Thailand

Over the past two weeks, Thailand, and the international Thai studies community, has seen several unprecedented open debates about Thailand’s monarchy and its future course. On Thai PBS, which is generally acknowledged to be the best television channel in Thailand, an interview program held over the past two weeks a series of relatively forthright discussions, with both royalists and critics of the current monarchical system, on the future of the institution. The conversations were thorough (as thorough as they could be in Thailand) and thought-provoking. For three days, the Thai PBS program attracted far more attention than the channel—which generally cannot compete with the sports, soap operas, and other attractions of other Thai channels—normally gets. The conversations were relatively open, in a country where harsh lèse-majesté laws still keep any tough criticism tightly capped, and they were informative, both to Thais and foreign viewers. They were a milestone, really the first such discussions on Thai TV. And yet after three days, pressure from ultra-royalists led the channel to can the monarchy discussions and even shut down the interview program entirely. Now, Thai PBS may be walking back on that decision, but at any rate, the on-air monarchy discussion is over. At the same time, foreign journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall, based in Singapore, has been posting online a series of cables, mostly drawn from British archives, that reveal intense politicking by the king during previous periods of Thai unrest, as well as the king’s longtime conservative political bent and suspicion of democracy in Thailand. Although the cables will not be that shocking to anyone who has studied Thailand’s modern history, they will be to many Thais. Quite a few Thai friends and acquaintances believe that MacGregor’s cables are getting widely circulated among educated Thais, even though his own website is usually banned in the kingdom. Are these signs of greater openness about the monarchy in Thailand, or signs that Thailand—at least its elites—are becoming even more unwilling to contemplate the future, and even harsher toward those who do so with an open mind?

On Sunday, Bangkokians turned out in record-breaking numbers to cast their votes in the city’s gubernatorial election—the first such contest since the violent red-shirt protests that engulfed the capital in the spring of 2010. The incumbent MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra of the Democrat Party was elected for a second term with 1.25 million votes. Equally notable was the fact that, for the first time, a runner-up—in this case, Pongsapat Pongcharoen of the Peau Thai party—received more than one million votes. As Bangkok Pundit notes, the mere 178,000 votes that separated the candidates marked the narrowest margin in the history of Bangkok elections. The mass turnout and narrow margin are indicative of the deep-rooted political divide that has plagued national politics in Thailand for much of the last ten years. In The Nation, Pravit Rojanaphruk writes: “As for the class-divide issue, the electoral result again reinforced the hypothesis that poor and less educated people tend to support Thaksin (and sister Premier Yingluck Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai) while those better educated and better off tend to go for the Democrats… Though these elites tend to have difficulties connecting to the masses, their trump card was raising the fear of Thaksin taking over the capital. As a result, Bangkokians have missed the opportunity to hold a proper gubernatorial election and succeeded in making a national political feud part of local politics.” For all that can be said about the election, its results, and voters’ motivations, the election was a significant litmus test for the state of democracy in Thailand. On Sunday, voters took their gripes to the ballot box—which has not always been the case in Thailand’s recent history. For nearly a decade, Thailand has weathered one street protest after another, with both sides disdaining democratic institutions and refusing to resolve their differences in a voting booth instead of in the streets. The case of Thailand and its recent democratic regression is hardly unique. In an excerpt from my new book Democracy in Retreat published in the latest issue of Foreign Policy,  I explain how, contrary to public perception in the wake of the Arab Spring, democracy around the developing world has in reality become weaker, less effective, and less supported by the public over the past decade. You can read the entire excerpt on Foreignpolicy.com.

