Thailand

Over on Bangkok Pundit, BP has an excellent overview of trends in the insurgency in southern Thailand. Using statistics from Deep South Watch, which chronicles the violence in the Thai south, he shows that March 2012 had the most number of injuries — 547 —from the violence in the south of any month in years. In fact, that figure for injuries is around five times the average monthly figure for injuries from the insurgency and violence. This month may be an aberration — as BP notes, the violence, including injuries and deaths, can go up and down quite substantially — but it does potentially portend a worsening of the already disastrous conflict. It also clearly puts the lie to any claims by the military and the government that the insurgency is being combated effectively. In recent months, insurgents have become far more sophisticated and brazen in their attacks on security forces and on bombings, confronting the security forces out in the open on numerous occasions, and conducting running gun battles. The recent coordinated car bombings in Hat Yai and Yala also showed the growing sophistication of the insurgents in operating in urban areas, the expanding potential area in which they will strike, and the cluelessness of Thai intelligence of the militants’ operating capabilities.

South Asia is among the least economically integrated regions of the world, in part because partition cleaved apart various natural economic communities. Regions, such as Bengal, which had been well integrated historically, suffered considerable economic ill effects. And post-1947 policies have only exacerbated the problem through tariffs, production restrictions, and various trade controls. Actually, the lack of economic integration in South Asia is endemic. It’s not just a challenge for India and Pakistan but for many other countries in South Asia as well. So it’s interesting that Indian foreign policymakers seem, in various ways, to be reemphasizing the economic dimensions of their country’s strategy. At a conference in New Delhi last week, for example, Shivshankar Menon, India’s savvy national security advisor, urged India and its neighbors to refocus on economic integration. Ironically, Menon argued, economic success has raised the costs of not doing business. To see that, take a look around the region: India, even amid a post-crisis slowdown, continues to grow rapidly. Bangladesh has become attractive to global market participants. Pakistan is, for others, a profitable frontier market, despite gathering investment risks. And the opportunities and challenges are on display in Sri Lanka as well: its economy has grown rapidly as new economic opportunities have opened with the end of the civil war in 2009. But to sustain growth, Sri Lanka needs to shift from public sector to private sector-driven growth—and that will require new investment in key sectors, such as tourism, agriculture, fisheries, business process outsourcing, and infrastructure. China has picked up some of the slack. But India is a more proximate economic partner. And the same is true of various South Asian countries and one another. Cronyism, protectionist tendencies, and political risks remain considerable obstacles across the region, including in Colombo. But growth continues across South Asia. And various studies have demonstrated the potential gains from trade. One recent report from an Indian consumer research group, with support from the Asia Foundation, argues that further integration of trade among South Asian economies could yield as much as $2 billion to consumers. This is why it’s encouraging that Menon and others in India seem to be giving regional trade integration new emphasis. After all, India’s size and rapid growth give it some potential to help lead the way. Here are three areas that bear watching: The Strategic Consequences of Indian Growth First, how will India choose to play the strategic consequences of its economic growth? My friend, Sanjaya Baru, has long argued that India should work not just for India-Pakistan bilateral cooperation or regional cooperation within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) but also on a parallel track. Given the slow pace of the former two efforts, Sanjaya has written, “it may be necessary for India to … see if regional economic cooperation can be pursued at a faster pace in a wider South Asian context.” One vehicle, he has argued, might be an expanded “Bay of Bengal Community.” This would build eastward off the platform of an existing effort, “BIMSTEC,” which involves technical cooperation among Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and two Southeast Asian countries—Myanmar and Thailand. And if Myanmar’s process of political opening ultimately proves to be real (and is matched by an economic opening), then India would be well positioned to help forge new patterns of integration between South and Southeast Asia. Melding Economics into Indian Strategy Now, flip from the strategic consequences of economic growth to the economic dimensions of Indian strategy. Will India increasingly meld economics into its strategic thinking? That will be especially important if Indian foreign policy continues to so ambitiously “look east” in Asia. Strategically, India has been bottled up in the subcontinent for generations, but it wasn’t always so: Southeast Asia bears the hallmarks of a bygone era in names like “Indonesia” and “Indochina,” and Indian sailors once plied the trade routes from the Indian Ocean to the strait of Malacca. But as it once again “looks East,” India risks being left behind in Asia because of the significant mismatch between its lofty strategic goals and more earthbound economic realities. Trade plays a growing role in the Indian economy and India has signed preferential trade agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Singapore. Yet scale remains a handicap: in 2009, 11.6 percent of ASEAN’s trade was with China but just 2.5 percent with India. Meanwhile, the backbone of East Asian economies remains integrated supply and production chains to which India is still largely irrelevant. More manufacturing in India’s southern states could mean greater integration into East Asian supply and production chains. Likewise with outbound investment from corporate India: it could, perhaps, transform India’s interactions with Southeast Asia; but, here too, scale remains a handicap. Domestic Indian policy choices will matter, in particular. The national manufacturing policy could yield new manufacturing zones with industrial parks, warehousing, and opportunities in special economic zones. And as the Indian government works to increase the share of manufacturing in GDP from around 16 per cent to 25 per cent in a decade, India need not compete only at the bottom of the value chain. It could also aim to compete in machinery, auto parts, and even automobiles, particularly through the adoption of new policies at the state level. But huge obstacles remain, and some in India view this as a backdoor to relaxing labor laws. Such policies could falter, too, on land acquisition. South Asia: Watch this Space Third, various new initiatives in South Asia bear watching, not least among them recent developments between India and Pakistan. Mohsin Khan of the Peterson Institute has argued that Pakistan’s November 2011 decision to grant most favored nation (MFN) status to India could prove especially significant. Of course obstacles remain, but Pakistan has continued to take important and constructive steps—for example, shifting from a "positive" to a “negative list”-based import regime with a February 29 Cabinet decision. India’s trade minister, Anand Sharma, has noted that this step will increase from 17% to about 90% the number of items that India can trade with Pakistan. There has been movement elsewhere as well—with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, for example. Over at Ajay Shah’s blog on the Indian economy, there is a good debate about whether and how India’s growth may have spillover effects elsewhere in South Asia. The bottom line is this: India’s debate about economics and strategy is intensifying. And to my mind, at least, that is a decidedly good thing. After all, India’s success will increasingly depend on how New Delhi (and India’s states) respond to opportunities generated beyond the country’s borders.  

