[Speaking ad lib – 1] “Just a moment ago, the Prime Minister delivered a speech. Now it is the Prime Minister’s father’s turn. You may note that a moment ago, the Prime Minister has white hair, whereas the Prime Minister’s father has black hair. Therefore, let it be noted that black hair does not necessarily mean young, and white hair does not necessarily mean old. This is the truth.” [End]
Samdech, Excellencies, Honourable Speakers and Presiding Officers of Parliament;
Heads of Delegation, Distinguished Parliamentarians;Representatives of International Organizations, Ladies and Gentlemen!
It is an immense honor and pleasure to welcome you all to the Kingdom of Cambodia for the Second Inter-Parliamentary Speakers’ Conference, gathered under the vital theme: “Solidarity for Peace and Shared Prosperity: Strengthening International Law and Resolving Conflicts Peacefully.”
On behalf of the Senate, the National Assembly, and the people of Cambodia, I extend our warmest greetings and heartfelt appreciation to every parliamentary leader and delegate who has travelled from across the globe to join us in this crucial gathering.
We gather in this august chamber not to trade comforting words or to offer empty hopes. We come here as the chosen representatives of our peoples, as lawmakers, and as the guardians of our nations’ destinies. Our duty is to examine the state of our world with absolute honesty through the lens of strict pragmatism. Our stance in the face of today’s turbulent global geopolitics is anchored in a deeply practical attitude: “Hope for the best, while preparing for the worst.”
The reality is that our world has shifted into a dangerous dynamic where we must navigate a profound and constant “state of chaos”. This volatile era is marked by a severe erosion of moral leadership on the global stage and plagued by intense geopolitical uncertainty. What we once trusted as a rules-based international order has increasingly been degraded into a mere political instrument, twisted arbitrarily to serve the shifting strategic interests of major powers.
Regrettably, humanity seems to have failed to learn the agonizing lessons of history. Following the devastation of two World Wars, we already have explicitly designed humanity principles to prevent us from stumbling into a third global conflict. Yet, unfortunately, it seems that the world is forgetting these bitter lessons.
To truly understand this state of constant chaos in global affairs, we must look closely at three major structural trends currently reshaping the international landscape:
First, a continuous structural rebalancing, which manifests as a fierce, unyielding rivalry between established and emerging centers of power. This friction generates constant crises and structural disorder.
Second, the weaponization of everything. Today, everything from economics and technology to natural resources and global supply chains is being transformed into a direct instrument of coercion and warfare.
Third, the blurring of the lines between war and peace. This is driven primarily by grey-zone tactics that deliberately stop short of conventional military conflict, yet structurally deny the existence of true peace. If left uncontained, countries can deliberately use these tactics to advance “salami slicing strategy” to pursue irredentism in contravention of international law, especially “uti possidetis” principle. There is a bitter truth that a ceasefire is often nothing more than a piece of paper, incapable of guaranteeing lasting peace, building trust or shielding innocent lives.
From these trends emerges three-dimensional warfare namely: the weakening by force, weakening by economy, and weakening by reputation.
1. Weakening by Force: This dimension operates as a war that does not look like a war. It is a long-term conflict without direct, full-scale confrontation, fought instead through a series of prolonged, sporadic skirmishes. It is a strategic marathon where the side that collapses first loses everything. The primary objective is to gradually dissolve the adversary’s strength, deplete their national resources, and hollow out their internal stability until they no longer have the capacity to resist.
2. Weakening by Economy: This involves the aggressive weaponizationof trade and economic influence to systematically undermine national stability. The widespread deployment of economic sanctions, severe supply chain disruptions, technological containment, and financial blockades are intentionally used to force independent nations into submission without firing a single bullet.
3. Weakening by Reputation: Rooted deeply in information and psychological warfare, this dimension deploys sophisticated smear campaigns. It exploits localized vulnerabilities—such as online scams or the selective application of human rights—as convenient pretexts to exert external pressure, attack domestic political institutions, and delegitimize target nations on the global stage.
Warfare in the twenty-first century is no longer confined to military forces clashing on a physical battlefield. It has evolved into a complex, multi-layered matrix of interconnected crises designed to destabilize societies long before an open conflict is ever declared.
In this new dynamic, strategic attacks no longer differentiate between civilian populations and core infrastructure. Modern conflicts ruthlessly target the vital lifelines of ordinary citizens, turning public assets into active battle zones. We now see advanced drone attacks or air raids directed at civilian structures, including roads, bridges, religious sites, schools, and oil refineries. Simultaneously, the deliberate sabotage of gas pipelines and firing on commercial oil tankers have entered the geopolitical playbook as a convenient tool to paralyze adversaries without due consideration to the global consequences. Using extraterritorial enforcement against transnational crimes, such as online scam, to illegally occupy foreign territory constitutes a modern warfare in the grey-zone tactics.
