MGR Online — Hun Sen, President of the Cambodian Senate, used the platform of the Inter-Parliamentary Speakers' Conference to accuse Thailand of exploiting the issue of global online fraud to attack Cambodia and occupy part of its sovereign territory. He stated that modern warfare frequently occurs under various pretexts that undermine a rules-based order in the pursuit of short-term interests.
Speaking at the conference held in Phnom Penh today (27), Hun Sen said that modern conflicts have expanded to strike at the very foundations of people's lives, turning public assets such as roads, bridges, religious sites, schools, and oil refineries into battlefields.
Cambodian media reported that the conference brought together parliamentary leaders from several countries, including Pakistan, Malaysia, and Myanmar, as well as delegations from Australia and Russia, among others.
"One form of modern warfare in this era is using extraterritorial jurisdiction over transnational crimes — such as online fraud — as a pretext for the illegal occupation of another country's territory," Hun Sen said.
"This is the situation occurring with the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict, where our territory has been occupied under the claim that parts of our land are connected to online fraud," Hun Sen added.
Hun Sen also accused Thailand of violating ceasefire agreements, which he appeared to regard as nothing more than agreements on paper.
He also described other forms of conflict, including trade wars, which frequently employ customs barriers to impose sanctions and revoke previously granted trade privileges, and technology wars involving fierce competition to control advanced semiconductors and critical cybersecurity infrastructure.
Hun Sen further pointed to trade restrictions on natural resources — such as energy and rare earth minerals — as driving intense global competition and forcing vulnerable countries into a web of systemic insecurity.
"A particularly alarming development in this context is the violation of international law by powerful actors who unilaterally invoke the right to self-defence and launch preemptive strikes without justifiable cause. This systemic security threat has utterly destroyed the dream of collective security," Hun Sen said.
"As a consequence, these risks are fuelling a dangerous global arms race, as vulnerable countries realise that international treaties alone cannot protect them from external aggression," Hun Sen added, warning that systemic security anxieties could lead to the complete collapse of the international non-proliferation framework.
"We have become targets of pressure and attack under the guise of complex issues such as the double-standard application of human rights, environmental standards, and transnational crimes like online fraud. These international accusations unfairly overlook the structural vulnerabilities and limited development capacity of these countries, yet apply the high standards of wealthy nations to judge, punish, and isolate countries that are still struggling to recover from past conflicts," Hun Sen stated.
Hun Sen pointed out that trade and the economy are being weaponised, with rules changing unpredictably from day to day and nothing guaranteed any longer. He emphasised that those who created the rules are now breaking them themselves, and called for the restoration of a rules-based order grounded in the UN Charter, the ASEAN Charter, and other relevant international instruments.
