Senior China Communist Party official Liu Yunshan met with Funcinpec party president Princess Norodom Arun Rasmey yesterday – the second meeting in as many months between senior Chinese officials and the reeling royalist party.

Speaking after the meeting, Keo Puth Rasmey, former Funcinpec president and Rasmey’s husband, said the meeting focused on ways to strengthen relations between the parties.

“When speaking about the ties between China and Cambodia, we have always thought of King Norodom Sihanouk, who had a big role in urging relationships between the two countries,” he said Yunshan said through an interpreter.

Funcinpec failed to win a single National Assembly seat in the July election, effectively shutting them out of the future government – though they still hold 160 commune councillor positions, along with 53 held by the Norodom Ranariddh Party, with whom it has since merged.

Keo Puth Rasmey, former Funcinpec president and Rasmey’s husband, said that the Communist Party of China would remain a friend of Funcinpec’s “whether it has seats or not”.