Thailand

President Obama kicked off his tour of Southeast Asia this week with a visit to Bangkok, Thailand where he and Secretary Clinton were granted a royal audience with the country’s ailing monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.  The Washington Post yesterday had an excellent account of the meeting, which took place at the Siriraj Hospital where the king has been hospitalized since 2009. The United States’ courtship of the monarch dates back to the 1950s, when the king and his close ally, then-military leader Sarit Thanarat, allowed U.S. troops to base out of Thailand during the Vietnam War. Washington came to view the monarch as invaluable to stemming the growth of communism, both in Thailand and region-wide. The U.S.-Thai relationship, though treasured by both sides as “special,” is hardly unique. The United States has long relied on monarchs and strong militaries around the world to prop up political systems in developing nations. That strategy, it appears, isn’t working too well anymore. In my new piece for Washington Monthly, I review the biography King Bhumibhol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work and examine how, in Thailand and elsewhere, royal reverence has hampered the development of democracy.  You can read my review essay in its entirety here.

As President Barack Obama sets off this weekend for a historic trip to Southeast Asia, he arrives at a high point for himself —and a low point for the region. Obama, making his first trip since winning re-election at the polls, will be the first sitting American president to visit Myanmar. The country has undoubtedly embarked upon historic reforms, yet is also embroiled in brutal ethnic violence. Thailand, another stop on Obama’s trip, is bracing for what could be a hugely disruptive leadership succession fight. In Cambodia, he will attend the East Asia Summit, as well as the Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an organization in the throes of a crisis. The violence in Myanmar’s southwestern Rakhine State may have been sparked in part by the security forces, who are eager to retain a sizable role in the new Myanmar, and it has also been facilitated by radical Buddhist groups that have been attacking Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State and have made it nearly impossible for aid organizations like Doctors without Borders to even provide aid and relief to the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing their homes there. Meanwhile, in other parts of Myanmar like Kachin State, civil war is ramping up again, raising the question of whether the president, Thein Sein, actually has control of his regional army commanders. Thus far, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has said little about the violence in Rakhine State, a great disappointment to rights activists in the state and around the world. Meanwhile, in Thailand, a U.S. treaty ally and another country on Obama’s itinerary, the situation is only marginally better. As the king of Thailand’s health continues to decline —rumors suggest he has had multiple strokes and is operating at minimal brain capacity, and in his few public appearances he looks extraordinarily frail— Thailand’s power centers are girding for the post-succession fight of the century. While the government of Yingluck Shinawatra enjoys a majority of popular support and control of parliament, Yingluck and her brother Thaksin, from exile, have been trying to slowly reduce the power of the country’s traditional unelected power centers, such as the military and the palace, in part by reshuffling the army to promote Thaksin loyalists. But the top army leaders remain staunchly anti-Thaksin/Yingluck and extremely royalist, and in recent weeks a new group of middle- and upper-class protestors have descended on the streets of Bangkok. Ostensibly, they are protesting corruption in the Yingluck government (though Yingluck’s government is not demonstrably any more corrupt than any previous Thai government) and they are protesting the possible return to Thailand of the exiled Thaksin, who still faces criminal charges back at home. In reality, the protestors, led by a former general linked to several Privy Councilors close to the king, are rallying Bangkokians to push to oust the government, preferably through another military coup —an openly stated goal of many of the protestors.  The protest group, known as Pitak Siam, has made wild claims about the size of its rallies, but thus far they have tended to be around 20,000 people. Still, as in 2006, when hundreds of thousands of Bangkokians came to the streets to push for the ouster of Thaksin and call for a coup, these demonstrations could get larger, once again showing that there is no compromise on the horizon for Thailand’s deadlocked politics. The poor, who support Thaksin, have the votes to win election after election; the middle and upper classes, so distrustful of Thaksin’s party and poor voters, will turn time and time again to extra-constitutional means to nullify elections. This deadlock, which has lasted since 2006, has paralyzed policymaking in a critical U.S. ally, undermined the economy, and scared off investors. Indeed, the Obama administration now has closer functional ties with Vietnam and Singapore, neither of which actually are treaty allies, than with dysfunctional Thailand. And above it all looms the crisis in ASEAN, the leading regional organization. Though ASEAN’s secretary-general, Surin Pitsuwan, is Thai, and previously served as Thailand’s foreign minister, he has had little success in helping to mediate Thailand’s political crisis. Similarly, even though Surin has pushed for a more assertive, regionally engaged ASEAN Secretariat, he has found himself unable to make much headway in addressing Myanmar’s deadly ethnic conflicts either. On the eve of the president’s visit to Southeast Asia, the CFR Southeast Asian studies program and the International Institutions and Global Governance program are jointly releasing my new Working Paper on ASEAN: “ASEAN’s Future and Asian Integration.” You can read “ASEAN’s Future and Asian Integration” here.

