This week, Communications Coordinator Brian Badzmierowski sat down with H.E. Sujiro Seam, EU Ambassador to ASEAN to discuss the ambassador’s first trip back to Cambodia since he left as a two-year old in 1974. Seam was raised in and became a career diplomat in France, a path which led him to being sworn in as the new EU Ambassador to ASEAN in September 2023 and eventually back to his birthplace in Cambodia. 

EuroCham: You were two years old when you left Cambodia in 1974. This is your first visit to the country. What were your expectations and how did you experience your return to Cambodia?

Ambassador Seam: I was indeed born in the 1970s and we left the country one year before the fall of Phnom Penh, so we were among the lucky ones who managed to leave before the Khmer Rouge took over.

My father had this foresight that with the evolution of the situation, it was time for us to leave, but it came at a great price because my mother, my sister and I were the only ones who were allowed to leave. My father had to stay behind and that was the last time I saw him. When we left in 1974, we flew to France because at the time, of course, the connection with France was still strong, and France was a good destination for all those who wanted to leave the country.

Afterwards, I was fully educated in France because my mother and my sister and I live in a small town, 120 kilometres from Paris, not with the Cambodian community in France, which is more in the eastern suburb of Paris, closer to the capital.I was fully educated in French, which means that I lost the little Cambodian I spoke when I left, because at the age of two, we had just started babbling. I went through all of the French education system and then became a French diplomat.

I knew when I became a French diplomat that I wouldn’t be able to serve here in Cambodia because of security and clearance reasons. But I’m very happy to come back in my current role, serving as ambassador of the European Union to ASEAN. I knew I would have this chance, and I was definitely anticipating it, because this is, of course, a part of my family story. I really did three things while I was here in Cambodia.

The first part was, of course, fully for work, with the delegation of the European Union to Cambodia and my colleague, Igor, who knows ASEAN very well because he’s my predecessor in Jakarta. We met with the government of Cambodia, we met with ministers, secretaries of state, and we attended ASEAN-related events. For example, we visited the ASEAN Regional Mine Action Centre, ARMAC, which is headquartered here in Phnom Penh.

We met with EuroCham, so your chairman and your director, and we launched this photography exhibition about migrant workers in the ASEAN region, which is part of a project called Safe and Fair: Realising migrant women rights and opportunities in the ASEAN region.It is part of a wider EU project, which is the Spotlight Initiative to end violence against women and girls.

I also gave a lecture at a university with the Cambodian Centre for Regional Studies, which has recently launched an ambassadorial lecture series. So I was an invited speaker at that university to speak about the European Union-ASEAN relationship. I met with the diplomatic corps, of course the European Union member state ambassadors and the ASEAN member states ambassadors as well.

This is the first time I had a chance to return to the country in 50 years, so I didn’t want to visit only Phnom Penh, but there is a world-renowned landmark in this country, which is the Temples of Angkor. I took a flight to Siem Reap and took three days over the weekend, which was also the New Year weekend, to visit the temples.

Back in Phnom Penh, I went back to try to find a few remnants of my family. I visited the places where my father studied and where he taught, because he was a high school professor. I visited his former school, which was the young girls’ high school of Phnom Penh, but now it’s the Norodom Primary School.

And of course there is the sad part of my family, but also the country history, which is about the Khmer Rouge years. I went to see the genocide center in Tuol Sleng and the killing fields in Choeung Ek. I also went to the countryside where my family was taken when they were evacuated from Phnom Penh. I visited Champouh Ka Ek and Koh Kor, which is the last place where most of my family members were sighted.

EuroCham: You must have been filled with so many emotions. I mean, coming back and seeing these places and then sort of reinvigorating your connection to the country too.

Ambassador Seam: Yes, and I also went to the Documentation Center of Cambodia. I’m still going to the Bophana Center afterwards. This story is not unique. At the time, there was a population of 7 million people in Cambodia. Around 2 million people were killed during the Khmer Rouge years and the ensuing Vietnam War. But there are 5 million survivors and the data shows that 1 million of them are overseas. So I’m one of these one million looking for some of these two million people who disappeared during those years.

EuroCham: And it must be, especially from a personal level, nice to see how far the country has come in since that time. How do you see its evolution, both from within an ASEAN perspective, and then in a smaller perspective, too, as a neighbor to Thailand and Vietnam, how does it fit in?

Ambassador Seam: Well, as the ambassador of the European Union to ASEAN, of course, I witness the vitality of this region. It’s well known for its growth. And I think they managed to achieve what we were aiming at with the European Union project: peace and prosperity. You know that ASEAN and the European Union are considered as the two most successful examples of regional integration in the world. And they are based on the same purpose, which is to achieve peace and prosperity.