This past week, Thailand’s government made the surprising announcement that it would launch talks with the insurgent organization National Revolution Front (BRN) in the south, with the discussions focused on achieving peace in the south. This marked the first time Bangkok had opened talks with any insurgent organization in the south since the violence flared up again more than a decade ago. Previously, many Thai leaders had insisted that even opening formal talks with an insurgent organization would be providing the insurgents with the kind of status they did not deserve, and possibly would open the door to significant autonomy for the three southern provinces. Allowing such autonomy would challenge the very foundation of the modern Thai government, which has always insisted on a unitary Thailand that allows little room for ethnic, religious, and geographical minorities. Since only a few weeks ago many prominent Thai scholars were still insisting that the Yingluck government would never give up this notion of a unitary state and even attempt to invest the prime minister’s prestige in talks, the announcement this week is a major step forward. In addition, the willingness to trust Malaysia as a potential interlocutor also shows the kind of risk-taking and bold thought on the south that had long been absent in Bangkok. Yet there remain many significant hurdles to real peace in the south. As noted by Don Pathan in The Nation, it remains very unclear whether the BRN group really can speak for large numbers of younger insurgents, who seem to have allegiance to no one leader and operate in nearly autonomous and fragmented cells. It is not even clear whether BRN, as the Thai southern command insisted this week, is even a major player in the southern unrest. Does the coordinating committee of BRN really call the shots in the south, as has been alleged by some analysts? Since the Thai government has been talking to a wide range of insurgent groups in the south, and any real peace will require the signing on of all these organizations, why not bring more than one group to the talks in Malaysia? Bangkok says it hopes that, by reaching an agreement with BRN, other insurgent groups will then come to the table and sign on. But while Bangkok might be able to reach a deal with BRN without making major concessions such as special status for the three provinces in the south, it is unlikely to lure other groups to the table that way.

In all the recent news about the southern Thailand insurgency—a failed attack by insurgents on a marine base in the south, and a string of attacks in recent days that included at least fifty bombings and shootings—there has not been enough attention paid to the motivations of some of the insurgents killed in the last week. In the Bangkok Post, Veera Prateepchaikul alludes to the problem: Several of the insurgents killed by Thai forces in the marine attack had been present at a protest in 2004 at Tak Bai at which at least seventy-eight protestors were stuffed into hot, airless trucks and ultimately suffocated to death. As Veera notes, the alleged head of the attackers on the marine base, Maroso Chatharawadee, was present at Tak Bai. After the protest, he was arrested and allegedly beaten by soldiers with rifle butts. His mother told reporters that the treatment by the army helped radicalize him, and he has been implicated in a string of violent attacks since then, leading up to the recent marine base firefight. Several other insurgents involved in the marine attack also apparently were radicalized by the Tak Bai incident. The Thai army’s—and the Thai government’s —greatest failing in the south is its utter lack of winning local hearts and minds, key to any effective counterinsurgency. It is indeed shocking that after so many years, and so much training—both from foreign armies and from Thai officers who effectively handled counterinsurgency during the 1970s in the Thai northeast—the Thai soldiers who operate in the south seem to have picked up so little from common counterinsurgency strategy guides. Though the insurgents are certainly ruthless and brutal, the army also has been, and for a decade no army officers or rangers have been held accountable for their actions in the south, Veera writes. Instead, they have helped generate a newer, even more alienated generation of southern militants.

Over the past year, as conflict has flared in Rakhine State in Myanmar, growing numbers of Rohingya have fled their homes. It remains unclear to me—even after a trip to Rakhine State—exactly why the conflict started now, and what role the local security forces have played, if any.  However, it is abundantly clear that the region’s management of Rohingya outflows is horrendous, a failure pointed out by the increasing numbers of Rohingya who are fleeing by boat, rather than going to camps in Myanmar or Bangladesh. In the past month, many of these boats of Rohingya have landed in southern Thailand; the Bangkok Post quotes Thai officials as saying that four thousand refugees have come between November and January. Thailand has no clear policy on the Rohingya. It has refused to set up camps for them, and wanted to deport them back to Myanmar—where they are clearly endangered—before bowing to pressure from the international community and Muslim nations, and granting some Rohingya a temporary stay in Thailand. Thailand has some legitimate concerns about refugee inflows—that they are being encouraged by traffickers, and that Thailand should not have to bear the cost of taking the refugees alone. These concerns do not justify the aimless and sometimes brutal policy of the Thai authorities—turning back Rohingya, deporting them, and on at least one occasion several years ago, pushing Rohingya boats back into the sea. But Thailand is also not getting much support from neighbors like Malaysia, Singapore, or Indonesia, all of which also have had Rohingya turn up on their shores. As the region, and Western nations, did with the Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s, now it needs a more coordinated approach to the Rohingya challenge, since it is unlikely to go away in this period of turbulence in Myanmar. Wealthier Muslim nations like the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia (or Japan, the European Union, and the United States) could provide the bulk of the funds for Rohingya temporary camps in Thailand, as well as for helping Rohingya resettle in third countries like Malaysia. Meanwhile, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) together could agree on one approach to intercepting Rohingya boats, and to more effectively differentiate between Rohingya fleeing persecution in western Myanmar and the professional traffickers who might help them flee.  And ASEAN nations like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore could agree to accept certain numbers of Rohingya, assured that the economic burden would not fall on them alone.

