As we have seen, the two most important characteristics of post-Angkorean Cambodia were the shift in the country's center of gravity from Angkor to Phnompenh, with the commercial and demographic ramification that the move implied, and the roles played by the Thai and Vietnam, nineteenth century Cambodia, therefore, must be seen in part against the back ground if its foreign relations.
These relations were carried out with two countries, Vietnam and Siam ,and occurred within a framework of rivalry between the two larger Kingdom, rivalry sprang from the unwillingness of either court, to accept the other as equal or superior, this unwillingness, in turn ,can be traced in part to the traditional language of tributary diplomacy, which stressed the inequality between the sender and recipient of tribute.
A major objective of Southeast Asian diplomacy in the nineteenth century, in deed, was the ritualized expression of differential status through the ceremonial exchange of gifts, the rules for these tributary exchanges grew out of the particular system in which they occurred, the Thai and the Vietnamese, for example, had separate ones, which overlapped inside Cambodia.
Both system owed a good deal to their counterpart in China, which had been in effect since the third century Bc and was still operation in the 1800s, from a Cambodian point of view , the Thai variant was looser and more idiosyncratic, for the Thai made allowance for local customs and local products, the Vietnamese did not, the latter were rigid in copying the Chinese model, in 1806, for example, Vietnamese emperor Gia-long, in choosing gifts to send to the Cambodian King, transmitted facsimiles of ones he had received, at the beginning of his own Reign, from the Chinese emperor. some of these, like "Golden Dragon paper for imperial decrees" and Chinese bureaucratic costumes were meaningless to the Khmer, the seals of investiture sent from Hue' to Udong were irrelevant to Cambodians because they had camels carved on them. like the seals that the Chinese court sent to tributary states in central Asia and, incidentally, to Vietnam, one puzzled Cambodian chronicler referred to animal as a "Chinese-Lion".
From Vietnam's point of view , Vietnam was ":Above" Cambodian , just as China was "above" Vietnam, at the same time, of course , Cambodia was below, Vietnam and Vietnam was below China, in other words, Vietnam was the master in one relationship and the servant in the other, as a by product of this duality, the Civilized" goods sent from Hue' to Udong were facsimiles of those sent from Beijing to Hue' while" Barbarian, goods transmitted from Udong were the same sorts of products that Vietnam transmitted to China.
In the matter of tributary gifts , the Thai were more flexible than the Vietnamese, the Chakrai Kings sent gifts to nineteenth century Cambodian Kings that the recipients could recognized and use, in exchange, the Thai seem to have settled for whatever products they could get, sometimes Cambodia sent pepper ,at other times,lacquer and Kravanh Cardamom, there is no evidence, however, that the Cambodian ever transmitted the Gold and Silver ornamental trees (Banga-mas) that were a feature or tribute to Bangkok from other dependent states.
Similarly, the embassies that King Chan's (r 1797- 1835) sent to Bangkok and Hue' obeyed different sets of rules ,as embassies to Bangkok were larger, more frequent, and more informal, the differences between the two diplomatic system paralleled differences in Thai and Vietnamese official attitudes toward themselves, each other, and the Khmer, these differences became crucial and painful for the Khmer in 1830s, when the Vietnamese emperor sought to administer Cambodia directly, in a Vietnamese way, from a Cambodian point of view, however, what mattered about the Thai and Vietnamese tributary system and attitudes toward Cambodia was ,not that they were different and made different sorts of demands, but that they were condescending, overlapping, and expensive.
Thai and Vietnamese official relation with each other, until they soured in 1820s, were marked by considerable informality, this arose in part from a mutual unwillingness on the part of the Thai and the Vietnamese to accept or impose authority, because they enjoyed roughly similar power and prestige, the problem of hegemony did not yet arise in their relations with the Khmer, and notions about the roles both states should play in Cambodia were quite consistent, the barbarity of the Cambodian people and the subservience of their King, for example,were taken for granted, and the corollary that each superior state had a sort of civilizing mission to carry out inside Cambodia, the rulers saw themselves, in their official correspondence, as destined to supervise the Khmer. as one Thai diplomatic letter put it, it is fitting for large countries to take care of smaller ones, others referred to Chan as an "Unruly-Child" and the confluence of Thai and Vietnamese policies in Cambodia as "Fruit and seeds forming a single unit".
