The reading passage presents several theories about the cause of Angkor’s demise.
However, the speaker strongly states that those reasons could not be causes for Angkor’s
collapse with three reasons.
Firstly, the lecturer believes that epidemic disease could not be the reason of the sudden
collapse of the empire. Plague spread through trades in ship, which means that usually
coastal cities were affected by the disease. However, not only was the Angkor located
in land, but also the disease was unlikely to be made in Asia at that time.
So, she debunks the author’s claim that the epidemic disease is one of reasons of
the empire demise.
Second, the speaker casts doubt on the fact that problem of water system made
the empire collapse. The author from the reading passage says that flaws of water system
affected crop yields, leading the city to collapse. However, even when the system operated
well, the amount of water that it could provide was limited. Accordingly, there must have
been other means to gain water regardless of water system’s condition and deflect in
the system might have not been responsible for the city’s collapse.
She finally concludes that the dominance of China in maritime trade did not extremely
influence the city’s loss. Basically, the types of items that China, and Angkor sold were
different. While Angkor carried agricultural goods, China sold extravagant items, such as
pottery. So, they may have not affected each other’s business. Hence, the speaker rebuts
the author that the rise of Chinese in trade threatened Angkor’s economy, leading to its
demise.