgensen 00:20:56 Yeah, either that or the enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing.

Ed Knuth 00:20:59 Yeah. And so I think, I think the, the French, the Cambodians made a deal with the French to get protected by the French and then the French, as most, most people know, who know Thai history. What the French did is they took a warship, up the Chao Phraya River and quote unquote, negotiated with King Chulalongkorn, to, to.

Ed Knuth 00:21:21 Give, the Cambodians independence or semi independence. And King Chulalongkorn was forced to cede control of what you could call Cambodian land or Khmer land that that that that had bent the knee to see him for several hundred years, I think for almost 400 years. Right. They were subjugated. So the so the French, so they were the, the, the European power that the Cambodians had to do a deal with. But the result is they essentially become.

Ed Knuth 00:21:52 They became a French colony. Yeah. So so they had.

Ed Knuth 00:21:56 You know, it was you know, this is a brutal the kind of brutal reality of politics in the real world like they did. I don't think they had many. They didn't have any good options.

Greg Jorgensen 00:22:07 No. And by that time the Khmer Empire was long since gone. Angkor was a religious site, not a political site. And that's right. It was sort of, you know, by that time, Uto was dealing with with the Burmese and the fallout from that. And so the Khmer Khmer Empire wasn't really a consideration anymore.

Ed Knuth 00:22:25 Yeah. And as far as I can tell, like the, you know, it's, I'm obviously more familiar with Thai history than Cambodian history, but, you know, modern Cambodian history. It's rough. Man. I.

Ed Knuth 00:22:39 I mean, for many countries, when you get it into their history, it's pretty rough. But they really have, they've been in the need of a strong ally.

Ed Knuth 00:22:48 So this is how you survive in a competitive nation state system. You know, where where you have aggressive, neighbors or aggressive, empire or aggressive, like, you know, imperial powers is you need strong friends. And so I think, I think this is the story of Cambodia from the late 1800s until today. They need a patron. They need a powerful ally. So, yeah, you know, so it was the French. What happened is the French got occupied by Germany. And this allowed Japan to make advances in World War Two. And so essentially, the Cambodians had to turn to the Japanese as the new local bully, who could help them get land, like, secure their independence. So Japan became their strong patron. Right. and then when Japan was defeated, the French came back for a while. and then and then essentially we got the Cold War and they became part. You know, then then we get the two army to get into the more modern story of, like, the Khmer Rouge.

Ed Knuth 00:24:00 Are we are we ready to talk about that?

Greg Jorgensen 00:24:02 I guess so I don't want to get too deep into the Khmer Rouge. I think we should focus a bit more on like, you know, the more the, the later 20th century stuff. But the Khmer Rouge certainly played a mega role in there.

Ed Knuth 00:24:13 Well, I think the Khmer Rouge. It it it lays the groundwork for the modern conflict because essentially they, they were super extreme communists, where even kind of what you could call normal communists thought of them as crazy. You know what I mean?

Greg Jorgensen 00:24:29 Stalin was.

Multiple Speakers 00:24:29 Like, bro.

Greg Jorgensen 00:24:30 Chill.

Multiple Speakers 00:24:30 Okay.

Ed Knuth 00:24:31 No, the cameras were doing stuff like just burning all the money.

Multiple Speakers 00:24:35 Yeah.

Ed Knuth 00:24:35 Hey, we don't need money. Let's kill all the educated people.

Greg Jorgensen 00:24:39 Right? Like this is dead.

Ed Knuth 00:24:41 Yeah. You know, and,

Multiple Speakers 00:24:44 So. So what?

Ed Knuth 00:24:47 Essentially the the Viet Cong, the Vietnamese communists. They looked at the Khmer Rouge as crazy. And so Vietnam ends up, Vietnam ends up invading Cambodia, and that's where that's where Hun Sen comes from.

Ed Knuth 00:25:02 So the Hun Sen clan, which is which is the only, political leaders of modern, of modern Cambodia since, you know, 1980. That's where they come from. So essentially, the Vietnamese install Hun Sen as prime minister. And that's the beginning of the modern story of, of of Cambodia. So they're they're they're installed by Vietnamese communists. but then like then like the this this story is kind of fascinating. What? Essentially. So Vietnamese. So the the Vietnamese communists essentially win the Vietnamese war, right? The Vietnam War, what Americans call the Vietnam War. What, like Vietnamese called the American war? Yeah, that's what they call it. but but then in the 80s, Vietnam basically went broke. Like, as, like, you know, they they were kind of an independent communist country. And then their economy collapsed. and so they needed Soviet help. So essentially the Soviet Union came in and became the, the, the patron. That's that propped up Vietnam during the Cold War.

