Thailand

Amid a COVID-19 surge, Thailand's escalating protests are getting more dangerous. 

Benjamin Zawacki is a senior program specialist with the Asia Foundation’s office in Thailand, focused on regional security and cooperation, and the author of Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China. The Council on Foreign Relations acknowledges the Ford Foundation for its generous support of this project. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) means many things to many people—including to the Chinese. Introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, just a year into his term, it was most precisely translated into English as “One Belt, One Road.” With the intended meaning lost in translation, however, it was reprised as the BRI and explained as an overland “belt” and a maritime “road.” Both would run from eastern China and converge, eventually and circuitously, in Venice, Italy. While the belt generally runs west by northwest, with its route on a map appearing as a long lower-case “z,” the maritime road is literally all over that map: It runs southwest down China’s coast and through the South China Sea, west by series of zigs and zags across the Indian Ocean, then north by northwest via the Red and Mediterranean Seas. And those are just the main streams of the project; the tributaries spread out, double back, and link up like circuitry. At any given time, the number of countries said to be participating in the BRI varies—but almost always grows—and with them does the number of projects that constitute, connect, and expand the initiative. The breadth of BRI is further complicated by Beijing’s having empowered Chinese provinces (such as southern Guangxi and Yunnan provinces bordering Vietnam, Laos, and/or Myanmar), as well as state-owned enterprises, to negotiate and designate BRI projects with other countries on their own. In rare cases, such as in Australia’s Victoria province, this empowerment is reciprocal. Yet, what constitutes the projects themselves has also been an ever-evolving matter, and with it—crucially—the very nature and purpose of the BRI. In other words, what is it? By most accounts, the Belt and Road Initiative was introduced to advance “connectivity” between China and its neighbors, and via its neighbors with places further afield, primarily through traditional infrastructure like roads and railways, seaports and airports, bridges and tunnels, and pipelines and canals. Underlying the concept was the promotion of economic growth, whereby investment in transportation would lead to increases in trade, tourism, and other income-generating activity for all involved. China’s own meteoric economic growth over previous decades, partly the result of having done domestically what it aimed to do abroad, added credibility to its idea that BRI would spark growth in other countries. Analysts were quick to point out, however, that a lot of infrastructure is “dual use;” that it might have military as well as commercial uses. China’s denial of such intentions, particularly vis-à-vis Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port and more recently Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, have not quieted foreign states’ concerns about the potential dual use of BRI projects. To the contrary, they have led to increased challenges on geopolitical grounds, whereby China is seen as extending not only its patronage abroad but its presence in strategically sensitive areas as well. The case of Hambantota, of which China took possession in 2017 after Sri Lanka failed in its loan obligations, gave rise to accusations of the BRI’s “debt trap diplomacy.” While this idea that China’s BRI projects trap recipient countries in debt has been challenged by researchers at a wide range of institutions, it is still a dominant narrative in Washington and elsewhere. Moreover, at least as early as 2015, when it established the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) forum, China has broadened BRI projects beyond physical infrastructure. The LMC’s earliest public statements expressly placed its very founding, meetings, agreements, and initiatives under the rubric of the BRI. This in turn has brought to the fore questions concerning Chinese influence, in addition to its more concrete economic, security, or geopolitical interests. Beijing doubled down on broadening BRI beyond physical infrastructure, introducing in 2016 a “Digital Silk Road” (DSR) in addition to the original BRI. This Digital Silk Road would promote fifth generation (5G) mobile internet capacity, particularly in countries behind or lacking in such critical twenty-first century technology, as well as other new technologies including smart cities, fintech systems, and others. At the same time, the inception of the DSR raised fears that it could enable the mining and utilization of data belonging or relating to foreign citizens, and that China would export its cybersecurity laws and other internet controls to foreign countries. Influence of perhaps a more welcome nature appeared in 2019, when in response to foreign criticism regarding environmental impacts, President Xi introduced the “Green BRI.” According to Beijing, BRI