Some of these language was mask for realpolitik, but these images are nonetheless suggestive, the language of diplomatic correspondence, like the languages in everyday use in Southeast Asia, used pronouns that were hierarchical and family-oriented, and relationship between states were often described by using images of child-rearing, in these the Thai and the Vietnamese became the Father, and the Mother of the Khmer, whose King was referred to as their Child or their servant in 1860s, a French official mused perceptively that Siam was Cambodia's Father became it's King gave names to the monarch, whereas Vietnam was seen to be the mother because its rulers provided the Khmer with seals of office whatever the reasons Thai and Vietnamese statements, like those made later by the French, amounted to unilateral declarations of dependence, the family-oriented images were unjustified and far- fetched, but they give us a useful way of looking at the period- that is. as the continuing struggle between increasingly incompatible parents for the custody of a weak but disobedient child.
Although Thai official ideas were often couched in Buddhist terminology and Vietnamese ones in terms of a sino-Vietnamese Confucian tradition, Thai and Vietnamese objectives in Cambodia, seldom voiced explicitly, were similar. like the Nguyen, they were eager to extend their prestige along their frontiers and to amplify their self-images as universally accepted Kings, the Thai rulers also wanted to link themselves as patrons of Buddhism to the Chakravatin. or wheel-turning monarch
, who had Reigned for so many centuries at Ayudhya , these ambitions led the rulers of both states to expand the land and the people under their control.
After 1810. King Chan and his advisers were swept up into a game of power politics that they had a little chance to change and no opportunity to win, they had no choice, in Vietnamese terms ,Cambodia was a Fence, a buffer state and a dumping-ground for colonist, to the Thai, the Cambodians were fellow- Buddhist" Children" basking in a fund of Chakrey-merit. who could provide cardamom for the court and manpower for Chakrey wars, the Thai wanted the Cambodians to be loyal,the Vietnamese wanted Cambodia's land and, incidentally, its recognition of their superiority
the Thai demanded service and friendship,but they were usually unable-given the way they organizedtheir armies and the distance between Bangkok and Phnompenh,to provide protection.
the Vietnamese , on the other hand, provided protection of a sort ,but their actions led to the disappearance of Cambodia as an independent state, by different routes, then, the Thai and the Vietnamese often came to do the same things, taking over certain Srok making hostages of the ruler and his relations, and curtailing the independence of the Oknha.
To Chan and his advisers, the outcome of this game was probably not obvious at first, in the early part of his Reign,his alliance with Vietnam was probably meant only to deflect some of the pressures on him from the Thai, letters took so long between Bangkok, Udong, and Hue' that Chan was able to buy time on several occasions by saying one thing to the Thai and another to the Vietnamese, moreover, for most of his Reign, he kept his communications open with both capitals by means of the embassies he sent them, in fact Chan may well have been under the impression that the equilibrium that prevailed in the early years of his Reign was his own creation and that he had more bargaining power with his patrons than he really did, even if the balance of forces and the inactivity of the Thai and the Vietnamese reflected Thai ans Vietnamese choice dictated by their own perceptions of national interest and even if Cambodia's independence reflected what were for the moment limited Thai and Vietnamese ambitions rather than Cambodian skill, there were still advantages to Chan in blurring the lines of his allegiance, one of the chronicle, allegedly quoting Emperor Gia-Long, makes this point quite clear.
"Cambodia is a small country" the Emperor said" and we should maintain it as a child, we will be its mother its father will be Siam, when a child has trouble with its father, it can get rid of suffering by embracing its mother,when the child is unhappy with its mother, it can run to its father for support
Chan was not alone in playing this game, he was joined by his rivals in the Cambodian Royal family, whose alternating loyalties led King Rama III of Siam, writing in the early 1840s, to say
"the Cambodians always fight among themselves in the matter of succession, the losers in these fight go off to ask for help from a neighboring state, the winner must then ask for forces from the other ".
Chan's freedom of action was illusory, he survived as King only so long as one of his patrons and all of his rivals were inactive and so long as the relatively active patron provided him with military help when either patron turned his attentions fully to Cambodia, there was nothing Chan could do to deflect the destruction that ensued, like Prince Sihanouk in the 1960s, or Pol-Pot a decade later, Chan remained Neutral" as long as stronger power allowed him to do so , Chan suffered an additional disadvantage in having no world leader or world forums turn to- no Mao Zedong, no association of Southeast Asian Nations, and no United Nation.
the End of Cambodia's relations with Vietnam and Thai,.
