Vietnamese Cambodians refers to Cambodians of Vietnamese ancestry. According to the Cambodian 2019 census, there are 78,090 people who speak Vietnamese as their mother tongue. According to independent scholars in 2018, there could be somewhere between 400,000 and one million ethnic Vietnamese. They mostly reside in southeastern parts of Cambodia bordering Vietnam or on houseboats in the Tonlé Sap lake and Mekong rivers. The first Vietnamese came to settle modern-day Cambodia from the early 19th century during the era of the Nguyễn lords and most of the Vietnamese came to Cambodia during the periods of French colonial administration and the People's Republic of Kampuchea administration. During the Khmer Republic and Khmer Rouge governments in the 1970s under the Pol Pot regime, the Vietnamese among others were targets of mass genocides; thousands of Vietnamese were killed and many more sought refuge in Vietnam.
Despite engagement and collaboration between the two countries, Vietnamese individuals have been the targets of xenophobic attacks by opposition political parties critical of Hun Sen's policies. Many of the stateless Vietnamese residents face difficulties in getting access to education, employment, and housing. Although xenophobic sentiments have been a continuing source of concern, they have not been a barrier towards neighborly ties within the context of Southeast Asia and other international affairs.
History Relations between Cambodia and Vietnam date back to when Chey Chettha II, in order to balance the influence of the Siamese forces, which had devastated the previous capital at Longvek during the reign of his father, had struck an alliance with Vietnam and married Princess Nguyễn Phúc Ngọc Vạn, a daughter of Lord Nguyễn Phúc Nguyên, in 1618.Mai Thục, Vương miện lưu đày: truyện lịch sử, Nhà xuất bản Văn hóa - thông tin, 2004, p.580; Giáo sư Hoàng Xuân Việt, Nguyễn Minh Tiến hiệu đính, Tìm hiểu lịch sử chữ quốc ngữ, Ho Chi Minh City, Công ty Văn hóa Hương Trang, pp.31-33; Helen Jarvis, Cambodia, Clio Press, 1997, p.xxiii. In return, the king had granted the Vietnamese the right to establish settlements in Mô Xoài (now Bà Rịa), in the region of Prey Nokor—which they colloquially referred to as Sài Gòn, and which later became Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese settlers first entered the Mekong and the Prey Nokor area (later Saigon) from the 1620s onward. The region then as now is known to the Cambodians as Kampuchea Krom but by cession and conquest (Vietnamese expansion to the South, dubbed Nam Tiến), the area came under Vietnamese control. Under the reign of Chey Chettha II, Cambodia formally ceded the eastern portion to the Nguyễn lords.Corfield (2009), p. 3
With the unification Vietnam under Emperor Gia Long, the Court of Huế asserted its hegemony in 1813 and sent 10,000 troops to Phnom Penh. The Cambodian court was split into rival factions vying for power and some members of the Cambodian royal sought the support of the Vietnamese, thus implanting Vietnamese power within the kingdom.Schliesinger (2015), p. 258 Favors were granted to allow more Vietnamese settlers and by the reign of Emperor Minh Mạng, Vietnam chose to impose its rule directly, relegating the Cambodian court to a minor role. Administrative renaming of town and provinces was carried out while Vietnamese customs were forced upon the Cambodian populace.Kuhnt-Saptodewo (1997), p. 154 The heavy-handed policies stirred resentment among the Cambodian populace, provoking protracted insurgency and unrest.Corfield (2009), pp. 17–18 Vietnam was forced to withdraw, accepting the restoration of the royal candidate Ang Duong as the Cambodian king. Vietnam nonetheless joined Siam to hold Cambodia in joint vassalage.
In 1880 with the establishment of the French colonial administration, Cambodia joined Vietnam as part of French Indochina, the status to Vietnamese residents in Cambodia was formally legalized. Over the next fifty years, large numbers of Vietnamese migrated to Cambodia.Corfield (2009), p. 28 Population censuses conducted by the French recorded an increase in the Vietnamese population from about 4,500 in the 1860s to almost 200,000 at the end of the 1930s.Schliesinger (2015), p. 259 When the Japanese invaded Indochina in 1940, Vietnamese nationalists in Cambodia launched a brief but unsuccessful attempt to attack the French colonial administrators.Corfield (2009), p. 40
With independence in 1954, Cambodia legislated a citizenship law based on knowledge in the Khmer language and national origin; this effectively excluded most Vietnamese and Chinese Cambodians.Ehrentraut (2013), p. 50 At the grass root level, Vietnamese also faced occasional cases of violent intimidation from the Cambodians. During a Sangkum congress in 1962, politicians debated on the issue of citizenship on Cambodia's ethnic minorities and a resolution was passed not to grant naturalization of Vietnamese residents.Willmott (1967), p. 35
When Lon Nol assumed power in 1970, the Khmer Republic government launched a propaganda campaign to portray the ethnic Vietnamese as agents of the Vietcong. About 30,000 Vietnamese were killed, while an additional tens of thousands fled to Vietnam. Five years later in 1975 when the Khmer republic met its demise at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, fewer than 80,000 Vietnamese remained in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge proceeded to expel close to three quarters back to Vietnam; the remaining 20,000 were classified as mixed Vietnamese and Khmer descent and were killed by the regime.Schliesinger (2015), p. 260 By the time Vietnamese troops entered Cambodia in 1979, virtually all of Cambodia's Vietnamese population were either displaced or killed.Tabeau (2009), p. 48 Vietnam established a new regime known as the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), and Vietnamese advisers were appointed in the new government administration. In 1983, the PRK government formulated an official policy to encourage former Vietnamese residents to return and settle in Cambodia. Even Vietnamese immigrants who had no family ties to Cambodia came to settle in the country, as there was little border control to limit Vietnamese migrants from entering the country.Ehrentraut (2013), p. 56 The Vietnamese were recognized as an official minority under the PRK regime, and Overseas Vietnamese Associations were established in parts of Cambodia with sizable Vietnamese populations.Heder (1995), p. 154 The PRK government also identity cards were issued to them until the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops in 1990.Heder (1995), p. 135