This week Reporters Without Borders issued its annual list of “Enemies of the Internet” – i.e., countries that impose the most restrictions, blocks, and filtering on free access to the Internet. The absolute worst offenders are hardly surprising – highly authoritarian states like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Turkmenistan. But a more interesting component of the report is that a number of relatively free democracies are moving up the list as dedicated enemies of the Internet. These include India, Turkey, France, Australia, South Korea, and others that have laws designed to filter content and prohibit some content, often on shaky national security grounds, or because of alleged local cultural sensitivities. This trend seems to be picking up, as more and more democracies are imposing such blocks and filtering. Perhaps the worst offender of all the relative democracies is Thailand, whose Internet surveillance and blocking has become so extensive that it is slowing down Internet speeds throughout the kingdom, infuriating businesses that count on relatively high-speed access, and is potentially going to drag Thailand down, on the enemies list, into the realm of countries like China and Vietnam with which it is not normally associated, and with which most Thai officials believe there is no comparison in terms of rights. But they are wrong. Let the numbers speak for themselves. Thailand blocks hundreds of thousands of websites, and has in the past two years stepped up its campaign against anyone alleged to have criticized the monarchy online. The government has created a “war room” of cybermonitors who are supposed to constantly troll the Internet looking for any comments on the monarchy, and Bangkok recently saluted Twitter’s decision to allow some local content to be blocked in various countries. As Reporters Without Borders notes, “The new Thai government boasts that more online content has been blocked in the past few months than in the previous three years.” If that’s what you are boasting about, there’s a serious problem.

The Nation (the Thailand version) has an article today noting that Suranand Vejjajiva, who was the Prime Minister’s Office Minister in previous Thaksin Shinawatra governments, has now begun playing a major role in the administration of the current prime minister, Thaksin’s sister Yingluck. Suranand was banned from engaging in politics for five years following the coup that deposed Thaksin; but, like many other prominent pro-Thaksin politicians, his ban is almost up, and he and others are expected to return to the political scene in full force soon. As I wrote yesterday, the fragile peace between the Yingluck government, their red shirt supporters, and the traditional establishment —including the palace, the military, and the Bangkok elite/middle class— appears to be collapsing, for several reasons: Growing confidence by Yingluck and Thaksin, bolstered by the imminent return of many savvy and powerful politicians from their five year bans; rising frustration in the military over the potential of returning to civilian control; fear of the king’s death after his weak and shaky performance in his birthday speech last December; the government’s failure or unwillingness to take meaningful steps to halt the use of lèse-majesté  to stifle dissent; and the weak economic environment. Suranand’s return only further signals that, though he was not the puppetmaster-pulling-all-strings that opponents saw him as during his time in exile, Thaksin is clearly amassing more and more power over this current government. Suranand was one of his closest aides, and has been an adviser to the former prime minister going back to the 1990s. It is also a signal that, despite knowing how explosive the issue is, Thaksin is pushing to return to the kingdom. Expect whatever peace has prevailed to end on that day.