Over the past week, since the sentencing of a prominent Thai editor Somyot Prueksakakasemsuk and activist to ten years (eleven if you count the suspended sentence he must serve again) in jail for publishing articles that supposedly violated Thailand’s broad and outdated lèse majesté law, both Thai and foreign commentators have hotly debated whether, and how, to alter or abolish the law. On New Mandala, there is a lively discussion of whether the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand—which itself has been hit with lèse majesté charges—is too weak in defending the rights of free speech in Thailand. Many foreign nations, including the United States, have expressed their concern at the verdict, which comes on top of a seemingly endless parade of lèse majesté cases. Meanwhile, despite the highly repressive climate toward speech in Thailand today, at a soccer game last weekend between Thailand’s two most famous universities, students in the crowd flew banners that read “FREE SOMYOT” and holding other protests. And the Thai government? It is more focused on other matters. Like what? Like expressing outrage at a skit on Saturday Night Live that plays on Thailand’s reputation for sex tourism. It was not that funny of a skit, and in poor taste. But it’s Saturday Night Live. A comedy show. Thailand’s culture minister has nonetheless called on YouTube to take down the video and on Washington to push Saturday Night Live’s producer to understand why the video is offensive to Thailand. Good luck with that.

Yesterday the prominent Thai editor and activist Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was sentenced to ten years in jail for publishing articles allegedly offensive to the Thai monarchy, under the draconian lèse majesté laws Thailand has in force. Bangkok-based blogger Saksith Saiyasombut has a fine overview of the scene in the courtroom as the judges read out their verdict, to the protests of several hundred observers, including other rights activists. There has been extensive media coverage, both inside Thailand and in the global press, of this case, and yet the defendant was given a jail term considered harsh even by the ridiculous standards of the lèse majesté law, which allows anyone—not just the monarch —to file lèse majesté charges against anyone else, and so has turned into the most potent political weapon to use in Thailand today. The fact that all of this international coverage, and observers, made no difference shows how thoroughly Thailand has departed from international norms on freedom of expression, and how little the lèse majesté witch-hunt has changed under the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, despite many Thais’ hopes that the political environment would cool off, at least for a time.

