His father was marched to a forest and killed, like so many victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Before he was led away, the father told his young son, Uon Chhin, to stand up and speak the truth, even if it might compromise his liberty.
Decades later, Mr. Uon Chhin became a journalist during the muckraking heyday of the free press in Cambodia. But in 2017, he and a colleague at Radio Free Asia were charged with espionage. Their nine-month imprisonment presaged an evisceration of human rights in Cambodia by Hun Sen, the longtime leader who refashioned a young democracy into a dictatorial dynasty.
Now, the slashing of American foreign aid and President Trump’s executive order last month to gut American-funded news media like Radio Free Asia and Voice of America are erasing what little space for free speech remains in Cambodia. Thirty projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development have been canceled, including those supporting civil society and an independent media.
It is a tectonic shift in this Southeast Asian nation, which was once a laboratory for internationally mandated democracy-building in the post-Khmer Rouge era, then later devolved into a strongman state.
And it underscores the rise of another power, China, eager to influence a small country desperate for cash and for a model for developing its fast-growing economy.
Like China, Mr. Hun Sen celebrated Mr. Trump’s executive order targeting Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. Silencing these American-funded news organizations, he said, would be a “a major contribution to eliminating fake news, disinformation, lies, distortions, incitement, and chaos around the world.”
Two years ago, Mr. Hun Sen nominally handed over power to his oldest son, Hun Manet. Educated at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Mr. Hun Manet has not changed course. (The transfer of power from father to son has been replicated for the positions of defense minister, chief of the navy and interior minister.)
Today, almost every independent media outlet in Cambodia has been shuttered, although some, like Radio Free Asia, still operate from outside the country. Political parties have been dissolved by a pliant judiciary. Hundreds of Cambodians who decried the country’s autocratic turn are in prison or in exile. In January, a veteran opposition politician was assassinated on the streets of Bangkok, a hit that the Thai police linked to an adviser to Mr. Hun Sen.
“In Cambodia, RFA is the last independent media outlet operating in Khmer,” said Bay Fang, the broadcaster’s president, referring to the local language service, which has eight million Facebook followers. “If we close down, the ruling party gets to completely control the narrative. It’s no wonder that Hun Sen celebrated the news of RFA’s possible demise.”
After his release from prison, Mr. Uon Chhin eventually found work at a news collective formed by outcasts of other shuttered media outlets. Half of the group’s annual budget of $810,000 came from American aid. The collective, called CamboJA, only has enough money to operate until June. They have stopped providing drinking water at the office to save $30 a month.
“My colleagues and I, we know that something like this happens in Cambodia all the time, but we never expected it to happen from America,” Mr. Uon Chhin said. “It’s like Cambodia and America have traded places.”
There are Cambodian news outlets that make money. They eschew criticism of the Hun family and its cronies, including individuals who have been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for alleged corruption and human rights abuses. The most popular is called Fresh News, and it publishes online in Khmer, English and Chinese. Last year, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which is led by the Huns, ordered all officials to use the Fresh News messaging service, CoolApp, rather than foreign options like WhatsApp or Signal.
“Cambodia has complete freedom, more than some countries in the region,” said Lim Cheavutha, founder and chief executive of Fresh News, which is the ruling party’s preferred mouthpiece for disseminating information.
As the United States and other Western nations, like Sweden, withdraw funding for independent media and democratic institutions, China has stepped in with money that it says is not tied to pesky human rights concerns.
Last summer, Heng Sreylin, 25, traveled with other Cambodian journalists and influencers on an all-expenses paid junket to northeast China. She marveled at the modern buildings and clean streets. She produced 20 tourism and culture stories from her trip.
“We don’t have freedom of expression in Cambodia,” said Ms. Heng Sreylin, who works for a small outlet that focuses on things like travel stories and celebrity news. “I do stories that don’t bring problems to me. I don’t want to touch politics.”
Independent journalists have been absorbed into government. The information minister, Neth Pheaktra, was once an editor at a respected daily publication that uncovered corruption, political malfeasance and oligarchs acting badly.
He now glorifies the Hun dynasty, and in an interview in his expansive office filled with trees and gilded accouterments, the minister listed flattering facts about Mr. Hun Manet.
“Our prime minister himself, he monitors TikTok and social media and Facebook,” he said. “Sometimes he reads the comments from the local people on his phone.”
Mr. Neth Pheaktra said he could not answer questions about the media crackdown that shuttered dozens of outlets in Cambodia because that happened before he became information minister in 2023.
Soy Sopheap worked for a Japanese news agency before veering into pro-government political punditry. He is now the Cambodian co-president of the Cambodia-China Journalist Association, which organizes the media tours to China. (He said he does not know who his Chinese co-president is exactly, nor why he was chosen for the job.)
At the group’s founding, a diplomat from the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, celebrated the advent of “promoting positive news about our two countries.”
“Human rights are words that the West likes to use,” Mr. Soy Sopheap said. “But China is a dependable friend to Cambodia.”
Ith Sothoeuth has lost U.S. funding for his new journalistic startup, an online news site. His previous employer, Voice of Democracy, was forced off the airwaves in 2023. He doesn’t know how he will continue without American support, and he isn’t sure he will avoid prison. But, he said, he will continue standing up for free expression.
“If you go with the flow, you are a dead fish,” he said. “If you fight the current, it means you are alive.”
