Like many countries around the world, Cambodia continued to be hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Socio-economic impacts resulting from the pandemic and from the government’s responses to it, combined with rising Sino-US geostrategic competition, provided an opportunity for the banned opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) to reactivate its cells inside Cambodia and lobby Western governments in an effort to have the CNRP reinstated as a legal political party. In foreign relations, while 2021 saw ever closer Sino-Cambodian relations, tensions grew between the country and the United States. This chapter analyses the aforementioned challenges in three sections. The first section discusses the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government’s responses, and the subsequent effects on the economy. The second section analyses the efforts of the CNRP to stage a comeback and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) reactions. The third section discusses Cambodia’s foreign relations, focusing on the ever-closer Sino-Cambodian relationship and its benefits for Cambodia, US pressure on Phnom Penh over its close ties with China and democratic backsliding, and Japan’s continued engagement to counterbalance Chinese influence in the country.

COVID-19 Pandemic, Government Responses, and Impacts

When COVID-19 infections were confirmed in Cambodia in early 2020, fear among the public mounted given COVID-19’s origins in China and the large numbers of Chinese travellers between the two countries. However, Cambodia was shielded from the pandemic until March 2021, when the number of infections and deaths began to surge. This forced the government to implement strict lockdowns, causing initial public panic and speculation over doomsday scenarios of a public healthcare system collapse. Government opponents claimed that the government’s policies of mandatory vaccination with mostly Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines was an experimentation with Cambodian lives. When these policies proved successful, many political pundits and government critics attributed the success to random luck.

The pandemic was the first crisis under the CPP’s hegemonic party authoritarianism that began in 2018 following the dissolution of the CNRP. Therefore, the efficacy of the government’s responses to the pandemic would have a significant impact on the CPP’s legitimacy. As such, the government systematically planned the nationwide mobilization of human and capital resources to combat COVID-19 with decisiveness and focus as though the country was at war.

Malaysia’s relations with the United States and China are characterized by asymmetry—that is, inequality in abilities, attention and actions. As the two powers vie for influence, they have at times displayed, intended or otherwise, their capabilities to help or harm the interests of weaker states. In recent years, US-China rivalry has mounted and system-wide uncertainties have deepened across the Indo-Pacific region. These trends will continue in the foreseeable future, with ramifications for weaker states in Southeast Asia and beyond, Malaysia included.

While these asymmetries and their consequences have been recurring themes in Malaysia’s relations with both powers, in 2021 they were amplified because of developments at global, regional and bilateral levels. Malaysia responded to these challenges and opportunities in an uneven fashion: prudent and pragmatic (albeit often low-profile) on some issues, while incoherent, inactive and even inappropriate on others. These mixed patterns were evident not only under the Muhyiddin Yassin–led Perikatan Nasional–plus regime, which took over from the Mahathir Mohamad–led Pakatan Harapan government in March 2020, but also under the current Ismail Sabri Yaakob–led ruling coalition that replaced the Muhyiddin government in August 2021.

We argue that Malaysia’s mixed responses are a result not only of concerns over the systemic action-reaction between the powers but also of domestic complexities that coincided with and were complicated by COVID-19 challenges. Chief among these complexities are the elites’ domestic preoccupations, policy indecisiveness, and bureaucratic inertia vis-à-vis the rapidly evolving geopolitical environment. The rationales of several policy positions were inadequately or ineffectively articulated, resulting in resentment internally and misinterpretations externally.

External asymmetries and uncertainties have intensified at a time when Malaysia faces unprecedented internal changes and challenges on multiple fronts. Following the 2018 general elections that ended the United Malays National Organisation–led Barisan Nastional’s sixty-one-year rule, Malaysia underwent three changes of government in three years, and there are still uncertainties ahead. For a country known for political stability, this is an unusual internal development. Since 2020, as the rest of Southeast Asia and the world fought the COVID-19 crisis, Malaysia’s successive ruling elites have not only been battling the pandemic and attempting to rebuild the economy, but have also been struggling for their political survival.