Look around the world and there are remarkably few countries without a territorial dispute. Without wanting to trivialize egregious breaches of sovereignty like the invasion of Ukraine, most are undeniably petty.
China’s beef with Japan over the Senkaku (or Diaoyu) Islands, for instance, regularly sparks diplomatic, military, and economic standoffs costing billions of dollars over a far-flung islet measuring 2.7 sq mi. Then there is Canada and Greenland’s beef over the uninhabited Hans Island, a barren spit in the Kennedy Channel. Or even Uganda and Kenya’s spat over Lake Victoria’s Migingo Island, which is smaller than a football field.
Clearly a significant number of territorial squabbles exist simply to provide a jingoistic distraction, an excuse to rally around the flag or challenge the patriotism of a political rival. And while they can flare up organically, prolonged skirmishes are typically stoked with a clear purpose.
Which is why policy analysts are scratching their heads about what exactly lies behind the escalating border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia. On Thursday, fighting erupted again near the disputed Ta Moan Thom Temple, located in a border area in northwestern Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province, resulting in the deaths of at least 13 civilians and a soldier in Thailand, which dispatched a F-16 to bomb Cambodian targets in response.
As fighting spread to at least six areas along the arcane frontier, Thailand’s military closed crossings between the countries. The fighting spurred at least 40,000 civilians from more than 80 villages near the border to flee to makeshift bomb shelters of sandbags and car tires.
Both countries have issued statements accusing the other of instigating the violence. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has requested an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council in response, saying the clashes “gravely threatened peace in the region.” Acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai warned the conflict “could develop into war.”
But what makes the current flare-up most bamboozling is that it pits two of Southeast Asia’s most formidable and, until recently, closest aligned families against each other. When border tensions first flared up last month, Thailand’s then-Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, called up Cambodia’s 72-year-old former strongman Hun Sen—Hun Manet’s father—to soothe tensions.
However, Hun Sen leaked their June 15 phone call, during which Paetongtarn adopted a subservient tone and criticized one of her own generals, leading to her suspension by Thailand’s constitutional court pending an ethics investigation after 10,000 people took to the street demanding her resignation.
“The Thai government and the Shinawatras were gobsmacked when Hun Sen leaked that very damaging phone recording,” says Phil Robertson, the Bangkok-based director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates. “He really threw down the gauntlet.”
It was a Shakespearean betrayal given Hun Sen had for decades been thick as thieves with Paetongtarn’s 75-year-old father, Thai political patriarch Thaksin Shinawatra, whom he had once described as his “god brother.” After Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup, Hun Sen appointed him as an economic advisor to the Cambodian government and they often golfed together. Following the putsch that removed Thaksin’s sister Yingluck as Prime Minister in 2014, routed Shinawatra supporters were granted sanctuary in Cambodia.
Thaksin and Yingluck both stayed at Hun Sen’s house for his 72nd birthday party in August 2023. When Thaksin returned to Thailand from exile last year, Hun Sen was the first foreign leader to visit him. Before Paetongtarn became Prime Minister, she led a delegation to Phnom Penh in March last year to meet with Hun Sen, who still serves as leader of the Cambodian People’s Party.
But beginning last month, Hun Sen began posting unhinged messages accusing Thaksin of “betraying” him and threatening to expose his treasonous actions, including undermining Thailand’s sacrosanct monarchy.
“Since Thaksin became involved in Thai politics, Thailand has been in great turmoil, starting before the 2006 coup,” Hun Sen posted on Facebook on July 20. “I also do not want to bring up the severe insults you directed at the Thai monarchy—those words were too vile for me to repeat, as they would only tarnish the dignity of the Thai King. But you acknowledge that they are true.”
Thailand has some of the world’s harshest royal defamation laws—known as lese-majeste, or Article 112—and so accusing Thaksin of insulting the monarch is the local equivalent of Elon Musk tweeting that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. “It got personal,” says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “He really went off the boil.”
What sparked everything off is now indisputable. On May 28, some Cambodian soldiers were carousing by Ta Moan Thom Temple when they encountered some of their Thai peers. Although things occasionally get testy along the shared border, relations had been for the most part cordial, with both sides camping side-by-side, sharing singalongs and games of Takraw, a form of foot volleyball. However, when the Cambodians began boisterously belting out the Khmer national anthem, the Thai soldiers objected. Shots were exchanged, and one Cambodian was killed.
Paetongtarn specifically referenced this incident in her leaked phone call, and you’d imagine it would be easy for two friendly leaders to smooth things over. But a few factors clearly incentivized Hun Sen to drag out the spat.
For one, the Cambodian economy is not doing well, and Hun Sen may spy an opportunity for his unpopular son to demonstrate his leadership chops. Additionally, Hun Sen may want a diversion from recent scrutiny on Cambodia’s illicit businesses—including casinos, human trafficking, and scam centers—which according to some estimates account for up to 40% of GDP. Hun Manet’s failure to deal with the “scamdemic,” as the U.N. has dubbed it, has even led to calls for Cambodia to be added to a U.S. visa blacklist.
Compounding matters, Paetongtarn’s government was making moves towards legalizing gambling in Thailand, which would undercut a key revenue stream for the Hun family and Cambodia more broadly. (Though such moves have been mooted for many years and never caused friction previously.)
Some analysts have even suggested that Hun Sen has been enlisted by Thailand’s elites to finally topple the Shinawatra family, which remains reviled by royalists for its populist adulation amongst rural voters. However, Thitinan is unconvinced about any grand conspiracy. “They don’t need help to get rid of the Shinawatras,” he says. “Paetongtarn was already in big trouble.”
In the meantime, Paetongtarn’s suspension leaves a perilous power vacuum in Thailand. The country only has an acting Prime Minister and acting defense minister, meaning authority over border matters has effectively been handed to an aggrieved and wounded armed forces. “This is a dangerous recipe,” says Thitinan. “On one hand, you have the Thai Army in charge. On the other hand, you have Hun Sen, who is going to keep provoking things.”
It’s uncertain what an off-ramp might look like. On Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Abrahim spoke to both sides in his capacity as current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and praised “positive signals and willingness” to halt the bloodshed. However, since Anwar is also known as being close to Thaksin, whom he previously appointed as an adviser on Myanmar, it’s unclear whether Hun Sen will trust his impartiality. And with the U.S. completely checked out from regional diplomacy under Trump, it may fall to China—which holds huge sway in Cambodia and is close to the Thai military—to broker an accord.
But aside from boosting Beijing’s regional clout, the spat will undoubtedly be damaging for both sides. For one, Thailand looks weak and riven. Previously war-torn Cambodia, meanwhile, has long served as a posterchild for the scourge of landmines and has received over half-a-billion dollars from foreign donors toward purging the over 6 million that once littered its emerald landscape, including $208 million from the U.S. alone since 1993. But revelations that five members of a Thai military patrol were wounded by newly laid Cambodian landmines on Wednesday afternoon has outraged the international community.
“That’s very, very damaging for Cambodia,” says Robertson. “They want to fight it out, but at the end of the day, both sides are going to end up with a tarnished reputation.” Even the petty can have a high price.
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