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borders with China, Vietnam, and Thailand flourish in complete legality
(and are heavily frequented by those countries’ citizens). The casinos
are at the center of a livelytransborder traffic of legal and illegal goods
and services of every description, a phenomenon that Swe and
Chambers describe as the “Casinofication” of the borders. Stores and
25
shops inside the casinos are often largely empty, because they serve as
fronts for arms traffickers or sales of wild animals or drugs and
prostitution rings. Some shops are completely shuttered due to clashes
between traffickers. The increasing tide of workers’ complaints often
26
lack official channels or are even unauthorized. Unions are banned,
leading to inevitable violent protests and crackdowns in the cities
adjacent to zones. It is not uncommon for protesters to be fired upon
by police forces, occasionally with fatal consequences.

Criticisms of the Cambodian zones

Criticisms of the Cambodian zones fall into several categories,
although surveys of investors indicate high satisfaction levels in terms of
labor costs and labor and frequent praise of worker docility, particularly
among women laborers. They also reveal a range of criticisms of the
zones’ internal operations, however, including inadequate supplies of
labor and low skill levels. The material and administrative responsibilities
assigned to “developers” are typically not met, while electricity remains
a constant concern for investors, with frequent complaints of blackouts.
Infrastructure is routinely criticized as poor. But complaints focus above
all on the lack of coordination among the agencies and ministries
represented by the OSS due to a lack of cooperation between the
various representatives. This can be explained by the systems of
kickbacks and other payments to each ministerial division and, on the

25 Thein Swee, Paul Chambers, 2011, Cashing in Across the Golden Triangle.
Thailand’s Northern Border Trade with China, Laos and Myanmar, Mekong Press.
Chiang Mai
26 Thein Swe, and Paul CHAMBERS, idem, Pal Nyiri, 2012, « Enclaves of
Improvement : Sovereignty and Developmentalism in the Special Zones of the China –
Lao Borderlands », Comparatives Studies in Society and History, Vol. 53, n°3.

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