Kin Phea, director of the International Relations Institute at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, said the Europe trip was part of Cambodia’s role and duties as the rotating chair of ASEAN this year.
He said Cambodia appreciated multilateral mechanisms for global unity and efforts, including regional and global issues frameworks to respond to problems such as global pandemics, energy and food crises and climate change.
“It shows Cambodia’s willingness to engage the outside world in bilateral and multilateral foreign relations. Hun Sen will also have a meeting with French president [Emmanuel Macron], which I see as a positive sign that Cambodia is strengthening cooperation with France.
“One new development of Cambodian foreign policy is its position on the current hot issue of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where Cambodia’s position is clear and unchanging in that it supports peace and peaceful solutions and rejects the use of force by one country against another,” he said.
Phea said the recent interactions between ASEAN and the EU seemed to have yielded many positive results, as the relationship has evolved from a dialogue partnership to a strategic partnership.
In addition, the EU is developing its own Indo-Pacific strategy with Southeast Asia or ASEAN at its core, as well as some EU countries having their own foreign policies within the Indo-Pacific strategic framework, he said.
Phea added that it was part of the EU’s strategy as an ally of the US to lock in and surround China to reduce its growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.
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