projects would henceforth account for environmental and ecological concerns, and in some cases be expressly designed to respond to them. Optimists welcomed this as imperative amidst growing alarm at climate change; pessimists judged it a rhetorical device that would not be followed by action. This past year, in the midst of a pandemic that originated in China, Beijing’s leadership further began promoting a new “Health Silk Road” to promote its “mask diplomacy” and make available its COVID-19 vaccine beyond its borders. The BRI in Thailand The BRI’s evolution, and the ambiguity of the overall project, are critical to understanding how BRI operates in Thailand. To a greater degree than in most other Southeast Asian countries, the BRI’s evolution and ambiguity are reflective of the project’s relationship with Thailand and with Thai civil society. This paper presents five main points concerning the ways in which Thai civil society has both challenged and been challenged by the BRI, resulting in a kind of split verdict as to the initiative’s present and future standing in the kingdom. First is that civil society in Thailand cannot interact with what it cannot identify. There is no single understanding of the BRI in Thailand and certainly no prevailing narrative concerning the BRI’s nature, purpose, and effects. This is symbolized by confusion as to when Thailand officially became a participating country and as to which projects count as part of BRI. Thais agree that the high-speed rail project, running from the Thai-Lao border to Bangkok and continuing south to its border with Malaysia, is a BRI project—in no small part because the rail actually starts in China and ends in Singapore. Yet on the one hand, the Thai section was agreed in concept and principle as far back as 2010, three years before the BRI was announced; on the other hand, Thailand did not appear on most BRI maps for several years after that 2013 announcement. And for a brief temporary period in 2016, Thai Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha actually canceled the project. Furthermore, the rail line is one of the few projects in the kingdom that Beijing and Bangkok agree is actually part of the BRI. A list from inside China in early 2019 contained seven BRI projects in Thailand, although most had not been notably publicized as part of the initiative, and several hardly publicized at all. Conversely, the high-profile Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) and the rail network linking Bangkok’s two airports with U-Tapao Airport, were not listed. Nor was a potential canal across Thailand’s southern isthmus, despite press reports in Thailand going back to 2017 that it was being discussed as a possible BRI project. Of course, a project need not be considered part of the BRI for Thai civil society to promote or oppose it, or to seek more information or provide its points of view. But given the various conceptions of the BRI discussed above, as well as its close association with a larger but equally complex and contested “Brand China,” it stands to reason that the BRI label makes a difference in how Thai civil society views a project. Whether this ambiguity concerning projects’ BRI status is intentional or incidental is related to a second main point: Thai policymakers and business partners cannot help but be influenced by the approach of their Chinese counterparts, and China’s approach simply does not include an express role for civil society. While protests and petitions in China concerning infrastructure projects, particularly at a local level, are far more numerous than is generally reported, neither China’s various levels of government nor its state-backed banks and business are encouraged—much less required—to consult or consider views on the ground.[1] This is not to suggest that, while U.S. companies might expressly condition certain projects on social, human rights, or environmental impact assessments, Chinese liaisons would expressly prohibit them. Rather, the fact that China’s civil society does not generally see itself as a monitor or watchdog of the government, means that it is simply not factored into the equation on the Chinese side of the table. Civil society participation would need to be proactively introduced by the Thai side on any BRI project. This would invariably infuse the prospect of delays into a project’s timing and even doubts as to its viability, which generally disadvantages a negotiation. Add to this that Thailand has had either a military or military-backed government since 2014, just a year after the BRI’s introduction. The Thai governments’ own efforts to silence critical voices, centralize policy and power, and privilege big businesses and mega-projects in growing Thailand’s economy, have only signaled a stronger receptiveness to China’s state-driven approach. Indeed, in a recent book, Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia, the authors note that the Thai government’s prioritization of the Eastern Economic Corridor over the high-speed rail, may be partly on account of the rail’s location in the stronghold of the military’s electoral, civil society, and grassroots opponents.