[Speaking ad lib – 2] “The Cambodian-Thai border war is in this situation, where they are occupying our territory, assuming that some of our territory is part of a fraudulent game or scam” [End]
Concurrently, trade wars utilize punitive tariff barriers, and strip away historical trade preferences. Technological wars feature a fierce struggle for dominance over Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced semiconductors, and critical cybersecurity infrastructure. Finally, resource wars and protectionism drive a global scramble for—and restriction of—strategic resources like energy, and rare earth minerals, leaving vulnerable nations trapped in a structural web of insecurity.
A deeply alarming development in this environment is the subversion of international law by powerful actors practicing exclusive self-defense, unjustified pre-emptive strikes, and targeted decapitation strategies.
This systemic security threat has fundamentally shattered the illusion of collective security. Consequently, it has triggered a dangerous global arms race, leaving vulnerable nations with the stark realization that international treaties alone cannot shield them from external aggression. In response, nations are increasingly pushed toward rapid military build-ups, leading directly to the potential nuclearization of regional architectures. When sovereign survival is consistently threatened by long-arm jurisdiction, states feel driven to establish robust second-strike capabilities. This systemic anxiety is fuelling a vicious cycle of global proliferation, threatening to collapse our non-proliferation frameworks entirely.
On this global geopolitical chessboard, we must critically evaluate the ultimate fate of small and developing nations. The bitter truth is that developing countries, left at the mercy of the unpredictable winds of major-power rivalry, are frequently turned into systemic scapegoats, bearing the brunt of intense global scrutiny. We find ourselves targeted and heavily pressured on complex issues from selective human rights application, to environmental degradation and transnational crimes like online scams. These international accusations routinely ignore our structural weaknesses and limited development capacity, unfairly applying the advanced standards of wealthy economies to judge, penalize, and isolate nations still struggling to recover from historical conflicts.
Furthermore, in our deeply interconnected world, geographic and economic chokepoints on the other side of the planet can easily take hold of our collective breath. If strategic maritime routes like the Malacca Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, or the Suez Canal are blockaded, or if global semiconductor supply chains are suddenly severed, our domestic economies feel the catastrophic shockwaves instantly. We are living in an era of total economic and trade weaponization, where the rules shift unpredictably from day to day. Nothingis guaranteed anymore, and the free-trade principles we were once urged to adopt are discarded the moment they cease to serve the immediate interests of their creators.
[Speaking ad lib – 3] “This means that they set principles for us to implement in the past, and now they are destroying these same principles” [End]
In these perilous global circumstances, we must rethink the true role of the legislative branch and how we can effectively complement the executive. The legislature cannot function merely as a passive, law-approving machine or as idle spectators watching crises unfold from the side line. We must actively step into our constitutional roles as strategic thinkers, high-level advisors offering grounded counsel, and foresight designers mapping long-term crisis prevention that extends far beyond the next election cycle.
[Speaking ad lib – 4] “On this point, I want to elaborate a little bit. Please don’t say that when Hun Sen was Prime Minister for 38 years, the role of the legislature was not mentioned, and now that he is holding the position in the legislative institution, he is demanding more power. That’s not the case. As the legislature, we cannot just stand by and watch the law enforcers” [End]
Crucially, our true early-warning system and crisis prevention infrastructure lie within a robust international network of wise and experienced parliamentarians. We can alert one another and swiftly coordinate international guardrails to prevent the sparks of conflict from becoming regional infernos. The fundamental role of our legislative bodies is to systematically enhance mutual trust—a deep, operational confidence that allows us to alert one another when the danger of conflict is right at our doorstep. This is the trust we need to build right now, not only for the security of our partners but for our own sake, because the flames of war in one country are no longer isolated; they can easily bring choking smoke blowing over our own horizons.
We must recognize that the alternative is a ruthless return to the survival of the fittest, where the law of the jungle rules supreme. Our global network of legislative speakers must speak out clearly and forcefully against these dangerous tides, organizing an unyielding institutional front. We must collectively and decisively resist such destabilizing forces from raging across our regions or infiltrating our backyards. To reinforce this mandate, we must maintain constant liaison and coordination, allowing parliamentary diplomacy to serve as an unshakeable defender of multilateralism.
Current realities warn us that while we may only be watching the fires of war in other regions, their smoke chokes us just the same. The economic fallout of distant wars is not remote; it impacts our domestic economies directly through skyrocketing fuel prices, disrupted export markets, and rising inflation.