Vietnamese migrant workers started to arrive from 1992 onward due to the creation of new job opportunities by the UNTAC administration.Heder (1995), p. 62 At the same time, the UNTAC administration allowed the opening of political offices and political parties such as FUNCINPEC and the BLDP began to propagate anti-Vietnamese sentiments among the populace to shore up electorate support in the 1993 general elections.Heder (1995), p. 63 In November 1992, the Khmer Rouge which controlled northwestern parts of Cambodia, passed a resolution to target systematic killings of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.Heder (1995), p. 94 The first guerrilla-style attacks by the Khmer Rouge on Vietnamese civilians started in December 1992, and Khmer Rouge soldiers justified the killings by claiming that some of the civilians were Vietnamese soldiers in disguise.Heder (1995), p. 95 The spate of killings by Khmer Rouge prompted some 21,000 ethnic Vietnamese to flee to Vietnam in March 1993.Heder (1995), p. 262
In August 1994, the National Assembly of Cambodia introduced an immigration law which authorized the deportation of illegal immigrants. The UNHCR assessed the law as singling out and targeting Vietnamese migrants in Cambodia; the Cambodian government had to reassure the international community that no mass deportations of Vietnamese refugees would be implemented. Meanwhile in the remote northwest, the Khmer Rouge continued to carry out sporadic attacks on Vietnamese civilians. The Khmer Rouge formally surrendered to the government in 1999 but ethnic Vietnamese continued to face discrimination in Cambodia afterwards, both as physical intimidation from the general population and administrative threats by local authorities. Anti-Vietnamese are familiar rallying cries from politicians in campaigns during the general elections and become even more acute when disputes flared in the news between the two countries.Amer (2013), p. 95
Demographics Population The Vietnamese are generally concentrated along the banks of the Tonlé Sap lake and Mekong river which encompass the provinces of Siem Reap, Kampong Chhnang, and Pursat.Ehrentraut (2013), p. 30 Smaller populations may be found in Phnom Penh as well as southeastern provinces bordering Vietnam, namely Prey Veng, Svay Rieng,Willmott (1967), p. 107 Kampong Cham, Kampot, Kandal, Kratié, and Takéo. The Vietnamese population was at its largest in 1962 when the government census showed that they were the country's largest minority and reflected 3.8% of the country's population. Demographic researchers returned higher estimated numbers of Vietnamese than government censuses reflect. For example, in the 1960s, the number of resident Vietnamese may be as high as 400,000, while another Cambodian-based researcher, Michael Vickery had estimated the Vietnamese resident population to be between 200,000 and 300,000 in 1986. On the other hand, government censuses conducted during the 1980s put the figures to be no more than 60,000.Schliesinger (2015), p. 261 The following population figures shows population figures of ethnic Vietnamese based on figures derived from government censuses:
Religion
The Vietnamese identify themselves as adherents of Mahayana Buddhism, Cao Đài, or Roman Catholicism. Vietnamese Buddhists are mainly found among impoverished communities living in the Tonle Sap or the rural parts of Cambodia. As Vietnamese Buddhists derive their religious doctrines and beliefs from Chinese folk religion, they participate in religious rituals organised by Chinese Cambodians during festive seasons.Willmott (1967), p. 90 Vietnamese communities that have settled down in Cambodia have adopted Khmer Theravada Buddhist practices to some extent.Ang (2014), p. 10 Vietnamese adherents of Roman Catholicism consist of descendants of refugees that fled the religious persecution during the reign of Tự Đức. They are split between city dwellers based in Phnom PenhWillmott (1967), p. 34 and fishing communities that are based in Tonle Sap. Vietnamese Catholics make up about 90% of Cambodia's Roman Catholic community, and in the 1960s they had about 65,000 adherents in the country. Most of the Vietnamese Catholics were either deported to Vietnam or killed in March 1970,Harris (2008), p. 166 and it was only in 1990 that the Catholic church was allowed to re-establish itself in Cambodia. In 2005, there were about 25,000 Catholics in the country.
A minority of Vietnamese are also followers of the Cao Đài faith which was introduced in 1927. Caodaism attracted both Vietnamese and Cambodian adherents within the first few years of its founding, but a royal decree which outlawed the religion and efforts by Cambodian nationalists to prosecute Khmer adherents led to Caodaism being observed solely by Vietnamese from the 1930s onward.Harris (2008), p. 136 A Cao Đài temple was built in Mao Tse Tung Boulevard in 1937, and in the 1960s there were about 70,000 adherents in Cambodia. Caodaism was outlawed during the Khmer Republic and Khmer Rouge regimes, but regained official recognition in 1985 and has about 2,000 adherents in 2000.Harris (2008), p. 276
Language