For the European Union, it was in the wake of the Second World War, being a part of the Franco-German reconciliation. In Southeast Asia, ASEAN was created in 1967, so 10 years later. But indeed, we had conflicts in this region as well, and ASEAN contributed to settle those conflicts.

Today we still have the very dire situation in Myanmar, but at least between the other member states of ASEAN, there is a long-lasting peace, and that also generates the right conditions for economic growth and prosperity.

There is also the centrality of ASEAN, which is the only regional organisation in this part of the world. It has a monopoly on regional integration, which is not even the case in the European Union, because there, we also have other organisations, such as the Council of Europe, or NATO, with different purposes. But in the ASEAN region, there is ASEAN and nothing else. It has a central role, a pivotal role, which is unmatched anywhere in the world.

I think Cambodia took great advantage of its membership in ASEAN and it also took it as an opportunity to shine. The year 2022 was the year of the Cambodian chairmanship of ASEAN and that was a fantastic year for the European Union-ASEAN Strategic Partnership which was launched on the 1st of December 2020.

As ASEAN Chair, Cambodia also the president of the European Council to participate in the East Asia Summit. So actually the European Union was represented at the summit; we also had the 45th anniversary commemorative summit between the European Union and ASEAN in Brussels on the 14th of December 2022.

So I think indeed the country itself has evolved a lot. It is still a least-developed country because of those tragic years from 1975 to when peace returned. They took a toll on the growth potential and on the population of course.But now it’s making progress with good growth rates and is indeed a destination for foreign direct investment. I am very happy to be able to count on Cambodia as a supporter of the European Union also in the ASEAN context.

EuroCham: It might be a good time to talk about the new government too. Prime Minister Hun Sen was in charge for 38 years and it is quite a turning point for the country now with a new cabinet and many fresh faces. Has this worked to change the perception of ASEAN in the EU?

Ambassador Seam: Well, the Cambodian-EU relationship is not my territory. Of course, that’s the responsibility for my colleague Igor, who is the ambassador of the European Union to Cambodia. But indeed, one of the points of my visit here was to connect with this new government of Cambodia on ASEAN matters. 

My purpose coming here was to gauge the new directions, if any, of this government with respect to ASEAN and its relationship to the European Union. It was good to be able to ascertain that the strong support we witnessed and experienced during the Cambodian chairmanship of ASEAN in 2022, which was of course under the previous government, continues. There is a strong sense of continuity and it’s good because it’s built upon a very solid, very friendly and cooperative basis.

EuroCham: Sometimes the EU can be seen in ASEAN as a bit technocratic and immobile. How would you deal with these perception challenges if somebody were to say that from the ASEAN perspective?

Ambassador Seam: Well, both the European Union and ASEAN actually are regional organisations governed by processes, procedures and a certain amount of bureaucracy, and it’s the nature of decision-making at the regional level. You need to get the agreement of all the countries concerned. In the European Union we have a long-standing experience with those processes and we came up with our own solutions which allows us to vote through qualified majority voting for most of our policies.

I think it served us well because indeed today the European Union benefits from at the same time a fully integrated internal market where the four freedoms are fully achieved: the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people. We also have the most comprehensive set of common policies in the world, with the realisation that we’re stronger together than individually.

We also have very advanced and integrated institutions with a parliament which will go through an election this year, with an executive power, which is the European Commission, and with a decision-making process which brings together all the member states in the Council of the European Union. 

In ASEAN, there are 10 member states, they are very diverse, they are very large and very populated countries like Indonesia, but you have very small countries like Brunei or Singapore. You have very advanced economies like Singapore or you have least developed countries like Cambodia but also Laos and Myanmar.

You have countries which are on the continent on land, one of them is even landlocked, that’s Laos, and you have more maritime countries which depend much more on the ocean like the Philippines or Indonesia, Malaysia, or Brunei. But despite this diversity this group of 10 countries — soon to be 11 with the expected ascension of Timor-Leste — has managed to affirm its role on the international stage and generate a very desirable growth in its instruments so I think comparison is not the point. We really have to focus on what brings us together and cooperation. I think even though we have our differences here and there, we always manage to achieve a common vision of where we want to go.

The most recent example where we experienced that was at the European Union-ASEAN ministerial meeting on the 2nd of February in Brussels, which I attended. And we managed to agree on a very substantial joint statement, which touches upon and conveys a common view on very sensitive issues where our respective positions are not exactly the same.