Mr. President, as you start your second term, you have made clear that you will continue the “pivot” to Asia, which includes moving military assets to the Asian theater, bolstering relations with Asian partners, and generally re-establishing the United States as the major Pacific presence. Your new secretary of state, John Kerry, is a longtime advocate of closer ties with mainland Southeast Asia. Within the State Department and Pacific Command, support for the “pivot” is strong as well. In many ways, the pivot makes sense. Moving more U.S. military assets to Asia, and building closer ties with democratic partners like Australia, India, and South Korea, could help Asian nations feel more secure without necessarily sparking an arms race with China. The White House itself is not necessarily driving the pivot; Worried about China’s behavior, many Asian nations have looked to the United States as a balancer in the region. But, Mr. President, as the past two months have shown, the excitement in Washington over the “pivot” has overshadowed some serious human rights concerns among many of the United States’ new friends. Your second administration needs to do a better job of continuing the pivot while demonstrating that Washington will make closer ties with autocratic Southeast Asian regimes contingent on rights improvements.  I will list just a few examples here. I recently returned from Myanmar, a country which this past year you, for the first time, invited to join the U.S. and Thai-led multinational military exercise Kobra Gold. Some U.S. diplomats believe that military-military cooperation with Myanmar will grow so exponentially that by 2015 you will sign a comprehensive partnership with Naypyidaw. And indeed, Myanmar has changed significantly since the transfer of power from the military in 2010. Yet I saw, in Rakhine State, how a combination of local vigilantes and prodding from some in the security forces has led to wanton destruction of the Muslim Rohingya community, with tens of thousands driven out of their homes and large regions burned to the ground. Although the Rohingya disaster has been covered in some media, on the ground the situation actually is worse than described in most media reports, and the Rohingya are turning into Asia’s new “boat people,” fleeing en masse in rickety boats in hopes of getting to Malaysia. The Myanmar government also has upped its war against insurgents in northern Kachin State, allegedly bombing them with imprecise air strikes, and it remains highly unclear, from my conversations with diplomats and regional officers, whether President Thein Sein has control of his army commanders in the field. Meanwhile, similar worries have arisen in Laos, a country virtually ignored by the United States since 1975 but courted by your administration, including with a visit to Vientiane by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Laos’ rights abuses often get ignored, since the country seems, on the surface, to be so placid and slow-paced. Yet last month one of the most prominent activists in Laos, a former winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, suddenly went missing. As I noted in a previous blog, according to several news reports, he was held at a police post in the capital and then taken away in another truck which had stopped at the police post. His whereabouts remain unknown, even though, by the standards of political activism in neighboring states like Thailand, Malaysia, or the Philippines, he was hardly even critical of his government. This follows on other crackdowns in Laos. Last year, the call-in show News Talk, basically the only even semi-independent broadcast media in Laos, was abruptly forced off the air. Finally, let’s look at Cambodia, Vietnam, and even treaty ally Thailand. As I noted in a piece for The New Republic, the administration has pushed for closer military-military ties with the Cambodian military (even paying for the son of autocratic prime minister Hun Sen to attend West Point), which has a record of assassinating domestic opponents. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently met with Cambodia’s Minister of Defense Tea Banh, yet in a comprehensive recent report, Human Rights Watch detailed how, over the past two decades, some three hundred people have been killed in political murders in Cambodia, many by soldiers or members of dictatorial Prime Minister Hun Sen’s personal guard. The Obama administration has also re-affirmed its longstanding alliance with Thailand, a country whose armed forces two years ago gunned down at least eighty civilian protestors in the streets of Bangkok.  Under new Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the Thai armed forces have hardly changed their tune: A group of soldiers, showed up, in full uniform, last week, outside the offices of a Thai media group, in an unsubtle attempt to threaten the group’s reporters, who had been critical of the armed forces—a highly inappropriate action for an army in what is supposedly a “democracy.”  And in Vietnam, where cooperation with the Pentagon is moving the fastest, the government last week jailed fourteen activists and bloggers, continuing a crackdown on online dissent that has been building for the past three years. In your second term, Mr. President, you certainly should not halt the pivot. It makes sense in terms of the dispersal of U.S. forces, it is desired by many Southeast Asian and Pacific nations worried by the increasing aggressiveness and opacity of the Chinese leadership, and it includes closer ties with important democratic partners like Australia, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. But, as I noted in TNR, do not overrate your own ability to change nations in the region, and underestimate the brutality of some regimes you are dealing with. In your second term, take a harder look at what the pivot is actually getting from mainland Southeast Asian nations, and whether it is worth abetting such brutalities. There is thus far little evidence that mil-mil cooperation with the United States has changed the Cambodian armed forces, for example. And these smaller nations offer little strategic benefit. Even if Cambodia was “lost” to China—which already is Phnom Penh’s biggest donor and investor, giving Cambodia some $500 million in soft loans last year—would that be a serious blow to America’s presence in Asia? Not really. Nor would it be a great loss if Laos, which also has come under increasing Chinese influence—China provides extensive training for Lao soldiers, and is probably now Laos’ biggest donor—tilted more clearly to China. By contrast, Vietnam, despite its poor rights climate, could be a critical ally due to its large and professional military, deep-water harbors, growing interoperability with U.S. forces, and natural distrust of China. Myanmar and Thailand are larger and more strategically located countries, and Thailand is a U.S. treaty ally. But Myanmar is unlikely to tilt toward China even if the administration had gone extremely slow in re-establishing military ties—the Myanmar generals began to engage with the West in 2010 in large part to reduce their dependence on China, which had become the dominant strategic, economic, and diplomatic force in Myanmar. So it is unlikely that, if the Obama administration goes slower on mil-mil cooperation in the second term until the Myanmar military is more clearly under civilian control, and has purged its worst offenders, the Myanmar government would suddenly cut off its engagement with the United States. Thailand, also, would be unlikely to downgrade ties with the United States if the White House were to take a harder line toward the Thai military. Many in the current government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have no love for the Thai military, since the armed forces removed Yingluck’s brother in a coup just six years ago. If any Thai government were to go along with the United States in taking a hard look at how its aid helps a military that repeatedly interferes in politics and uses excessive force on its own citizens, it would be this one.