Over the past six months, the insurgency in southern Thailand, which seemed to be cooling off late last year, has once again heated up. Incidents of daily violence are up, and the insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated bombing and gunning techniques. The recent ceasefire deal in the southern Philippines between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has shifted attention to the south Thailand insurgency, yet the prospect of change in the Thai south looks remote. In a new piece in The National, I analyze the prospects for the Thai south. Read the whole piece here.

In the wake of the Philippines government announcing last weekend that Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) had agreed upon a peace plan after fifteen years of negotiations and forty years of war, many Thai news outlets are wondering whether Manila could teach Bangkok a lesson in how to deal with the southern Thailand insurgency. The Nation today, in an editorial titled “A Lesson for Thailand from the Philippines,” offers that the Philippine agreement has many key points for Thai policymakers to learn from, a mantra echoed by several other Thai media outlets. Yet there are key differences between southern Thailand and southern Philippines that, at this point, will make it hard to apply many of Manila’s lessons to Thailand: Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is not personally engaged in ending the insurgency. According to nearly all Philippine news sources, Philippines president Benigno Aquino III made a peace deal with the MILF one of his highest priorities, and agreed to face-to-face meetings with the MILF leaders in order to personally guarantee the peace process and demonstrate his commitment. Prime Minister Yingluck has shown no such interest, perhaps because her brother Thaksin remains the power behind the throne, or perhaps because most Thais in Bangkok and the north/northeast, the Puea Thai power base, do not really care about the situation in the south as long as the war does not trickle beyond the south. The Philippines government was also willing to offer the south a self-governing autonomous zone, which is a red line most Thai politicians will not cross at this point.  The southern insurgents in Thailand do not have any apparent leader. Time and time again, efforts by the Thai government to launch negotiations have been stymied because Bangkok is still not really sure who leads the insurgency, or even whether the top leaders are in touch with each other, since the insurgencies’ cells are so diffuse and disconnected. In contrast, the MILF had a clear leadership to negotiate with.  The Thai government has rejected most assistance from outsiders. As The Nation notes, because the government and insurgents have no trust in each other, outside mediation can be crucial, but the Yingluck government wants to have a peace process with the insurgency with minimal input from outside parties like Malaysia, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or Saudi Arabia. As a result, the few negotiations that have taken place have failed in acrimony.  The Thai insurgents are not tired of war. Unfortunately, unlike in the southern Philippines, the southern Thai insurgents seem to be only getting stronger and angrier.  Seven people have been killed in the south in the past few days alone, and the insurgency, by shutting down businesses most Fridays, appears to be gaining the upper hand.