Ed Knuth 00:26:10 Right? Yeah. But then, but then but then the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 90s. And then now Cambodia needs a new patron, and they needed to distance themselves from the Soviet Union. And that new patron became China. And so.

Greg Jorgensen 00:26:28 As well.

Ed Knuth 00:26:28 Yeah. So China becomes the patron of Vietnam and Cambodia. And this is this. This begins the modern story of Cambodia. Because what Hun Sen did is he.

Ed Knuth 00:26:42 He maintains or he he capitalizes on this relationship with China and he gets massive foreign investment from China. But with that brings a lot of corruption. So China starts investing in Cambodia, building skyscrapers, building casinos. And it brings a lot of money and shaped totally shady business practices.

Greg Jorgensen 00:27:05 Yeah, China. That's kind of China's M.O. right there, doing the same thing in South America. They do the same thing in Africa and a lot of developing countries where they need that injection of money. China is more than happy to step in and expand their influence.

Ed Knuth 00:27:17 I hope it's not as corrupt.

Ed Knuth 00:27:19 I mean, essentially what happened in Cambodia is you got, casinos, which, you know, of course, can be legitimate. but you also got the, the, the, the, the influence of I guess we'd call the Chinese mafia or, or, shady figures who are profiting over all this, foreign investment. So I'm sure they're, I'm sure they have, like, local Cambodian partners. and I think, you know, we've talked before, obviously, Thailand has a problem with corruption, but I think Cambodia is on a completely different level. You know, it's just, you know, it's been one family ruling the country for I think it's we're coming up on 35 years. Right. So they don't they don't have you know, we criticize Thai democracy. But Cambodia Cambodia is several steps behind it. It's not it's not like one step behind.

Greg Jorgensen 00:28:17 Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

Ed Knuth 00:28:18 It's it's several steps behind. And and so leading up to the modern conflict, essentially you have a family that relies on the support of China, which is a combination of, like legitimate and illegitimate activity.

Ed Knuth 00:28:38 And and then so the so the so the Hun sen clan they have two problems. one problem is since he was initially installed by Vietnamese communists, he here's the thing that he has always had to solve or his family has to solve. He has had to show we are not a puppet or tool of Vietnam.

Greg Jorgensen 00:29:04 Okay?

Ed Knuth 00:29:05 Because he was he he literally was started as a puppet of Vietnam. I think Hun Sen started in the Khmer Rouge. And then, you know, the Khmer Rouge were nuts and they had a lot of internal purges.

Greg Jorgensen 00:29:18 Right.

Ed Knuth 00:29:18 And Hun Sen realized, okay, this is a losing game.

Greg Jorgensen 00:29:22 Yes. Yeah, he was part of it. But then he realized that I got to get out of here.

Ed Knuth 00:29:25 Yeah. And so then he he defected to Vietnam. So he essentially I mean, I guess I can say this like, I think he became a, like kind of a traitor to the Khmer Rouge. And he he realized, okay, Vietnam, they're the winners. I think Hun Sen is a, a political pragmatist.

Ed Knuth 00:29:40 I think he's a survivor. And he really you know, I think he realized, okay, the Vietnamese communists, they're there. They actually have their shit together.

Greg Jorgensen 00:29:49 Yeah.

Ed Knuth 00:29:50 You know, so so he I think he I think he defected to the Vietnamese communist. But then when the Soviet Union collapsed, then now, now. So now Vietnam has no patron. And so and so essentially the question is who's going to be the new patron? And it becomes China.

Greg Jorgensen 00:30:09 Yeah. They were happy to step in.

Ed Knuth 00:30:11 Yeah. So in the 90s, I think, Hun Sen's ties with China increased. Now the twist to this whole thing is that the, you know, the Khmer people, they have this ancient rival in Thailand. And so Hansen has to manage. He has to show that he's he's defending Khmer people against Thailand, but also he's not a puppet of Vietnam. And the, the, the what happened in the late 90s and early 2000 is that, because Thaksin was an outsider in Thai politics, they became fast friends right, in 2000.

