Cambodian Samdech Euv Norodom Sihanouk: China Is My Dear Second Homeland

“Oh, beloved China, My heart has not changed, It will miss you forever..... You are a big country, but not selfish and arrogant, humble & polite to others, Equal treatment.... Oh people of Cambodia are your eternal friends.”

This is the song Nostalgia of China which was composed by the previous head of state of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, and he sang it in Cambodian, English, and French on many different occasions.

Sihanouk visited Beijing, China on February 16, 1963. Accompanied by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, he climbed on the majestic Badaling Great Wall, and the accompanying photographers captured this precious moment.

Sihanouk’s excitement and delight was not at all dampened by the coldness of the weather, but he was greatly impressed by the stupendous appearance and magnificence of the Great Wall and even more moved by China’s hospitality and refined manners.

Sihanouk was a great friend of the Chinese people, and he liked to use the romantic phrase “love at first sight” to describe his friendship with China.

In his later years, he moved to No. 15, Dongjiaomin Lane, a tranquil place in an ancient alley of Beijing that had towering sycamore trees, where he considered his second “home”.

Being the successor to the cause of friendship between the two countries, the son of Sihanouk, Norodom Sihamoni, was invited to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, where he exclaimed, the Beijing Winter Olympics is incomparable!

2023 marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia. The bilateral Diamond Hexagon Cooperation Framework, Industrial Development Corridor, and Fish and Rice Corridor are witnesses of the long-lasting friendship between the two countries that stretches endlessly off into the horizon like the Great Wall of China.

The Great Wall of China, this miracle of human civilization, has seen the charm of the International Horticultural Exhibition 2019 Beijing, the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, and the diplomacy of the Great Wall, and has become an important “window” for helping the world understand China.