Last year, flooding in Thailand breached defenses across the country, ruining many of the industrial estates on the outskirts of Bangkok, bringing the capital to a halt, and resulting in billions of dollars in damage and decisions by several major electronics components manufacturers to either abandon Thailand operations or open new operations to build disc drives and other parts in countries safer from flooding. Last year’s flooding was also horrible for the public image of the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, which appeared to be slow to respond, as compared to the army, which utilized the flooding, and its rapid response, to somewhat rehabilitate its image in the minds of many Thais after the army’s killing of at least ninety protestors in the streets of Bangkok in spring 2010. Given the damage done by last year’s floods to the Thai economy, to the government’s legitimacy, to people’s health, and to the country’s long-term attractiveness to investors, one might think that this year Bangkok would be better prepared for flooding. After all, though some meteorologists attributed last year’s floods to a once-in-decades event, the fact is that Thailand is one of the countries in Asia most exposed to negative impacts from climate change: Bangkok is built on swampy, reclaimed ground, and sinks into the water more and more every year. It is easily flooded, and even in “good” monsoon seasons water often accumulates in the lowest parts of the city. But it does not appear that the Thai government has adequately prepared for this year’s looming floods either. Flooding has already affected up to one quarter of the country’s provinces, according to a recent Reuters report, and thousands of people have fled their homes in parts of the north.  In the areas just outside Bangkok, where flooding was heavy last year, this year construction of new barriers, water diversion devices, and other protection has proceeded far too slowly, leaving many suburbs nearly as exposed as last year. In areas home to a large percentage of foreign companies, such as some outside Ayutthaya, the foreign firms, not wanting to repeat last year’s experience of shutting down production or losing valuable models, have constructed their own defenses. But in other northern and eastern suburbs of the capital, no such defenses are in sight, and by now, September, it is probably too late to set up significant barriers. In many areas, Thais can only hope that the rains are not as severe as last year.

In today’s Washington Post, there is an excellent overview of how the austerity programs in many countries in Europe have led to pressure on monarchies to cut costs and reduce their lifestyles. Most notably, the criticism has extended to even the Spanish monarchy, which for years in Spain was all but exempted from public and press criticism because of the role that King Juan Carlos played in the late 1970s and early 1980s in helping to promote democratization and to prevent a coup from succeeding. The very socialists who, in other countries, might have been used to criticizing the monarchy usually avoided any critiques of Juan Carlos, as the socialists had benefited enormously from the democratization period, dominating the Spanish government for years. Now, however, Juan Carlos’ habits have become fair game for the press, and a recent secret safari that he took to Botswana to shoot elephants, while Spain faces the most severe austerity program in Western Europe, has led to a major backlash against the monarch. The article notes that many in the public, media outlets, and many politicians, are calling on Juan Carlos to drastically cut his annual spending and to be much more transparent about how he is spending money on royal activities. Though it may be able to hold off such inquiries for now, via harsh lèse-majesté laws and the genuine reverence the monarchy enjoys, the Thai monarchy could learn some lessons from Juan Carlos. Like the Spanish king, the current Thai king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, has truly earned a high degree of respect from many Thais over the course of his lengthy reign. But that respect, and the fact that the king’s reign is strongly supported by a core of arch-royalists in Bangkok, does not mean that questions are not increasingly being raised, in private, about the royal family’s finances. Even the royals seem to understand this in Thailand; the recent, royally-approved biography of the king’s life contained significantly more information on the Crown Property Bureau’s finances than any royally-approved book had in the past. But that initial transparency only fuels a hunger for more —though Thais will not say so in public. On social media sites, and in private conversations, discussion of the Crown Property Bureau now is far more common than in the past. For his part, Juan Carlos, even at his advanced age, has always been highly attuned to public opinion and, in July, announced he would be taking a pay cut voluntarily, according to the Washington Post story, in tune with the austere times. A model for other monarchs?  