Issues like Ukraine or the Middle East are not easy to deal with, but we managed to do that. So even though there might be this perception that geographically we are quite far apart, because we’re almost on the opposite sides of the Earth. Even though our history, our institutions, and our decision-making processes are different, we managed to come together and find a common vision on what needs to be done and how to achieve it.

EuroCham: ASEAN is often viewed as fragmented and isolationist, even nationalistic or protectionist. Does this affect your work at all? Or did you have to deal with this perception too?

Ambassador Seam: The European Union and ASEAN are very different animals. They don’t come from the same place and they certainly don’t go to the same place either. What we see in ASEAN is a very strong regional organization. Of course, it’s built upon the rule of consensus and unanimity.

Everyone has to agree and that’s a major difference from the European Union because most of our common policies are decided through qualified majority voting, which means that not everyone needs to agree. Somehow our processes, our decision-making processes, are a little bit faster because you don’t need to gather a consensus of all the member states of the European Union, so you don’t have to wait until everyone agrees to have a final decision. I think at the same time the European Union has experience in some areas where we do not have everyone on board and we can still move forward. The euro is one of these examples, all the member states of the European Union use the euro.

In ASEAN, they have the same thing in practice because even though everyone needs to agree, we know from our experience with the EU-ASEAN Strategic Partnership that we need champions on some topics. We know that even if everyone is on board, we need to count on some countries, some member states of ASEAN to lead the way.

We have champions for example on biodiversity with the Philippines which is where the ASEAN Center of Excellence for Biodiversity is located. We know that on cyber issues the champion will be Singapore (the Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence, for example, is in Singapore.) Here in Cambodia, we know that on mine action they are the leaders in the region and that’s the reason why the ASEAN Regional Mine Action Center is headquartered here.

Even though there is this perception that there are different countries and we need to wait until they all agree to move forward, that’s not totally true. We know we can rely on the champions to lead the way until others are ready to join. So I think that’s a good way to make sure that we keep moving without being stopped by this rule of unanimity.

At the same time, we can also rely on our respective member states. I mean the European Union and ASEAN are regional entities, but we don’t act in a vacuum. Here in Cambodia or in other ASEAN member states, we can count on the collective strength of our member states.

That’s what we try to encapsulate in this new Team Europe approach. We can also count on champions on the European side, as well as some of the ASEAN member states. Of course, all member states are equal, but they do not have the same history. They do not have the same interest and they do not have exactly the same relationship with all the countries in the ASEAN region.

It’s clear that in a country like Cambodia, and we’re here at the French Embassy, France plays a very unique role because it was the former colonial power. But there was no violence when France agreed to the independence of Cambodia, so we have a very good memory of those times. And the relationship between France and Cambodia remains very, very special. We know we can count on France to lead the way on many issues here in Cambodia.

When I was here, for example, we saw the signing of this new water project, which is spearheaded by France, but was supported by the European Union as well. 

EuroCham: Before we get to the last question, I don’t want to take the first question lightly. I mean, your first time visiting here in 50 years, I’m just curious, how do you approach a visit like that? Because professionally, you’re coming here for one reason. And then personally, for another reason. What does it feel like to be on the plane and be flying here for the first time in 50 years? Did you have some holes in your past you wanted filled, or had you already made peace with the past?

Ambassador Seam: I left at the age of two and people who study the human mind generally consider that you start forming memories at the age of four, so physically, mentally, psychologically, you do not have memories of yourself before. I think the first memory which is engraved in your brain is from around the age of four, that’s what science shows. So, actually I came here without any memory of the country, I forgot the language. I didn’t have any memory of my time here in Cambodia because I left when I was around two years old, but of course I had all this family history.

I knew about my past so that puts me in a very special situation as a French diplomat who is Cambodian-born in the EU-ASEAN relationship. I think that puts me in a unique situation, because that was your question: how can I differentiate or compartmentalize professional and personal purposes here in Cambodia? I think everything I do which is professional puts me in a very unique situation because my Cambodian interlocutors know that I was born here.

That creates a sort of special bond and this is certainly an asset. At the same time, I’m very happy to be able to take advantage of this professional travel because I came here for work but also to reconnect with my past, with my roots so everything falls in place.

EuroCham: Thank you so much for your time, and we look forward to working with you again in the future!

Ambassador Seam: Of course we have this very good connection with EuroChams in the ASEAN member states where there is one, and we also have a very good connection to the EU-ASEAN Business Council as a regional business representation.

I think it’s a very important partnership, we have to keep the momentum on the implementation of the economy. Business, trade and investment are part of the strategic partnership we have between the EU and ASEAN. I’m happy to keep in touch with all of you in the business community to see how we can work better with our ASEAN partners.