Xi refutes Trump’s claim that China was not involved in ending Thai-Cambodia conflict

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday refuted his US counterpart Donald Trump’s claims at their summit meeting in Busan that China was not involved in establishing peace between Cambodia and Thailand.

At the much-publicised summit, Xi said that he appreciated Trump’s “great contribution to the recent conclusion of the Gaza ceasefire agreement”.

However, Xi rebutted Trump’s assertion that China was not involved in establishing peace between Cambodia and Thailand.

Xi told Trump that Beijing had been helping the two Southeast Asian neighbours to settle their border dispute “in our own way”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Xi’s assertion outlines Beijing’s redlines as China too seeks to play a dominant role in Southeast Asia, where it has established strong security and trade links with countries of the region, including Thailand and Cambodia.

During the height of the Thailand-Cambodia confrontation, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held closed consultations to persuade the two countries to end their conflict.

During his current tour of Asia, Trump has presided over a “peace deal” agreement ceremony between Thailand and Cambodia, who have a long-standing border dispute. The US President termed the deal “historic”.

After the ceremony, Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow refused to call it a peace agreement. “I would call it a pathway to peace” instead, he told the BBC.

While Trump called the agreement “a monumental step”, the title of the pact signed by the leaders of the two countries in the presence of Trump in Malaysia referred to it as a “Joint Declaration of Relations between Thailand and Cambodia”.

Thai officials have taken pains not to call it a peace agreement, according to a BBC report.

The agreement only outlines initial steps to de-escalate the conflict. This includes withdrawing heavy weapons and coming up with mechanisms to jointly remove mines and clearly mark out the borders, it said.

Trump has been claiming to end several wars during his second tenure, staking a claim for the Nobel Peace Prize. He now seeks to wade into the raging conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan, claiming that he will “very quickly” end the crisis between the two neighbours.

After failing to reach an agreement in two rounds of talks, Kabul and Islamabad are holding a third round of talks with the mediation of Qatar and Turkiye in Istanbul, according to media reports.