After some time on vacation, I have returned to find that Thai politics, which almost couldn’t get worse, actually has. Last month, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, in my opinion the most astute observer of Thai politics, captured the fundamental tension in Thailand today in an op-ed: Thailand’s problem is that those who keep winning elections are not allowed to rule, whereas others who ultimately call the shots cannot win elections. [Thanks to Bangkok Pundit for pointing me to Thitinan’s op-ed]  That, in a nutshell, is Thailand’s dilemma, one shared by many middle-income developing nations where middle classes are becoming increasingly skeptical of the benefits of democratization, as I discuss in my forthcoming book The Decline of Democracy (Yale University Press). In Thailand, however, the government of Yingluck Shinawatra seemed at first to make some headway toward at least a short-term solution to this impasse, the kind of solution achieved by more populist governments in places like Brazil: Yingluck and her party would be allowed to hold and exercise power, and might continue some of the populist programs started by her brother Thaksin Shinawatra (and continued by the Democrats), but she would also take significant pains to reassure traditional elites, including the military, that she would not challenge their orbits of power. Yingluck publicly venerated Privy Council members, and, according to several articles by Shawn Crispin and others, allowed pro-royalists to essentially continue their McCarthyite attacks on anyone who even questions the long-term nature of the monarchy unabated. She also had mostly kept her hands off of the military budget. Over time, such a deal, as in Brazil, might eventually have reassured elites —the military, big business, the palace— enough that they would see that a truly democratically elected government would not necessarily be a significant threat to their interests, and surely would be preferable to the alternative: to hold out against real democratic rule for as long as possible, further enraging large portions of the Thai public and thus potentially birthing a more aggressively anti-elite politician than Yingluck or other Puea Thai leaders, who are hardly grassroots populists, along the lines of Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales. But Thaksin has now clearly overstepped the deal, with his desire to show that he is really in charge and that his political purgatory has ended. His planned trip to the United States was originally supposed to be relatively low-profile, just a means of demonstrating that he was again welcome in Western capitals and should not have been treated like a fugitive. But it may become increasingly high-profile, just as his recent trips to Southeast Asian nations have put him at the center of Thai politics again, and made him look exactly like what his opponents always claimed —the puppet master who ruled the "red shirts", Puea Thai and Yingluck from behind the scenes. I don’t believe that this was —or is— really the case. In fact, a fascinating article released late last year by academics Duncan McCargo and Naruemon Thabchumpon shows that the red shirt movement is far more diverse, class-wise and policy-wise, than the simple reductions of poor rural farmers who follow Thaksin. But Thaksin’s increasing desire to place himself again right at the center of the political stage, even while his sister maintains high popularity ratings among the public, is both threatening the reconciliation and allowing his opponents to more effectively make their case.

While the now six-years-old standoff in Bangkok between Thailand’s traditional elites and the pseudo-populist parties allied with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has gotten most of the international press, a far more brutal struggle, in Thailand’s Deep South, has gone virtually unnoticed for more than a decade. Since the early 2000s, more than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict in southern Thailand, and the war shows no signs of ending any time soon. In the Boston Globe’s Sunday Ideas section, I examine the southern Thai conflict, and the reasons why it has been so ignored, both in Thailand and in the international community. Read the article here.

In a recent piece for Foreign Policy, “Bangkok Blues,” I explored the numerous factors that have led to the rapid decline of democracy in Thailand over the past six years. Yesterday, the Royal Thai Embassy submitted its rebuttal to my piece. You can read their response in its entirety here.

As reported on in Siam Voices this week, Google has released its 2012 Transparency Report, which chronicles requests that Google receives, mostly from governments, to block material online. As Lisa Gardner notes on Siam Voices, “Google bucked international trends in 2011 by blocking access to hundreds of web pages at the behest of the Thai Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology [MICT].” One part of the report shows that Google has restricted or partly restricted at least 149 YouTube videos that the Thai government claimed was insulting to the monarchy. Unlike in many other countries, where Google supposedly makes its decisions to take down material after a local court issues an order (not that courts are infallible, but at least there is a court order), in Thailand it took down material even without court orders being issued, simply at the request of the authorities. Overall, around the world last year, Google complied with about 54 percent of requests by governments and copyright holders to take down material.  But in Thailand, Gardner reports, Google “chose to comply with each request made by Thai government censors” —in essence, 100 percent of their requests, a chilling number. Gardner identifies a number of clear, pressing problems with Google’s approach, and these problems are only going to be magnified as Thailand’s political conflict, already at the boiling point, gets hotter, or if a coup is launched by the military, not an impossible proposition now. For one, although Google claims that it only removes material if the requests to remove are relatively narrow, in Thailand the application of the lèse-majesté law and the Computer Crimes Act has become broader and broader each year, and now is so broadly defined —some would say undefined— as to be almost impossible to understand. (Scholar David Streckfuss, the authority on lèse-majesté, has shown how over the past decade Lèse-Majesté cases have skyrocketed, reaching a number rarely seen in any monarchy in history, other than in late nineteenth century Germany.) Since the Thai courts are not helping to clarify the law —they basically almost never acquit anyone for Lèse-Majesté or violating the Computer Crimes Act, and reduce sentences only when there is major international pressure, as in the case of the editor of Prachatai—how will Google, or any other company, know which Thai requests are narrow enough to act on? Or whether any requests are actually narrow enough to act on? And since the law is increasingly used as a political weapon —by royalists against liberals as well as against pro-Thaksin red shirts, and in reverse by some pro-Thaksin allies against royalists— how can Google be sure that it is not essentially serving as part of either side’s arsenal, or that, if it is going to take down material, it is balancing both sides in the Thai political struggle? In many countries, such as China, Google has stood out in making a strong case for free expression online, and using its corporate power to support that approach. And it does have employees in Thailand, as it did in China, which it needs to be protective of. Still, Google’s actions are very concerning. The company has not yet explained what material MICT tried to block, according to Gardner’s report. More importantly, Google has not shown any clear position on how it determines which online material in Thailand, where the lèse-majesté and Computer Crimes Act have become two of the biggest weapons against free expression, it considers worthy of being taken down. The company should enunciate a clear position, helping Thai (and foreign) users understand its rationale, and drawing a firmer line in the sand for MICT.