Ed Knuth 00:30:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Essentially because by then the Hun Sen family were billionaires from all the shady shit going on. Right? he's got to prove his, you know, his allegiance to Cambodia. But toxin is not a normal. He doesn't come to power through, like, the normal Thai way. He's an outsider himself to to the Thai political elite. So Hun Sen. He. I think traditionally he can't tie himself to traditional Thai families, But Thaksin was an outsider. He was a newbie.

Greg Jorgensen 00:31:29 He was also a pragmatist, too, and he sort of had this totally new way of, of, of going around the established precedents that have been around for. That's right.

Ed Knuth 00:31:38 And so.

Greg Jorgensen 00:31:38 For decades and decades.

Ed Knuth 00:31:39 God, this is we really this is like where this could be a double show. But one one interesting twist that I'm not sure you're aware of this, but, you know, Thailand and Cambodia have these old border disputes, right? And so some of them have to do with specific temples and exactly where the line is.

Ed Knuth 00:31:58 Yeah. So listeners, listeners, in case you don't know, in certain areas, in certain places there's actually no official line. So on a map, if you look on Google Maps, they'll have a line between Thailand and Cambodia. But the truth is, officially it's undetermined in certain specific areas. It's more like a fuzzy like, imagine if you had like a gray wide band. That's actually the true border between Thailand and Cambodia. They've kind of agreed to disagree about certain areas.

Greg Jorgensen 00:32:32 So just imagine agreeing to disagree about a border. It's so funny.

Ed Knuth 00:32:36 Well, they haven't been able to solve it. So they have these unsolved border things that that where there happened to be a few important temples. And then another thing, I'm not sure you know about this. I was reading about this the other day. they're also kind of fighting over the sea around Goku because I know you're a fan. Goku is, like, hangs off of Chiang. It's. It's close to Cambodia. And that water, that water around there.

Ed Knuth 00:33:06 I think they either know or suspect that there might be oil reserves there. Oh, and so Thailand and Cambodia have been arguing, negotiating over where the the sea border is going to be. And it actually there's actually a claim by Cambodia. I don't think they claim all of Korkut, but I think I think they actually have a claim to half of Korkut. So. So actually got cut and the sea around it is part of this ongoing dispute.

Greg Jorgensen 00:33:41 Interesting. Yeah, that's a fascinating element of the whole thing is that there's there's a lot of sort of cultural and historical sites that are that both countries claim, but also both countries are sort of like, how do I say it? Well, because.

Ed Knuth 00:33:55 The border I mean, this is so complicated, the border that that is like on Google Maps, I think was actually drawn by the French. And so it's one of these things that neither Thailand or Cambodia, they actually weren't the ones who who drew that border. You know, it's a little bit like like it's a little bit like when the British Empire receded.

Ed Knuth 00:34:17 So when they left, they drew a map and handed it to the local people.

Greg Jorgensen 00:34:21 Right. Didn't they?

Ed Knuth 00:34:22 Like Here's Jordan. You know, here's here's Jordan. You know, so they handed a map to local people, and then the local people, I think, accepted it for a while. But then they woke up and they're like, oh, shit. Like, this is this is actually a British map.

Greg Jorgensen 00:34:37 Didn't Thailand in Cambodia actually refused to let an international body come in and, and audit the history of the borders and actually draw borders?

Ed Knuth 00:34:46 The short story is Cambodia. What? They want to use the international courts. But Thailand doesn't want to.

Greg Jorgensen 00:34:52 Interesting. Yeah. Okay, so that's another a whole nother wrinkle. Yeah. And listeners, by the way, as an aside, if you go back and listen to season three, episode 66, we did a really fun history show on the Cambodian Thai soap opera riots of 2003.

Ed Knuth 00:35:06 Oh, geez. That's another.

Greg Jorgensen 00:35:07 Thing. Yeah.

Greg Jorgensen 00:35:07 Fascinating, fascinating little blip in the relationship between Thailand and Cambodia. That started with an actress saying that Angkor Wat belonged to Cambodia and ended with both ambassadors recalled, and a whole bunch of shops on fire. And really interesting episode.

Ed Knuth 00:35:22 Yeah. So bringing it up to date listeners out there, if you haven't been following it, the the most recent stuff in the last six months is the, the. Most people think that the true dispute, the true thing going on has to do with, the poor Thai party, the toxin Shinawatra clan, their desire to open legal casinos in Thailand. And this is a direct threat to Hun Sen and his family, because they make a lot of money from casinos over the border in Cambodia, where I think 90% of the customers of those Cambodian casinos are Thai. And so it's.

