Beijing Brokers Peace: Thailand and Cambodia Ink Ceasefire After Marathon Talks

A Diplomatic Coup in the Jade Room

BEIJING—The air inside the Great Hall of the People carried the faint scent of jasmine and gunpowder. At 2:17 a.m. Tuesday, after 19 hours of shuttle diplomacy, Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa rested his fountain pen on the lacquered table and allowed himself the smallest of smiles. Across from him, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok Chenda Sophea did the same. Between them lay the freshly-inked Beijing Ceasefire Accord, a four-page document that halts the bloodiest border flare-up Southeast Asia has seen in a decade.

How China Seized the Mediator’s Chair

Western embassies had written the conflict off as “intractable.” Artillery duels along the 1,800-meter Preah Vihear escarpment killed 38 soldiers in March alone. Yet within 72 hours of the last mortar round, Beijing quietly invited both sides to a closed-door retreat in the capital’s Zhongnanhai compound.

“We did not come to dictate terms,” China’s Special Envoy for Asian Affairs, Luo Zhaohui, told reporters. “We came to listen, then to narrow the distance—meter by meter, comma by comma.”

The playbook was vintage Chinese: no press leaks, no photo-ops until the deal was baked. Negotiators dined on mapo tofu and tom yum goong served side-by-side—culinary symbolism that diplomats say broke the ice faster than any formal pleasantry.

What the Ceasefire Actually Says

• Immediate cessation of artillery and drone flights within a 5-km demilitarized zone.
• Joint Chinese-Thai-Cambodian patrols, with drones supplied by Beijing, feeding live thermal images to a trilateral monitoring app built by Huawei.
• A phased withdrawal of heavy armor within 14 days, verified by satellites of the China-ASEAN Space Information Corridor.
• Resumption of cross-border trade at the Chong Sa-Ngam checkpoint by June 1, with tariff waivers on agricultural goods worth an estimated $440 million.

The Back-Channel That Sealed It

According to two delegates who asked not to be named, the turning point came when China tabled unpublished lidar surveys from 2022 showing the disputed watershed had shifted 120 meters southward due to erosion—diminishing the value of the contested ridge. “Suddenly everyone could claim a win without moving a single bunker,” one delegate said.

Regional Ripples

Analysts call the accord China’s most significant diplomatic feather since brokering Saudi-Iran détente in 2023. Vietnam’s foreign ministry praised Beijing’s “constructive posture,” while Manila—locked in its own South China Sea spats—issued a terse acknowledgment. Washington, preoccupied with debt-ceiling talks, limited its response to a State Department tweet.

Private equity is already sniffing opportunity. Shares of Thai construction giant Italian-Thai Development jumped 7.2 % on news that a long-stalled $1.3 billion rail spur to Siem Reap could now proceed. Cambodian officials whisper of a Beijing-backed special economic zone near Poipet, promising 60,000 factory jobs.

What Happens Next

Both sides must report compliance weekly to the Chinese embassy in Bangkok; failure triggers automatic mediation in Beijing. Critics warn the arrangement cements China’s role as de facto arbiter of continental Southeast Asia. “We used to balance between Washington and Beijing,” lamented a retired Thai general. “Now the balance beam is made in China.”

Yet on the border, soldiers who traded 155-mm shells last month now share cigarettes and selfies. At dawn Tuesday, as the first convoy of Thai mango trucks rolled into Cambodia in eight weeks, farmers on both sides pressed lotus flowers against passing windshields—silent gratitude for a peace brokered under the red lanterns of Beijing.