Over the past year, since Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was elected in July 2011, the balance of power has shifted precariously, back and forth, between the Thaksin/Red Shirt/ Puea Thai forces and the establishment pro-royalist forces, allied with the army. As Asia Times has written in several comprehensive pieces, the army, which cast serious dishonor upon itself with the killings in the streets of Bangkok in the spring of 2010, restored some of its positive image through effective relief work during the floods of 2010, at a time when the Yingluck government seemed to be flailing in handling the crisis. The army further strengthened its hand by, in recent months, removing some senior officers loyal to Thaksin and solidifying the top corps with staunchly royalist officers who are loyal to the army chief of staff. Yingluck’s government has in many ways acceded to the establishment, by doing nothing to stop the procession of lèse-majesté cases, and by publicly wooing senior Privy Council leaders as well as the military. (Most recently, the editor of Prachatai received a suspended sentence for the absurd crime of not deleting quickly enough anti-monarchical sentiments from the website.) Yet at the same time, Thaksin and Yingluck have strengthened their own bases. Thaksin has done so by continuing to remain relevant to the Thai policy debate, traveling to neighboring nations and holding enormous rallies to show his continuing appeal. He has cultivated his own military allies, and reaffirmed his close ties with important regional leaders like Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen. Now, Puea Thai has even more weapons at their disposal. The return this week of over one hundred pro-Thaksin politicians from five year bans from politics after the 2006 coup returns some of the most capable, politically savvy, and popular politicians to the Puea Thai fold. This will undoubtedly strengthen Yingluck’s cabinet, help reduce the divides in the party —there have been intra-party contests over recent ridings— and bring in even more assets to the party, since several of the returning politicians are highly skilled fundraisers. Yet in this group there are also some of the most broadly respected, and potentially conciliatory men and women in Thai politics —including some who originally joined with Thaksin for progressive, even noble aims, seeing him as the man to shake up the political system, bring voices to a broader range of Thais, and push forward the democratic reforms that these men and women had fought for during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Thaksin did not exactly accomplish all those goals, but several of these politicians could still play critical roles in averting a complete political meltdown in Thailand, which looks increasingly likely.

With the ousting of the military regime in 1992, Thailand emerged as a regional beacon of democracy. The international monitoring organization Freedom House even ranked Thailand a "free" country in its 1999 report—one of only a few Asian countries to receive this designation. Over the past six years, however, democracy has retreated rapidly in Thailand. Today, the imminent return of Thaksin, the current government’s oppressive wielding of the draconian lèse-majesté law, and the deteriorating health of the beloved King, all suggest that this fragile “democracy” may be on the precipice of yet another crisis. In my new piece for Foreign Policy, I explore the numerous factors that have led to the decline of democracy in Thailand. You can read the piece in its entirety here.

