Cambodia bans Thai movies and TV shows in latest border feud tit-for-tat

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By Sopheng Cheang

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia escalated its cold war with Thailand on Friday when it announced a ban on Thai movies and TV shows and a boycott of the neighboring country’s international internet links.

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Tensions between the Southeast Asian countries have soared since an armed confrontation in a border area on May 28 that each side blamed on the other and which left one Cambodian soldier dead.

Cambodian officials said the import and screenings of Thai movies would be banned, and that broadcasters would be ordered not to air Thai-produced shows, which include popular soap operas. The government said it would inflict a financial blow on Thailand by rerouting its international internet traffic through other countries instead.

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Cambodian and Thai authorities engaged in saber-rattling last week, though they have since walked back much of their earlier statements emphasizing their right to take military action.

But they continue to implement or threaten measures short of armed force, keeping tensions high. Thailand has added restrictions at border crossings. Much of their war of words actually has appeared intended to mollify nationalistic critics on their own sides.

The confrontation reportedly took place in a relatively small “no man’s land” constituting territory along their border that both countries claim is theirs.

The area is closed to journalists, but it appears that both sides withdrew soon after the fatal confrontation to avoid further clashes, without explicitly conceding the fact in order to save face.

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“Neither side wants to use the word ‘withdraw’. We say ‘adjust troop deployments’ as a gesture of mutual respect_this applies to both Cambodia and Thailand.” Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was quoted telling reporters this past week.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said Friday on the Telegram social network that his government would act preemptively to establish self-reliance in response to exhortations by Thai nationalists to cut off electricity and internet connectivity to Cambodia.

Camboia’s Minister of Post and Telecommunication Chea Vandeth announced on his Facebook page that “all telecommunications operators in Cambodia have now disconnected all cross-border internet links with Thailand,” and that the move would deprive Thailand of as much as hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, a claim that could not be immediately checked.

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The reported move to use circuits bypassing Thailand temporarily disrupted internet connectivity for users of at least one Cambodian service provider.

Thai officials said any plans to cut services to Cambodia were unrelated to the territorial conflict and would actually be targeting the infamous online scam centers in the Cambodian border town of Poipet that have been a problem for several years.

Cambodia’s Ministry of Fine Arts meanwhile informed all film distributors and cinemas owners that starting Friday, the import and screening of all Thai films must be immediately suspended.

Som Chhaya, deputy director general of a popular Cambodian TV channel, People Nation Network, told The Associated Press that his company will comply with another government order to drop Thai-produced shows, and in their place broadcast Chinese, Korean or Cambodian dramas.

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Thai films and TV shows have a large audience in Cambodia.

Friday’s actions in Cambodia were taken one day ahead of a planned meeting in the capital Phnom Penh of the two countries’ Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary to help resolve the conflicting territorial claims that led to last month’s deadly confrontation.

There is a long history to their territorial disputes, Thailand is still rankled by a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands that awarded to Cambodia the disputed territory where the historic Preah Vihear temple stands. There were sporadic though serious clashes there in 2011, and the ruling was reaffirmed in 2023.

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