Karishma Vaswani, Columnist

Why Thailand and Cambodia Keep Fighting the Same War

December 10, 2025 at 8:00 PM UTC

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC's lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades.

Cambodian soldiers and fleeing residents head in opposite directions amid new clashes with Thailand.
Source: AFP/Getty

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Renewed hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia are a wake-up call for Southeast Asia about the costs of letting historical border disputes fester. The century-old conflict, rooted in colonial-era cartography, is flaring at a moment when the region is already under strain from President Donald Trump’s trade war and intensifying great-power rivalry between the US and China.

Fighting erupted over the weekend along their shared frontier and so far has killed at least 11 people. Both sides have exchanged artillery fire, and Thailand carried out air strikes with F-16 jets after accusing Cambodia of firing rockets into civilian areas.