[2] China’s high growth rates at home also are attractive to Thailand. After long periods of high growth in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, Thailand’s own yearly growth has ranged from just 1 percent to 4.2 percent since 2014.[3] Yet at times Thai policymakers, even under military governments, have pushed back against aspects of BRI projects. Regarding the high-speed rail at least, the Thai government has arguably achieved much of what might otherwise be expected of civil society. The State Railway of Thailand took the lead in summarily denying China’s request for development rights along the rail’s right-of-way and on the land on either side of its route. Controversy over whether Chinese engineers would be permitted to work in Thailand was also largely driven by officialdom, seriously delaying progress on the rail and resulting in Prime Minister Prayuth being excluded from China’s first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017. While a compromise on the engineers was reached, Thailand managed to secure considerable technology transfer from Beijing in the process. In January 2021, only the third of fourteen contracts concerning the rail’s initial section was signed, the result of extended and intensive negotiation by Thailand. Critically, the Thais have also assumed the lion’s share of financing for the project; in effect refusing to engage in “debt trap diplomacy” in favor of a more empowered—if initially expensive—approach. A third main point is similar: Alongside the influence of China’s negotiators vis-à-vis Thai officials, a more constant and persistent presence of other Chinese actors in Thailand has undeniably influenced Thai civil society. Spread throughout the kingdom, Thailand hosts the most Confucius Institutes of any country in Asia and more than in the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) combined. They are designed to promote official versions of Chinese history, society, and politics. In 2019 in Bangkok’s prestigious Thammasat University, a new Pridi Phanamyong Learning Centre was opened, devoted exclusively to China and featuring an initial collection of over two thousand books. Alongside the thousands of Thais who study in these institutions were, in 2018, some 8,400 students from China—double the number from the previous year. Enabling the Chinese’ studies has been an explosion in recent years of Mandarin language courses throughout Thailand at all levels, as well as a rise in non-language courses taught in Mandarin itself. The rising number of Chinese students and classes in Thailand has been further enabled by three additional factors: For one, significantly more Thais have studied in Chinese universities than nationals from any other ASEAN country.[4] Two, a long and deep relationship exists between China’s leadership and Thailand’s popular Princess Sirindhorn, who studied in China, speaks and writes Mandarin fluently, and in 2019 was awarded China’s Friendship Medal, the highest honor given to foreigners. And three, there has been a proliferation of Chinese-language newspapers and media outlets across Thailand; previously such news outlets were limited primarily to Bangkok’s Chinatown. In addition, China’s state media outlets are producing copy in Thai for the kingdom’s audience. At least twelve of Thailand’s most popular news outlets are provided free articles from China’s Xinhua News, translated into Thai, while the Thai-language “China Xinhua News” Facebook page has millions of followers.[5] Chinese state media also provide the English-language China Daily to many sites in Thailand. Last year at a bookshop in Bangkok known as a gathering spot for civil society, a young, genial Chinese man introduced himself and kindly asked whether he might send something to this author’s address. The next day a copy of the China Daily arrived, whose stories and ads on the BRI absolutely dominated coverage. When this author politely asked for a reprieve several months later, he was assured that dozens of other coffee shops, college cafes, and NGO co-working spaces were receiving daily copies free of charge. Religion is another area of Chinese influence in the kingdom concerning the BRI. In late 2020, the Australian scholar Gregory Raymond published “Religion as a Tool of Influence: Buddhism and China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Mainland Southeast Asia.” In Raymond’s words, “It presents early evidence that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is evolving to incorporate people-to-people links as one of its five official goals.”