LIVE DISPATCH
• Securing India's Digital Frontiers: Cybersecurity Challenges and Strategic Responses in the Age of Hybrid Warfare • Beyond Consultation: BIMSTEC's Emerging Role in Regional Intelligence and Security Cooperation • Prism of Dragon’s Maritime Assertiveness: Regional Implications and India’s Strategic Options • Between the Desert and the Savannah: Conflict and the Political Economy of Instability in the Sahel • The Architecture of Cooperation: Navigating East Asia's Geopolitical Landscape • The Politics of Ali Khamenei's Funeral • From Civil Nuclear Power to Nuclear Hedging: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Emerging Nuclear Security Dilemma in the Middle East • Operation Sindoor and the Changing Dynamics of India–Pakistan Security • The Invisible Front: China-Pakistan Grey-Zone Operations • Generative AI, Labour Sovereignty, and the Geoeconomics of India's Service Economy • India's Agentic AI Strategy Needs Authority Budgets before Autonomy Scales • India's AI Diplomacy and the Future of Strategic Technologies • From Physical Borders to Intelligent Borders: The Evolution of India's Border Security Architecture • Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Governance Deficit: Challenges to International Humanitarian Law and Accountability • AI Driven Cyberwarfare and National Security • Great Power Rivalry and the Crisis of the United Nations • The Continuing U.S. Regime-Change Toolkit: Color Revolutions, Political Influence, and Vietnam • Ten Years After Brexit: Regret, Reform, or Reversal? • Digital Pathways to Extremism: An Investigative Study of ISIS and Al-Qaeda's Use of Digital Platforms in India • Sports, Strategy and Statecraft of Mega Sporting Events as Geoeconomic Instruments: Qatar 2022 to Saudi Arabia 2034 • Strategic Autonomy in the Age of Weaponised Interdependence: India’s Geopolitical Dilemma • Hardening the Quad: From Strategic Dialogue to Operational Cooperation • China’s Grey-Zone Strategy in the Indian Ocean: Implications for India’s Maritime Security • The Maghreb of States: Identity, Sovereignty, and the Limits of Non-Interference • Europe’s Digital Dependence: Can the EU Achieve Strategic Autonomy? • Beyond the Battlefield: Understanding Unconventional Security Challenges in Contemporary Geopolitics • Cuba’s Economic Crisis and Strategic Relevance: A Peripheral State in Renewed Great Power Competition • Trapped in Deterrence: Nuclear Stability and the Persistence of Conflict in South Asia • Loss and Damage Finance: From COP28 Pledges to Policy Architecture • Extended Deterrence Under Strain: Credibility, Assurance, and the Stability-Instability Paradox in the Indo-Pacific • Maritime India: Security, Trade, and Great Power Competition • Beyond Ukraine: Understanding Putin's Vision of Russian Power • Silicon Sovereignty: How Semiconductors Are Redrawing Global Power Hierarchies • The Negative Impact of US–Iran War on the Pacific Region • BRICS Expansion and the Multipolar Moment: Opportunity or Strategic Contradiction? • Foot-Dragging as Feminism: Iran, South Korea, and the Ungovernable Body • Beyond Proximity: Why the UAE Occupies a Growing Place in Iran’s Strategic Calculus • Why Fiji Matters: The New Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Islands • The Long Shadow of 1953: Understanding the Iran–US Conflict • Border Fencing and National security: India’s Strategy along the Bangladesh Border • Securing India's Digital Frontiers: Cybersecurity Challenges and Strategic Responses in the Age of Hybrid Warfare • Beyond Consultation: BIMSTEC's Emerging Role in Regional Intelligence and Security Cooperation • Prism of Dragon’s Maritime Assertiveness: Regional Implications and India’s Strategic Options • Between the Desert and the Savannah: Conflict and the Political Economy of Instability in the Sahel • The Architecture of Cooperation: Navigating East Asia's Geopolitical Landscape • The Politics of Ali Khamenei's Funeral • From Civil Nuclear Power to Nuclear Hedging: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Emerging Nuclear Security Dilemma in the Middle East • Operation Sindoor and the Changing Dynamics of India–Pakistan Security • The Invisible Front: China-Pakistan Grey-Zone Operations • Generative AI, Labour Sovereignty, and the Geoeconomics of India's Service Economy • India's Agentic AI Strategy Needs Authority Budgets before Autonomy Scales • India's AI Diplomacy and the Future of Strategic Technologies • From Physical Borders to Intelligent Borders: The Evolution of India's Border Security Architecture • Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Governance Deficit: Challenges to International Humanitarian Law and Accountability • AI Driven Cyberwarfare and National Security • Great Power Rivalry and the Crisis of the United Nations • The Continuing U.S. Regime-Change Toolkit: Color Revolutions, Political Influence, and Vietnam • Ten Years After Brexit: Regret, Reform, or Reversal? • Digital Pathways to Extremism: An Investigative Study of ISIS and Al-Qaeda's Use of Digital Platforms in India • Sports, Strategy and Statecraft of Mega Sporting Events as Geoeconomic Instruments: Qatar 2022 to Saudi Arabia 2034 • Strategic Autonomy in the Age of Weaponised Interdependence: India’s Geopolitical Dilemma • Hardening the Quad: From Strategic Dialogue to Operational Cooperation • China’s Grey-Zone Strategy in the Indian Ocean: Implications for India’s Maritime Security • The Maghreb of States: Identity, Sovereignty, and the Limits of Non-Interference • Europe’s Digital Dependence: Can the EU Achieve Strategic Autonomy? • Beyond the Battlefield: Understanding Unconventional Security Challenges in Contemporary Geopolitics • Cuba’s Economic Crisis and Strategic Relevance: A Peripheral State in Renewed Great Power Competition • Trapped in Deterrence: Nuclear Stability and the Persistence of Conflict in South Asia • Loss and Damage Finance: From COP28 Pledges to Policy Architecture • Extended Deterrence Under Strain: Credibility, Assurance, and the Stability-Instability Paradox in the Indo-Pacific • Maritime India: Security, Trade, and Great Power Competition • Beyond Ukraine: Understanding Putin's Vision of Russian Power • Silicon Sovereignty: How Semiconductors Are Redrawing Global Power Hierarchies • The Negative Impact of US–Iran War on the Pacific Region • BRICS Expansion and the Multipolar Moment: Opportunity or Strategic Contradiction? • Foot-Dragging as Feminism: Iran, South Korea, and the Ungovernable Body • Beyond Proximity: Why the UAE Occupies a Growing Place in Iran’s Strategic Calculus • Why Fiji Matters: The New Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Islands • The Long Shadow of 1953: Understanding the Iran–US Conflict • Border Fencing and National security: India’s Strategy along the Bangladesh Border
CeSCube Logo
CeSCube
Centre for Security & Strategic Studies
Conflict February 18, 2025 11222 Reads

Increased military spending and military exercises by China and Cambodia

D
By Divya Narvekar
Author • Centre for Security & Strategic Studies
Increased military spending and military exercises by China and Cambodia
Share Analysis:
Post Share Share WhatsApp
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY & STRATEGIC TAKEAWAYS

China has been steadily increasing its defence budget for years, aiming to modernise its armed forces and project power regionally. This concerns some countries, particularly those with overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea. Cambodia has become a close ally of China, receiving significant economic aid and military assistance. The recent joint military exercise, code-named "Golden Dragon 2024," involved over 2,000 troops and showcased China's new technologies like gun-wielding robot dogs. The US and other regional powers are wary of China using Cambodia's Ream naval base, which China is helping to upgrade, for its own military purposes. This could potentially give China a strategic foothold in the Gulf of Thailand, close to the disputed South China Sea. While Cambodia maintains it won't allow foreign military bases, it values China's aid and the improved military capabilities gained through these exercises.

ADVERTISEMENT