Recent international media attention related to Thailand has been (quite reasonably) focused on the tragic story of Ampon Tangnoppakul, also known as “Ar Kong,” an elderly grandfather who had been sentenced to twenty years in prison for allegedly sending four text messages defaming the monarchy. This despite the fact that he had no previous political experience, and the state could not even prove he had actually sent the messages, but instead simply applied the standard that he could not disprove he sent them — obviously not a reasonable standard of proof in a democracy. Sick with cancer and other ailments, and separated from his entire family, Ampon died in jail earlier this week. There have been many stories on him but one of the most insightful, and provocative, is “A Tale of Two Grandfathers." Ampon’s death may finally help catalyze a broader movement to reform Thailand’s archaic and now brutal Lèse-Majesté (LM) laws. Unfortunately, the Yingluck government continues to say that it will not favor reforming LM laws. Yet, at the same time as this case is getting media attention, other more under-the-radar news in Thailand should prove extremely worrying to U.S. policymakers. In an interesting piece in Asia Times, two retired U.S. army officers who frequently write on the Thai military note that the Thai armed forces are currently beefing up their strength, working to promote closer intra-army unity, and essentially preparing for a potential conflict with the elected government should Thaksin return to the country, or should the elected government try to carve into the army’s political independence. Though these two writers can be at times hyperbolic and incredibly pro-army in their writings, the news they detail echoes stories from other army sources, and suggests that another coup in Thailand is hardly out of the question after Thaksin’s imminent return. U.S. policymakers should be prepared for such a possibility —and should be prepared with extremely harsh measures should the Thai military stage a coup.

Over at New Mandala, there is a detailed report by longtime correspondent Nick Nostitz of Thaksin Shinawatra’s visit to Cambodia during the Thai New Year. For followers of Thailand and Indochinese politics, it is well worth a read. As with Nostitz’s prior reports and books, this one is full of on-the-ground details, but what struck me the most was the intense feeling poured out by some of the Thais who traveled to meet Thaksin, the kind of emotion I previously associated in Thailand with Thais’ meetings with, er, a man whose title ends with “Nine.” That is not to say that these same supporters hugging Thaksin and crying care only for Thaksin, or that Thaksin, when in power, was a moral and wise leader. But it does show, once again, that in trying to push Thaksin out of Thai politics, demonizing him (i.e, former foreign minister Kasit Piromya comparing Thaksin to Hitler and Mussolini), and trying to downplay the intense emotional connection many northern and northeastern Thais feel with Thaksin, Thaksin’s opponents actually have in some ways inflated the man’s myth and intensified the bonds that those supporters feel. The backfiring of this demonization of Thaksin is evident in Nostitz’s reporting.

A spate of articles over the past week has highlighted the growing possibility that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will soon return to Thailand from exile. During a recent visit to Laos, just across the border from the Thai Northeast, Thaksin told supporters that he is going to return to Thailand within the next three or four months, in time for his birthday. As The Economist noted last week, his recent visit to Laos had all the trappings of a state visit, with high security, crowds of supporters, and the highest-level audiences with the Lao government. Thaksin has also increasingly dropped the façade that he is “retired” from politics, though he continues to insist that he is not interested in returning to the premiership. He told supporters in Laos that he had “chose[n]” his sister Yingluck to be prime minister, essentially confirming the idea that he manipulates the Puea Thai Party from abroad. Thaksin also increasingly meets with Puea Thai members of parliament, and conducts the type of business that the government would handle, allegedly meeting with leaders of southern Thai insurgent groups in order to potentially negotiate a deal that would tamp down the insurgency. (Thaksin’s spokespeople deny that he met with insurgents, but previously he issued a non-denial denial, and the reporting on the meeting comes from some of the finest journalists in Thailand.) Supposedly, Thaksin will either seek a royal pardon (unlikely) or get back to Thailand through the new amnesty legislation or under a constitutional amendment (more likely). That Thaksin would return at some point was almost assured, and certainly he must want to be home, though his life abroad is very luxurious. But since Thai politics has not moved on since the 2006 coup and 2010 killings, and in fact seems even more partisan and obstructionist than ever, Thaksin must realize that, in returning home, he is likely to only further fuel the warfare, and possibly lead to acts that might undermine or even end his sister’s government --- which would be no victory for Thaksin’s working class and rural supporters. Thaksin hardly bears all of the blame for Thailand’s current mess, though he bears some. But at this point, remaining abroad might show that he, unlike his opponents, is willing to sacrifice greatly for some real reconciliation.