Over on Bangkok Pundit, a translation of an op-ed recently published in the Thai publication Matichon offers some revealing quotes from Senator Somjate Boonthanom, the former general who helped lead the 2006 coup that toppled the government of Thaksin Shinawatra. “The elected ones like to refer to the election process as being democracy,” explained Somajate, “From elections, the people choose, but still corruption. Therefore, it is not proof that coming from elections is the best. Democracy that steals from the nation, I view it as worse than a military dictatorship.” Of course, such statements are of little surprise from an appointed Senator whose power, as Bangkok Pundit notes, was not derived from the ballot box, but from a coup against an elected government. But General Somjate is far from alone in his sentiments.Throughout the world, middle classes—once seen as the linchpin to successful democratization— are growing increasingly resentful of the institutions of democracy,  institutions which have lead in many countries to the legitimate election of officials who these middle classes perceive as corrupt, authoritarian and the source of policies that run counter to their own interests. Instead of taking their plight to the ballot box, these middle-class men and women have often taken to the streets in protest and thrown their support behind armed forces. In October, Venezuelans elected Hugo Chavez for a third presidential term. Since his first election in 1999 he has enjoyed popular support among the country’s poor, but his populist policies have destroyed Venezuela’s economy and alienated its middle class. Throughout Chavez’s presidency, middle-class residents and politicians—just as in Thailand— have launched street demonstrations, and they lent their support to the 2002 military coup that briefly ousted Chavez. And in post-Mubarak Egypt, where many of the groups that first stormed Tahrir Square expressed concerned over the military’s continued political power, some Egyptian middle-class men and women actually welcomed the army’s involvement. They viewed the armed forced as a check against Islamists and growing instability. In a second excerpt published in the National Post from my forthcoming book Democracy in Retreat, I explore what is perhaps the most unnerving aspect of democracy’s worldwide regression: the revolt of the middle class. You can read the excerpt here.

Last month, protestors representing the royalist Pitak Siam group gathered in rally sites across Bangkok to force the ouster of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, accusing her government of acting as a puppet for her fugitive brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. While the number of protesters that ultimately turned out—some 20,000— paled in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of people who came out in 2006 for anti-Thaksin rallies, the protest is nonetheless another troubling development in the political meltdown that has engulfed the country in recent years. Since 2006, Thailand, once a poster child for democratization in the developing world, has undergone a rapid democratic regression. And it is hardly alone. Since 2001, a conservative middle class has revolted against electoral democracy —just as it has in Thailand—in  many key developing nations, including Pakistan, the Philippines, Venezuela, and Russia. In my forthcoming book Democracy in Retreat,  I examine how, contrary to public perception in the wake of the Arab Spring, democracy has in reality become weaker, less effective, and less supported by the public around the developing world over the past decade. Democracy in Retreat is being published by the Council on Foreign Relations and Yale University Press, and will be released in early 2013. An excerpt from the book is now available on Asia Sentinel; you can read it here.

