What makes some immigrants in Cambodia stay strong and stand as high-classed people in the country?

It is somehow sad to learn that some of the top-ranking people in the current government of Cambodia are actually not originally Cambodian; many are just Vietnamese immigrants who came in some 20 or 30 years ago and later became some of the biggest names, who have been very strong and are not even likely to go anywhere from the power they are holding in the near future. In fact, I think, some aspects of Cambodian politics and economy may be the cause of why these immigrants have stayed so strong.

First of all, the current government was originally supported by the Vietnamese government. During the darkest age in Cambodian history—the Pol Pot Regime, some of the government people fled to Vietnam and made allies with the Vietnamese, begging them for financial and military help until Vietnam decided to help chase away the DK army out of Cambodia in 1979. After the collapse of the Pol Pot regime, that group of Cambodian people, who went to Vietnam, was supported by the Vietnamese and got the power to form the government in Cambodia. Because of this, some Vietnamese were given positions as government officials and allowed to grip hold of it until they become too powerful to be rooted out of the Cambodian land.

Also, the enforcement of laws about immigration in Cambodia is still very poor, making immigrating to live in Cambodia very cheap and easy for some Vietnamese. They just need to spend several thousand riels to enter Cambodia. Then, they start to look for places to live and maybe build their own houses, “produce” Cambodian-national children, and they and their children will not leave this country forever. This factor gives rise to the increasing number of the Vietnamese immigrants, making Cambodia more and more comfortable for the Vietnamese to live in.

Besides these political reasons, economic factors, I believe, also play a part. Because of globalization of the world economy, some people of other nationalities, other than Vietnamese, are now also standing strong even in Cambodia. This may be the result of the fact that they are wealthy so that they can invest what they have in various businesses or companies, where they are managers, CEOs, or CFOs, just to name a few. Some may be strong in Cambodia because they own profession and expertise that are somehow still rare in Cambodia; they are needed either to use their knowledge and skills to help educate and train other Cambodians or to directly contribute their intellectual ability to the development of Cambodia by working in both non-governmental organizations and governmental institutions.

The in-Cambodia immigrants, who are now standing strong and powerful, owe enormous help to how Cambodia, as an independent country, work both politically and economically. So if anyone wishes to chase away these kinds of people, they may have to try transforming how this country has been governed, which does not seem to be anywhere in prospect. Personally, it would be wiser to just let the matter drop, unless those immigrants do any harm to the country and its people. Anyway, the presence of some of them, especially, those regarding economy, really does Cambodia a lot more good than bad. Therefore, to an extent, I believe, it would be not very worth it to be giving ourselves headache from simply thinking too much about this fact of Cambodia.