TheWall Street Journal report cited US officials,who had seen an early draft of the agreement,which they said would allow China to use the base for 30 years.
On Friday,Cambodian Defence officials led by spokesman Chum Socheat took a group of 73 journalists,from local and international media outlets,to the 62-acre Ream base in an apparent public relations exercise designed to convince them there was no Chinese presence on the site.
"We already held a press conference yesterday ... but journalists wanted to see the base. So I asked the minister[for] approval to bring journos.
“He said,'please let them see,nothing to hide'.
"No matter what the allegations are,you are the eyes and ears,now you can see there is nothing to hide,"he told reporters during the stage-managed visit."Foreigners who still accuse that we did this or that,today we open up to show."
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Vann Saray,a reporter with pro-government news outletFresh News,pointed out theJournal had not reported on US bases in Thailand or Vietnam,described its report as"psychological warfare"against Cambodia and declared"there is not a single Chinese man here".