Cambodia-Thailand: One Year After the First Shots, a Border Still Closed, an Economy Still Bleeding

A year after the armed escalation of July 24, 2025, December's ceasefire silenced the guns but not the grievances. With border crossings still shut, talks stalled on procedure, and nearly 900,000 migrant workers forced home, Cambodia is absorbing the economic and social cost of a century-old territorial dispute — while neither capital shows signs of yielding first.

Twelve dead on the Cambodian side, on July 24, 2025, under strikes from Thai F-16 fighter jets, in retaliation for an assault near two historic temples disputed for decades. The script wasn't new. Preah Vihear, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008 despite the fury of Thai public opinion, had already triggered five years of skirmishes, until the International Court of Justice ruled in Cambodia's favor in 2013. Twelve years on, the dispute had simply changed addresses, from Chong Bok to the Emerald Triangle, along an 800-kilometer border drawn by the Franco-Siamese treaties of 1907 and still, in places, without a final demarcation.

A Hard Line, on Both Sides of the Border

In Bangkok, the crisis coincided with domestic political upheaval: the country changed governments mid-escalation, and Anutin Charnvirakul, who took power through a coalition compromise in September and was confirmed at the ballot box in February, built his legitimacy on border firmness — a promised wall, closed crossings, preconditions attached to any talks. Seen from Phnom Penh, this looks like plain stubbornness. Seen from Bangkok, it reflects a public still shaken by the fighting, and a military establishment unwilling to concede anything until the disputed zones are settled on its terms.

A Truce, But No Dialogue

The December 27 ceasefire stopped the shooting. It settled nothing else. Border crossings remain closed along nearly the entire line, and on July 15, at Choam-Sangam, military delegations from both countries met for an informal session that produced no breakthrough: Cambodian Brigadier General Nith Narong again demanded a halt to unilateral Thai construction — earthworks, barbed wire, land clearing near boundary markers 14 and 22 in Oddar Meanchey province. The Joint Boundary Commission is stuck on a question of method: Bangkok wants every outstanding issue on the table at once, while Phnom Penh would rather proceed zone by zone. The 2001 memorandum of understanding, on which Cambodia bases its case for negotiations, is still waiting on a Thai political decision that hasn't come. On the margins of this standoff, another issue has muscled in: the border-area "scam centers," where tens of thousands of people, many trafficked, run a global online fraud industry. In March, the Royal Thai Army organized a press visit to one such compound at O'Smach, on the Cambodian side, now deserted; AFP journalists there saw smashed computers and fake police uniforms, abandoned in a hurried departure. Washington has sanctioned the Sino-Cambodian tycoon behind the network; Bangkok has seized roughly €270 million in assets linked to these operations. Each side now invokes the scam centers to justify its stance on the closed border.

900,000 Workers Sent Home, and Rural Communities Falling Into Debt

This is where the crisis stops being purely military or diplomatic. Cambodian growth slowed to 5.2% in 2025, down from 6% the year before, according to the Asian Development Bank, which points directly to the border closure and to lingering uncertainty over U.S. trade policy. The current account, in surplus in 2024, has swung into deficit. But the real shock shows up elsewhere: remittances from migrant workers fell from 6% to 4% of GDP in a single year, a 37% drop in absolute terms, as nearly 900,000 Cambodians were forced to cross back from Thailand within a few months — an abrupt, unplanned return that macroeconomic statistics struggle to capture.

In rural areas, that money financed microloans, school fees, medical bills. A United Nations assessment published in April warned of a coming wave of household debt and land loss that could wipe out years of progress against rural poverty. It's the part of this crisis that gets talked about least, because it doesn't photograph like an airstrike, and it's measured in household debt rather than casualties.

What Could Still Shift the Standoff

Pressure will likely come first from Thai businesses themselves, starved of the Cambodian labor they depend on — a problem Anutin Charnvirakul will eventually have to solve, whatever he promised on the campaign trail. The Asian Development Bank is betting on a rebound in 2027, driven by textiles and manufacturing, provided the border reopens at least partially. Diplomatically, the internationalization of the dispute gives Phnom Penh leverage it didn't have a year ago: the Francophonie adopted a resolution in July calling for respect of Cambodian sovereignty, even as Bangkok remains wary of outside mediation. For now, nothing points to renewed fighting; the two armies are at least still talking, even if only to repeat the same grievances to each other. A year after the first shots, what the border cut off wasn't just two disputed territories — it severed a flow of workers, remittances, and trust, and nothing in the crossings that remain shut says when it will flow again.