Greg Jorgensen 00:36:08 So terribly sad, droopy, ragged places where people just chain smoking, drape themselves off of machines.

Ed Knuth 00:36:17 I think the Cambodian government, Hun Sen and his clan and their Chinese partners. They've made a mint over those casinos.

Ed Knuth 00:36:25 And so the the Thai party, they wanted to legalize gambling in Thailand. And then the the flip side of that is when when Hun Sen kind of broke with the Shinawatra and released the phone call with Patong. Turn right. That what what what the Thai government did in response is we're going to start cracking down on Cambodian scam centres. So the other the other source of income for the other corrupt source of income in Cambodia is the scam centres, which we've talked about on the show already, which are which are illegal compounds and in some cases, actually cities in Cambodia that are essentially set up to scam people over the internet.

Greg Jorgensen 00:37:09 So it's a huge, huge billion dollar industry.

Ed Knuth 00:37:13 Where you have hundreds of of people. And sometimes the people working in the scam centres themselves are basically slaves. but, so the problem now is that this I think this is the this is the I hope it's kind of the death throes of this corrupt syndicate that has run Cambodia since the Vietnam War. And they've been they've been living off get gambling revenue, which I think is mostly legal, but also scam center revenue and and what essentially, when the relationship broke down with the Shinawatra clan, I think that the, the Cambodian nationalism is at I think I think they're getting ordered or, or prodded by the Cambodian government to provoke Thailand.

Ed Knuth 00:38:07 So, so essentially, Cambodian soldiers have been shooting weapons over the border. They've been planting landmines in these these disputed gray zone territory. And essentially they've been provoking Thailand to respond. And I you know, maybe we're biased because we live here, but I think that I think that the provocation, the provocations have mostly come from the Cambodian side. And now Thailand, as we're recording this, the Thai government is pissed. And now they're just now they're just bombing scam centers.

Greg Jorgensen 00:38:41 Yeah. And they're also that that also draws in the Chinese mafia, which have a huge presence there as well. Just a lot of Chinese citizens have been arrested in Thailand, as they're driving around and stuff. So and, and they're all talking about moving the, the, the, the captives of these scam centers, these some of them are Africans, some of them are from different countries and sort of moving them to Laos or Burma. So there's like a whole undercurrent of, of, of gray market, black market finance moneymakers going on here as well.

Ed Knuth 00:39:12 You know this for me, it's a it's a fascinating political problem because, you know, Thailand, I think, has made strides or made inroads in becoming less corrupt. You know, we can argue how much, but I think Thailand. I think the rule of law is strengthening. But it raises the question of how much can you tolerate the lack of rule of law in your neighbor? And, and I think mostly Thailand's attitude has been you do you you know, so they so there's a you know, so there's a civil war in Burma and the Thailand does not take sides. You know, there's scam centres and gambling in Cambodia. They they're like fine, you do you but but eventually that stuff bleeds over. You know, you can't like the bottom line is if you can't, it's very hard. If your neighbor is the Wild West, it's going to affect you. It's going to affect you.

Greg Jorgensen 00:40:07 Yeah. The status quo can't last like that for too long.

Ed Knuth 00:40:10 Yeah. And so I think we've reached a point where Thailand has decided they have to stick their nose in their neighbor's business because their neighbor's business is actually affecting them, right?

Greg Jorgensen 00:40:24 Well, it's interesting because I've got friends coming to Thailand over the new year, and they are going to Kaku and they're a little bit nervous about it.

Greg Jorgensen 00:40:31 They're sending messages like, hey, what's up with this? Should we still do it? And my, my take was as of now, which is like as of today, I would have no problem going there, right? Because it's a long, long way from where the fighting is. But like you said, it is.

Ed Knuth 00:40:46 Due the border. The border is evacuated. So I think 300,000 Thai people have evacuated the border area now. It's insane.

Greg Jorgensen 00:40:54 Do you think this has a potential to escalate to something like really, really bad? I don't know.

Ed Knuth 00:40:59 Yes, yes. I mean, I'm not I'm not predicting that, like like your intro was perfect. This is the kind of thing that could just calm down in the next three days.

Greg Jorgensen 00:41:09 It's not unprecedented. There's decades of decades of little flare flare.

Ed Knuth 00:41:13 You know, it flares up. But man, when I saw, you know, Thailand has, a modern military. It's not huge, but they do have a modern military. Cambodia does not.