In a brief but informative piece in the Wall Street Journal recently, veteran correspondent James Hookaway notes that “a delicate détente between Thailand’s powerful armed forces and a populist government led by [Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra] … is looking increasingly fragile.” Saying that the truce is “increasingly fragile” is like saying Homer Simpson enjoys donuts or Barney Frank is a difficult interview: Thailand could easily blow up again, soon. After Yingluck’s election in July, the army, together with royalist elites (and presumably the palace) backed off slightly from the strident anti-Thaksin rhetoric and political fighting that had characterized 2009 to the middle of 2011. And in return, Yingluck apparently stayed out of the military’s way, allowing it to dominate its appointments and its budgeting. Her government also basically looked the other way as royalists upped the pace of lèse-majesté indictments against people for the slightest charges, including one elderly man who allegedly sent four text messages criticizing the king (though the court could not actually prove he’d sent the messages, or that he even knew how to send text messages at all). The military remained in prime position to stage a coup, if it wanted to, though senior officers insisted that is not in the cards — a promise made and broken many times before in Thailand’s history. Yingluck’s government thus got little from this approach, which may be why Thaksin, and other power players, are now pushing her to move more aggressively — and now, while she still has the mandate from the July election, and before another potential upheaval if the king were to pass away. If, as prime minister, she cannot exert virtually any civilian control of the military, they are arguing, what use is she? If she cannot pass a new constitutional drafting assembly designed to remove the worst clauses of the constitution passed after the 2006 coup, then how will she ever help deflate the climate of impunity for the army and assuage many of her red shirt supporters, who are still furious over the bloodbath in Bangkok in spring 2010, as well as the hundreds of arrests and intimidation afterwards?  As leading red shirt figures have been given more prominent positions in the government, they have become increasingly vocal, worrying the military and the Thai elite and middle classes. They also have learned, from the multiple street protests of the past  five years, that if you do not get what you want, the best tactic now is to take to the streets and paralyze government and business. At the same time, the military, the Democrat Party, the Bangkok middle classes, and, presumably the palace, see that their window for pushing back against Yingluck, Thaksin, the red shirts, and their broader movement, is dwindling. Soon, a group of pro-Thaksin politicians who where banned from politics for five years will return — strengthening Yingluck’s party, giving it more policy substance, and potentially broadening its appeal to once again include some middle class liberals. The charter change could also provide an opportunity for Thaksin to come back, further inflaming the situation.  Moves to establish more civilian control of the military, seemingly benign when viewed in the West, are seen by many hard-line officers as a mortal threat to their independence, political role, and access to sources of income. And, among the elite military, the Democrat Party, and certainly the palace, the fear of time running out is only exacerbated by the increasingly frail king, who looked his weakest yet in his birthday speech in December.

On Tuesday (Thailand time), several explosions were detonated in one of the most heavily crowded areas of Bangkok. According to current news reports, there were at least three explosions, and following the explosions police found an Iranian man trying to flee; when he tossed a grenade at them, it exploded on him, severely wounding his legs. Israel has already blamed Iran for the explosions, linking them to apparent attempted attacks on Israelis in Georgia and India, and it has claimed Iran was going to target Israeli interests in the Thai capital. The explosions seemed to surprise the Thai police and government. But they should not have.  Despite an enormous security presence in the Thai capital and at its airports, Thailand remains extraordinarily vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and one of the favored places for terrorists —and criminals of all stripes —to set up shop.  Multiple infamous militants have allegedly passed through Thailand, only to slip through the hands of police; two decades ago, World Trade Center (1993) bomber Ramzi Yousef was spotted in the Thai capital, on the street adjacent to where I used to work. He had planned to bomb the Israeli embassy. But it was not the police who tracked him down; he was only found out after the truck he had masterminded, carrying a massive bomb, had an accident with a motorcycle taxi. Still, Yousef managed to escape the country. The Thai seaside resort of Pattaya, once known for its beaches, has become infamous as a hub for the Russian mob and other organized crime. Why is Thailand so vulnerable?  For years, Thai authorities took a notably relaxed attitude toward militants passing through the country. Tourism is a major source of income in the kingdom, so travel warnings are crushing; and the Thai security forces were hoping that, as several Thai officials privately told me, bad guys enjoyed their time in the kingdom so much that they would not ruin it by launching attacks inside the country — even if they used Thailand as a base for plots elsewhere, as prominent Al Qaeda member Hambali apparently did (some Thai intelligence figures discarded this theory long ago, but it remained central to government thinking for years).  After all, despite lax security, Thailand has an excellent financial infrastructure, including many discreet money-sending shops, and air connections all over the world. On multiple occasions, Thai security forces had to be pushed by foreign intelligence to crack down on militants.  Even if the Thai theory of Thailand’s immunity from attacks was once true, it is obviously no longer the case; just last month, an alleged militant linked to Hezbollah was detained in Bangkok, though the Thai government quickly assured all visitors that the capital was perfectly safe. And, because of continuously rocky relations with neighbors like Malaysia and Cambodia, Thai intelligence and neighboring intelligence agencies often communicate poorly, and rely on the U.S. or other interlocutors to help share information. As a result, porous borders with Cambodia, Malaysia, and Laos are easy to slip across. Add to these weaknesses the fact that Thailand is a huge tourist destination for young Israelis, who crowd into the backpacker area of Khao San Road, and the Sukhumwit Road area, where the explosions on Tuesday went off. Some of these areas, like Khao San, are so densely packed with shops and hotels and people wandering around, that any type of explosion would cause massive casualties.  So far, Thailand, and foreigners, have been relatively lucky — as they were on Tuesday. But luck can run out.