This past week, the Thai Department of Special Investigation (DSI) charged former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban for authorizing the shooting and killing of protestors in spring 2010, during the worst street violence in Bangkok since 1992. According to the Bangkok Post, the DSI issued these charges since “the pair failed to stop issuing orders to quell the protests when people were killed as a result of the crackdown orders.” But, the Post reported, DSI is not going to bring any charges against soldiers involved in the crackdown. Now, obviously, there is a political component to these charges, which Abhisit immediately used to his defense. The fact that the Thai government is now run by leaders aligned with, or directly from, the red shirt movement, suggests why DSI is moving now against Abhisit and Suthep, who are both still leaders of the opposing Democrat Party. In addition, the fact that DSI does not plan to charge any soldiers, including officers, shows how much the Yingluck government still needs the support of the military, even though it has been promoting its own allies and trying to weaken the power of army commander Prayuth Chan-ocha. Although Abhisit and Suthep bear significant responsibility for the killings, army leaders from the time, as well as senior officers who did not restrain themselves, used excessive force, and actually performed so incompetently in command that parts of downtown, such as Lumpini Park, reportedly were filled with troops firing wildly at other groups of soldiers in the dark or near dark, creating crossing zones of fire with no rationale. Still, even given the obvious politicking, this is a landmark case. In the past, any Thai leaders involved in crackdowns on protestors—whether in 1992, 1973, 1976, or other times—would usually step down or be gently strong-armed out of office, receive a kind of amnesty or leave the country, and return to politics or at least to Thai high society one day. No top Thai leader has ever been sent to jail for actions like the 2010 crackdown. If the Yingluck administration can ensure a free trial and prevent the case from devolving into a political circus, this case could help break the cycle of impunity that has characterized high-level Thai politics for the entire modern era.

While much has been written about President Obama’s recent tour of Southeast Asia, less attention has been paid to the simultaneous visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to the region.  On November 15, during a stopover in Bangkok, Panetta reaffirmed the United States longstanding military ties with Thailand with a new agreement, the 2012 Joint Vision Statement for the Thai-U.S. Defense Alliance. The next day, the United States also reiterated its military ties with Cambodia during a meeting between Secretary Penetta and Cambodia’s defense minister, General Tea Banh. In my new piece for The New Republic, I examine how the Obama administration relies on the Pentagon to serve as diplomatic interlocutor in Southeast Asia, and argue against U.S. military cooperation with the region’s most oppressive countries. You can read the TNR entire piece here.

Amidst all the chaos in Bangkok over the Pitak Siam rally —a group of monarchists opposed to the Yingluck government who were supposed to bring hundreds of thousands of supporters into the streets— another, similarly important piece of news about Thailand’s decline emerged. As it turns out, the Pitak Siam rally was mostly a bust. Only about 20,000 supporters actually turned out to rally sites in Bangkok, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of people who came out in 2006 for anti-Thaksin rallies that ultimately helped precipitate the 2006 coup. Although the Yingluck government overreacted by employing the Internal Security Act in fear of the Pitak Siam rallies, the fact that the Pitak Siam leaders were openly calling for a “freeze” of democracy and for a military coup, and had close ties to senior military leaders, were worrying enough to the government to take severe measures. As it turns out, those were not really needed, and the level of violence between protestors and the security forces was relatively low, at least by recent Thai standards. Now, General Boonlert, the rally’s main organizer, says that he is stepping down as Pitak Siam’s leader. On New Mandala, graduate student Aim Simpeng has a fine analysis of the busted rally. It’s unlikely Thailand has heard the last of the Pitak Siam leaders, no matter what the general says. The monarchist yellow shirt movement that helped topple the Thaksin government and helped install the Abhisit-led Democrat government remains powerful, if clearly not as able to turn out large street numbers as in the past. Even if not, it remains a huge distraction for the prime minister, a constant threat, and a serious impediment to governing. Yet the continuing political strife overshadowed the news, reported in the Bangkok Post and elsewhere, that Thailand’s education system was ranked thirty-seventh out of fortydeveloped nations in a global ranking of education systems produced by publishing house Pearson. This is just the latest confirmation that the country’s education system, which was fine for producing widespread basic literacy in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and producing workers for low-end manufacturing, construction, and agriculture, is failing badly to keep pace in the global economy. Thailand has been slipping behind regional competitors like Vietnam in terms of producing workers competent in English and high-tech skills, and with the introduction of Myanmar into the global economy, a country whose universities had basically been shut for years, Thailand will face even tougher competition in lower-end manufacturing than it already does. Yet the Thai education system continues to prioritize rote learning, offers weak instruction in English, and provides low social status to teachers. In addition, in the deep south, where an insurgency is raging, many schools are closed altogether, and the government has not figured out an effective way to protect teachers. All in all, a sad story. With Indonesia growing strongly, Myanmar emerging, Bangladesh becoming a powerhouse in textiles, and neighboring nations like Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia upgrading their education systems, Thailand risks being left behind. This education deficit, even more than the constant political wrangling today, could be the country’s long-term downfall.