Ed Knuth 00:41:22 Thailand. Now, because of their relationship with the US, they have F-16s, you know, so they're not super modern. They're not Gen five fighters. But Thailand has a real air force, and they're they're bombing the crap out of Cambodia as we speak. And it's, these are, by definition, acts of war, you know, so so I think right now the Cambodian government has a major decision to make. I mean, they have been, again, their sovereignty is being totally violated. They're getting bombed by a neighbor. But the truth is, and what I think everyone knows is the Thai government is picking and choosing targets carefully. They're bombing these illegal, like, super like super black markets, shady Mafia towns. And so I think it's I think the Cambodian government has a very has to be very careful how they respond to this. I don't think they can run to the UN and act sanctimonious. We've been attacked. Oh my God, this is totally unjust when everyone knows that there's just massive corruption there.

Ed Knuth 00:42:29 So they've got a the Cambodia government's got a they they've got a tightrope to walk here.

Greg Jorgensen 00:42:35 Yeah I agree. I agree with that. But also just because Thailand is bombing scam centres, they can't you know the international court is not going to say well they're scam centres. They probably deserve it. So Thailand is okay here like in the clear.

Ed Knuth 00:42:48 You know I know that's why. That's why it's a difficult issue. But yeah I you know it's hard like but these are acts of war. So what Thailand is doing, it's just by any definition these are acts of war. And normally a country would, you know, like you would have the moral high ground. You know, we have been attacked. We have been bombed. You would have the moral high ground. But the problem is, I don't know if the Cambodian government can can truly claim the moral high ground here.

Greg Jorgensen 00:43:16 Well, one just hopes that it doesn't turn into a proxy war between China supplying Cambodia and the US supplying Thailand. Jesus.

Ed Knuth 00:43:23 I mean, I mean, that's a distant risk right now. And, you know, Trump could. I'm all for for Trump. You know, he he previously got them to sign an agreement which now has been totally violated by both sides. So Trump Trump today actually said he's going to come back in. And so I'm all for it if he can do that. the the you know, the the bottom line is that I think, you know, this, these disputes over the border, or the sea. To me, these are purely political things that you solve with lawyers and you sit around a table. but there's no reason anyone. Yeah, there's no reason that anyone needs to be dying over this. So it truly is. It's truly tragic. And, any way you can just stop the the shooting and the fighting right now to get to the stage of let's sit down and hammer this out is better, but Cambodia has to give up this gross mafia black market shit. So I think, I think this is a turning point as a non Cambodia expert, the way I see this is this is a turning point for Cambodia.

Ed Knuth 00:44:33 It's like they because because Thailand is I think just not going to tolerate it anymore. Like the the excessive like super scammy stuff that's happening right over the border in Cambodia. Thailand is now said we're not we're not we're not going to look the other way.

Greg Jorgensen 00:44:48 It's interesting isn't it, because all these sort of like black market, gray market things, they're tolerated. They're always tolerated up to a point, whether it's fishing boats, slavery, whether it's human smuggling across the borders or something like that, they're always tolerated up to a point until they reach that tipping point where it becomes international news, or it becomes so big that it starts to affect other industries and, and have this sort of like Gravity well that starts drawing other things into it. That's right. And then it becomes a big problem that everyone has to deal with. So I think we're seeing that now in my in my expert opinion as a international relations negotiator.

Ed Knuth 00:45:24 Oh, great. I would agree with that.

Greg Jorgensen 00:45:26 Well it's interesting man. And it's, it's this is something that I, that I said, like our countries don't have to deal with.

Greg Jorgensen 00:45:32 We're not fighting with people. we, you know, that's based on centuries of back and forth and cultural integration and conflict. You know, so it's a really interesting dynamic here and play.

Ed Knuth 00:45:46 Well, listeners, you know, from to non-experts, I hope that at least was a little bit of a primer.

Greg Jorgensen 00:45:53 Yeah, yeah. Again, we're not experts. We're just sort of observers and people who are living here, and we hope that everyone comes to the table and negotiate something that is, that everyone gets.

Ed Knuth 00:46:04 Yeah, man. This is an opportunity for Trump. I mean, Trump Trump did get them to stop shooting before. So if he can do it again. More power to him.

Greg Jorgensen 00:46:12 Yeah, he's got a bunch of billions of dollars in crypto. Just throw some money around him. That's right. The yin to the.

