Cambodia has descended into dictatorship in much the same manner that Ernest Hemingway described going bankrupt: gradually, and then suddenly. Now, a new rule establishing a national gateway for Internet traffic strikes at one of the nation’s last vestiges of democratic life.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has spent the past several years turning his quasi-authoritarian state with a weak opposition into a completely authoritarian state with no opposition at all. After elections in 2013 ushered too many critics of the regime into government, the regime dissolved their party and prosecuted its leaders on trumped-up charges. The two individuals who could challenge Hun Sen have been disposed of: Sam Rainsy lives in exile, and Kem Sokha is under indefinite house arrest. Independent domestic media have been shuttered, foreign media have been ordered out, and the remaining television and radio broadcasts are under state control.
The Internet, however, has been more difficult to pin down. Stifling dissent within a country only goes so far when dissent from outside is still in reach—and right now, thanks to services such as Google and Facebook, as well as myriad news and other sites, it is.
Cambodia’s plan is less sophisticated than China’s so-called Great Firewall. Yet it is still a threat not only to one nation but also to the entire globe. China wishes to establish a freedom-crushing model of cyber sovereignty by which every country sets its own rules for a Web that serves those in power, rather than the people, without any regard for civil liberties or due process of law. The United States and its allies presumably want the opposite. They should do something about it, in Cambodia, where they and the companies at risk can put pressure on Hun Sen to reverse the order, and everywhere else. A free Internet may be lost if democracies do not band together to fight for it.