As the Guardian reports, the Thai government has become the first nation in the world to publicly endorse Twitter’s choice to censor certain types of messages in certain countries. In this case, that would mean censoring messages that fell afoul of the kingdom’s draconian lèse-majesté laws, which have been used increasingly harshly in recent years – most recently, against an underage college student and an elderly man with cancer. He allegedly sent four text messages insulting the king, and was given twenty years in jail, even though the government could not prove he had actually sent the messages. The decision is not a major shock for Thailand; the governments of both the previous Democrat party and even the current Puea Thai party have been pouring ever-more resources into hunting for online content supposedly defaming the king. Thai leaders seem to have little understanding of how these witch-hunts are damaging their global image, and putting them in the same category as major media abusers like Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. China quickly jumped to support the Twitter policy as well. But it’s a very worrisome move from Twitter. A major part of its appeal in closed countries is the idea that it provides an outlet for unpopular views, which could be repressed if spoken in other forums. But now, in Thailand --- and probably numerous other countries --- Twitter will simply keep those unpopular views out of the Twitterverse, giving a major win to censorship.

A fascinating recent piece in Forbes discusses the new and palace-promoted biography of Rama IX, King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life’s Work. Although much of the biography apparently borders on hagiography (I have not received it from Amazon yet), there is considerable detail in it on the vast holdings of the Crown Property Bureau (CPB), which normally are kept very quiet. The CPB, which as Forbes notes manages the palace’s investments, holds enormous amounts of land across Thailand, as well as stakes in many of Thailand’s biggest companies including Siam Cement and Siam Commercial Bank. Based on available data from the CPB, Forbes has estimated that King Bhumibol is worth some $30 billion, making him by far the richest monarch in the world -- and one of the richest men in the world, period (the second-richest person in Thailand is worth about $7 billion). What’s more, unlike wealthy monarchs in Europe, Bhumibol has virtually no constraints on his assets; they are almost totally untransparent, and how any earnings from the assets are used is also pretty much unknown. Forbes suggests that the Thai palace spends about $500 million per year, about ten times that of what Britain’s royal family spends -- but even this is simply guesswork.

Having just returned from Thailand, I found that the country, which nearly succeeded in destroying itself in 2010 and early 2011, seems determined to continue trying to do so in 2012. As anyone who follows Thailand (and its independent news sites like Prachatai) knows, despite the election of the Puea Thai party there have continued to be a staggering wave of arrests for lèse-majesté (LM) in recent months. What’s notable about these arrests, as the excellent Thai commentator Pavin Chachavalpongpun notes, is that the LM attacks have moved beyond a tool to blunt and ostracize political enemies and have become a weapon by royalitsts to attack average people who have little connection, if at all, to Thai political discourse. The LM crackdown is now approaching McCarthyesqe levels of vindictiveness and outright nuttiness in the “evidence” presented to supposedly convict someone of the crime. The most notable of these arrests, of course, was the jailing – and twenty-year sentence –of an elderly Chinese-Thai man for allegedly sending four text messages critical of the king. The accused claimed he had no knowledge of the messages, and barely knew how to work text messaging. But academics in Bangkok privately say that many more LM cases are coming, but have been kept quiet for several months as the authorities pursue the claims. A group of academics have quietly tried to convince the authorities to drop some of the cases, which include cases against young university students. Alas, thus far the authorities do not seem interested in dropping any of the cases. The mood, among many academic and liberal circles in Thailand, can only be compared to that of activists in a truly authoritarian country like Burma or Vietnam; the level of fear among Thai activists is equivalent to what I have seen in these other nations, which Thailand of course holds itself high above. But not any longer. I feared for the future of Thailand in 2010. I fear even more for its future today, as the LM campaign has broadened beyond elite political battles to become a broader war for society. I also wonder why, if the royal institution in Thailand is devoted to free speech – the king memorably said that he was not above criticism – it does not use its right to pardon LM “criminals” en masse?