(Reuters) - Cambodia's influential former Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Friday that Japan would be granted visitation rights to the country's Ream Naval Base, a facility the United States is concerned could become a military outpost for China.
Chinese military vessels have been rotating through Ream since a Beijing-funded upgrade started in June 2022. Cambodia has denied reports of a secret deal with China to station its forces at the base.
The upgrade came after Cambodia demolished a U.S.-built facility at the base in Sihanoukville in 2020, having declined Washington's offer to repair it.
Hun Sen, now Cambodia's Senate president, announced the decision to grant U.S. ally Japan access during a visit by Akiba Takeo, its national security adviser.
According to a post on Hun Sen's Facebook (NASDAQ:META) page that was accompanied by footage of their meeting, he praised the role of Japan in a region he said recognised the country as a good partner.
Ties between the United States and Cambodia have been strained in recent years, in part due to Phnom Penh's strengthening alliance with Beijing and a sustained government crackdown that has decimated the political opposition.
Hun Sen's son, Hun Manet, a U.S.-educated graduate of the West Point military academy, succeeded his father as prime minister last year after nearly four decades in power.
But Hun Sen has remained a powerful figure in Cambodia and has regularly met foreign leaders and delegations at home and abroad, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he visited earlier this month.
The offer to Japan comes two months after a Cambodian deputy premier told a Washington think tank event that any country's military, including the United States, could call at the port once the base was completed, adding it "is not for the Chinese".
It also follows a visit to Cambodia on Monday by the USS Savannah, an Independence-variant littoral combat ship, the first of its kind by a U.S. navy vessel in eight years.