The CGDK had formal diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Malaysia, North Korea, Pakistan, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, and Yugoslavia (as of late 1987). Chinese and North Korean relations with the coalition occasionally were in the limelight in the 1980s--Chinese relations because of China's role as the principal donor of material and military assistance to the CGDK, and North Korean relations because Sihanouk maintained his "private" residence in Pyongyang (a palace built for him by the president of North Korean, Kim Il Sung, in the early 1970s). Bangkok also was mentioned frequently in Cambodian foreign affairs because it had hosted meetings of CGDK leaders with Chinese and Thai officials regarding events in Indochina. Bangkok was also the site for the Office of Samdech Norodom Sihanouk's Personal Representative for Cambodia and Asia, which was headed by Sihanouk's son Prince Norodom Ranariddh. This office was Sihanouk's informal embassy.

The CGDK had a permanent mission--consisting of representatives from all three of the CGDK partners--to the United Nations in New York. In formal debates in the UN General Assembly, however, the chief delegate of the Khmer Rouge group represented the CGDK because the coalition's June 1982 agreement said that the diplomatic envoys of Democratic Kampuchea who were in office at that time would remain in their posts. The permanent mission became active each September during the UN General Assembly's opening session. Mission representatives sought to obtain reaffirmation of the General Assembly's September 1979 resolution calling for an unconditional withdrawal of "foreign" (Vietnamese) troops from Cambodia and for Cambodian self-determination free of external constraints. In 1979 ninety-one nations backed the resolution, twenty-one nations opposed it, and twenty-nine abstained. In 1987 although 117 nations reaffirmed the same resolution, the number of countries which opposed it remained essentially unchanged. Some countries, such as the United States, supported resolutions but did not recognize Democratic Kampuchea, the CGDK, or the PRK. Britain and Australia withdrew recognition of Democratic Kampuchea in December 1979, and in October 1980, respectively, but both supported the CGDK's effort to get the Vietnamese troops out of Cambodia and to determine its future freely under UN supervision.

Data as of December 1987