Ed Knuth 00:46:19 Make a crypto deal. You give Hansen a crypto deal?

Greg Jorgensen 00:46:22 Sure. Yeah. Who doesn't like crypto? I got some.

Ed Knuth 00:46:24 Works for me.

Greg Jorgensen 00:46:26 All right, well, let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discussed to decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept as something that we just have to learn to live with no matter how we feel about it.

Greg Jorgensen 00:46:39 And this weekend, what do you got for me?

Ed Knuth 00:46:41 All right. I've got a little bit of a reverse question for you. it kind of shows how how much Thailand has changed recently. We've talked many times about how Thailand is fairly advanced in the electronic banking department.

Greg Jorgensen 00:46:58 Okay.

Ed Knuth 00:46:58 Right. So I've got a little bit of a reverse love though to live with. Oh what do you what do you think about now if you're talking to, let's say a vendor or maybe a taxi guy, and they won't accept a QR code or transfer. Were they insist on cash.

Greg Jorgensen 00:47:24 that's interesting because I am finding myself less and less with my wallet now. Like, I almost hardly. I hardly ever have my wallet or cash.

Ed Knuth 00:47:34 That's why I'm asking this, because this is a new thing for me, where I've become more reliant on QR, and most high people are on board.

Greg Jorgensen 00:47:42 Yeah, I kind of find it annoying, but I also rarely leave without a little bit of cash. It's funny because cash has now become the backup like the just in case solution.

Ed Knuth 00:47:54 Yes, yes, that's what I'm. That's what that's what? Yeah. That's why I wanted to ask you about this. It's a little bit of a reverse thing. Yeah.

Greg Jorgensen 00:48:02 I, I, I kind of find it annoying. Like, every, every citizen in Thailand has a has a prompt fee because it's tied to your phone number and your bank card. Your ID card, I think. But the flipside is this there's some stores like Starbucks, they don't accept cash at all. And then you have other vendors that only accept cash. So you still got to be prepared for it. But I find there's there's no real excuse for someone not to use a QR code. And since this seems to be the way that everyone's moving. Yeah, it's kind of annoying.

Ed Knuth 00:48:32 I, you know, I, I'm a bit lost. I a a few years ago I was open to banking, but I still had this idea that cash is not going to die. I'll always have cash in my pocket.

Ed Knuth 00:48:45 So cash comes first. and I hate the places that won't take cash. That's where I was about three years ago. Really? Where? You know, I'm a gadget guy. I'm. I'm tech savvy. So I was never against, you know, transfers or QR codes. But I always hated when I went into a Starbucks and they said, no cash.

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:05 Okay. Right.

Ed Knuth 00:49:06 But now. But now I've flipped.

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:08 I've gone. Interesting.

Ed Knuth 00:49:10 I've gone to the dark side. Now where my attitude is. Why do we need cash? What do you like? You know, I had. The reason I thought of this is because I was in two taxis today, and both guys were. Both guys were bitching and moaning. They were like Miami. You are like Miami. Miami own own means to transfer. They're like my own. Might I, like you are my die.

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:31 You're like.

Ed Knuth 00:49:31 All right, I'm.

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:32 And I'm like, grandpa.

Ed Knuth 00:49:33 And I'm like, I don't have I don't have cash.

Ed Knuth 00:49:36 And so then they're bitching and moaning and so now I'm now I'm totally in. I'm like, what's wrong with you? Like, why? Why would you rely on cash?

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:43 It's funny. You've totally flipped.

Ed Knuth 00:49:45 I've completely flipped now. And now I loathe people who demand cash.

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:50 I loathe. I don't I don't know that I'ma live with, but I just. I still find it a little bit annoying.

Ed Knuth 00:49:55 Embrace the future, Greg.

Greg Jorgensen 00:49:57 I have, I have, but it's always. I guess I'm a Boy scout, right? Always be prepared. Have a spare 100 buy in your back pocket.

Ed Knuth 00:50:04 It's a good idea. Probably a good idea. All right, a final thanks to our patrons who support their show patrons. Got a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Where Bangkok podcast on social media Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com.

Ed Knuth 00:50:26 We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg Jorgensen 00:50:30 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website. We'll feature that on the show. Hit me up on blue Sky BK. Greg, thank you for listening everyone. Again, no shows for the rest of the year. Have a great holiday and we'll see you back here in January for sure.

Ed Knuth 00:50:44 Happy holidays.