The critical question we must ask ourselves today is whether we are going to help stoke the fires of others, or if we must urgently organize our own house, set up our internal alert systems, and prepare our firefighting equipment?
The answer is absolute: we must never participate in stoking the fires of war, nor should we ever leap into the conflict games of competing major powers.
First — Territorial Integrity and Conflict Freezing: To counter the threat of force and prevent territorial aggression from triggering chaos, our regional network must champion the resurrection of foundational international principles born from the ash and devastation of two consecutive World Wars. We must fiercely uphold the sacred principles of state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and peaceful dispute resolution enshrined in the United Nations Charter, ASEAN Charter, as well as the enduring spirit of parliamentary instruments like the Universal Peace Charter adopted right here in Phnom Penh. Furthermore, we can also consider establishing a parliamentary ceasefire observer team, alongside the existing mechanisms, thereby ensuring that international oversight is robust enough to freeze minor border skirmishes before they escalate into prolonged wars.
Second — International Network of Eminent Parliamentarian Mediators: To move beyond passive diplomacy, we may consider establishing an international network of eminent parliamentarians dedicated to active peace mediation. All speakers of parliament are highly experienced political leaders who possess immense international networks, and hard-earned credibility. This specialized mediation network must transcend ideological rigidity and act with swift agility to mediate directly across conflicting parties before minor skirmishes break out into major wars. By design, these eminent mediators should operate under a flexible mandate that liberates them from the sensitivities, political constraints, and rigid protocols of traditional state-to-state diplomacy, which is typically reserved for the executive branch.
Third — Institutional Accountability and Legal Recourse: To permanently replace the “might-makes-right” law of the jungle with genuine institutional accountability, our legislatures must continue to issue powerful joint statements and demonstrate unwavering solidarity. We must stand as a united front in advocating for international law, diplomacy, open dialogue, and a rules-based international order. By weaving a resilient tapestry of multilateralism, our collective voices must forcefully speak out against and actively deter both the use and the threat of force on the global stage. I am of the view that our law-abiding community should try to find legal paths to contain the grey-zone tactics that seek to advance territorial ambition, and forceful sovereign domination against international law.
Fourth — Economic Shielding and Multilateral Trade: To insulate our economies from external shockwaves, we must commit our network’s legislative speakers to prioritize the approval and enforcement of non- discriminatory, multilateral economic treaties, actively leveraging existing regional trade frameworks to prevent major powers from treating smaller nations as economic scapegoats. Furthermore, we must mobilize our collective voice to speak out forcefully against trade protectionism that is driven by hidden political agendas, environmental demonization, and the selective application of human rights standards used to weaponize economic relations against weaker states. Beyond this advocacy, our economic networks must be deeply enhanced and structurally reinforced to create an unshakeable shield of resilience, ensuring that we could proactively safeguard our domestic markets, prevent the catastrophic disruption of civilian livelihoods, and secure decent, stable jobs for our people.
Fifth — Reputational Defense: To counter reputational attacks and the systematic delegitimization of weaker states, we need to enhance robust exchanges of high-level parliamentary visits to project the true realities on the ground, effectively dismantling external misinformation and destabilization efforts. Crucially, we must strengthen our network’s operational commitments to ensure that the territory of any member state will never be permitted to serve as a launchpad or sanctuary to organize political attacks, subversive activities, or smear campaigns against one another. As parliamentary speakers, we hold significant influence over public perception and the shaping of national and international opinion. When toxic smear campaigns begin to dominate the media landscape, we must rapidly enhance our coordination in terms of information sharing, joining hands collectively to stand as an unyielding front that speaks the truth and demands justice for our nations.
The world may continue to slide into protracted chaos, and geopolitical pressures will intensify day by day. However, the destiny of our nations does not lie at the tip of superpowers’ pens, nor does it depend on the shifting, volatile winds of a geopolitical chessboard. The destiny of our nations lies squarely in our own hands.
Let us use this Conference to renew our commitment to international law, peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, and shared prosperity. Let us strengthen parliamentary diplomacy as a force for dialogue, confidence, and peace.
[Speaking ad lib – 5] “I would like to take this opportunity to inform the meeting that during the courtesy call, we have discussed which country will host the ISC-3 conference. I would like to thank the President of the Indonesian Senate for volunteering to host the conference in 2027. Congratulations.
For myself, I have a term of office until 2030, so I have the opportunity to go to Indonesia, then in 2027, 2028, 2029, maybe there are only 3 years left, so I still have the opportunity to travel. And at that time, I would not be too old, but I will keep my hair black, and let the Prime Minister go with his gray hair, because he is young” [End]
Lastly, I wish the Second Inter-Parliamentary Speakers’ Conference fruitful deliberations and glittering success. Thank You.