AKP Phnom Penh, January 31, 2021 --

A foreigner scholar closed to the Royal Palace will print a book on "Norodom Sihanouk & Zhou EnLai — An Extraordinary Friendship on The Fringes of The Cold War " soon.

Dr. Julio A. Jeldres, currently Counsellor to the Cabinet of His Majesty the King of Cambodia with the protocol rank of Minister of State said he will print this book in English in late February or early March.

“The book's galleys are currently being proofread the manuscript A4 about 120 pages before printing. It will be about 250 pages, and will be available soon,” Dr. Julio A. Jeldres told AKP by email.

The book is a unique study of the relationship between the Late King Father Norodom Sihanouk and Former Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. This book took more than ten years to research and write, he pointed out.

The book is providing a unique relationship between their friendship that endured the rigors of the Cold War, the Great Proletarian Chinese Cultural Revolution and laid the foundations for the close friendship existing between Cambodia and China today, he added.

Late King Father Norodom Sihanouk was a visionary and he saw in the 1950s that China would one day become a powerful state again both economically and politically. At the time China was ostracised by the West, which only recognised Taiwan, he underlined.

The book author said he was still a student in Chile in 1970, when he became fascinated by the fact that a Communist country welcomed with open arms the former King of Cambodia and allowed him to establish himself in the most prestigious location of Beijing to lead a government and national front of resistance to the leaders of the coup d'etat of March 18, 1970. Premier Zhou Enlai was instrumental in convincing Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders to extend support to his friend Sihanouk at a time when what had been peaceful Cambodia was engulfed by the war ravaging neighbouring Vietnam. Furthermore, Zhou Enlai tried very hard to convince Henry Kissinger to seek a solution to the Cambodian problem that included Sihanouk in a leadership role because he feared that the Khmers Rouges were far too extreme and were going to lead Cambodia through a path to Communism for which Cambodia was not prepared,” he wrote in the email.

The King Father was the sole Cambodian leader that has had a close relationship with successive Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping thus laying the foundation for the close relationship existing between the two countries, he stressed.

Dr. Julio A. Jeldres has recent publication on Cambodia Relations with Vietnam: Historical Mistrust and Vulnerability, Journal of Greater Mekong Studies (JGMS) Vol. 2, Issue 1, February 2020, CICP, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is also a book review: Monarchical Manipulation in Cambodia: France, Japan, and the Sihanouk Crusade for Independence, by Geoffrey C, Gunn, Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2018, 509 pages, French History, Volume 34, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 122–123, Oxford University Press.

By Heng Panha