[6] Indeed, in 2015, the visiting Communist Party secretary of Hainan province told Thailand’s foreign and cultural ministers that his province had just established a college to promote “Buddhist cooperation between China and Southeast Asia consistent with the framework of the One Belt One Road initiative.” Thailand’s Sangha Supreme Council sent a delegation to the opening two years later. Since then, Buddhist abbots and associations in Yunnan, Guangdong, and Hainan provinces have both sent and received delegations of their counterparts and fellow believers in Thailand, explicitly to discuss the BRI. Thailand’s Mahachula Buddhist University also sent monks to participate in a 2017 conference in Hong Kong, focused on “Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism along the ‘One Belt, One Road’.” Again, however, the extent and effects of this Chinese influence on Thai civil society are debatable. In late December 2020, the Bangkok Post reported that the State Railway of Thailand and a provincial governor had just presided over a public hearing on the rail’s second phase, to “provide information to the local community so they could comment and help the developers improve the project.” The story made reference to past and future hearings as well, concluding that “[s]ome 800 million baht (roughly $25 million) will be spent on a study and environmental impact assessment.”[7] Whether these consultations have preempted or addressed any local concerns is not clear. But aside from the role played by the State Railway Workers Union in the government’s rejection of China’s land-use requests, neither this author’s observations nor queries to Thai civil society contacts has revealed strong negative views on the high-speed rail. At the same time, Thai civil society has clearly resisted any implicit or explicit attempts at influence with respect to another project placed under the BRI umbrella: the blasting of a final inlet of rapids on the Mekong River to allow for larger vessels traveling to and from southern China. Already linking southern China to the “Maritime Silk Road” via its delta on the Gulf of Thailand, the Mekong River is also being connected to the Andaman Sea via an east-west railway across Thailand’s narrow peninsula. All of this “connectivity” has been subsumed under China’s 2015 Lancang-Mekong Cooperation forum, which in turn is officially part of the BRI. Three years after Thailand agreed to China’s 2016 request to blast the final rapids in northern Thailand, it reversed course in 2019 after sustained protest by civil society organizations and local community groups, and as the Mekong itself was experiencing its lowest levels ever recorded. Both Thai and foreign officials informed this author that the main reason for the cancelation concerned the river’s “thalweg,” defined as the middle of the primary navigable channel defining the boundary between two countries—in this case Thailand-Laos. The blasting, in other words, could cause Thailand to lose a sliver of territory to Laos. That said, publicly both the Thai and Chinese governments cited civil society’s concerns—the environment, ecology, culture, livelihoods, food security—as the main reason for the cancellation. Whatever the case, and public relations and face-saving concerns aside, Thai civil society clearly identified the blasting project as being driven by China; and activity, openly, and successfully opposed it. A fourth point is related to the involvement of Thais at the local level. Besides the ambiguities of the BRI itself, how we define and conceive of civil society in Thailand also affects our assessment of its impact on the BRI in the kingdom. Consider a potential canal across Thailand’s Isthmus of Kra, which has often—but not always—been discussed under the BRI since 2017, including by China’s ambassador to Thailand. The idea of a canal across the narrow isthmus has been raised and tested intermittently for literally three and a half centuries. A modern canal’s main proponent has been one Thai Canal Association, whose name has all the trappings of a civil society organization and whose membership overlaps considerably with the Thai-Chinese Economic and Cultural Association. At the same time, the Thai Canal Association’s chair is a former army chief and the secretary-general of a foundation named after a late prime minister and chair of the Thai king’s Privy Council, his group of close advisors. Other retired senior military and political figures, including another former prime minister, are also members. Their advocacy for a canal is focused on projections of economic growth and claims that it will bolster national security. Further muddying the waters, the association claims to have several hundred thousand signatures in support of a canal, from villagers and other Thais living in the relevant peninsular provinces but not formally organized as a civil society organization.[8] Or consider as civil society businesses, which are sometimes but not always thought of as civil society. Thai businesses range from small- and medium-sized enterprises to multinationals and are organized in an array of associations. Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group was founded by a Chinese immigrant to the kingdom in 1921, and eventually became the first foreign investor in Communist China. Today CP is a rich and powerful conglomerate present in every Chinese province. It is a giant in Thailand as well, employing several hundred thousand Thais, and is a key domestic player in the BRI’s Eastern Economic Corridor. In 2019, a CP-led consortium was awarded the concession to build a railway linking three Thai airports, another BRI project. CP had never ventured into transportation before, but a revolving door between the company and Thailand’s Foreign and Commerce ministries has existed for decades. In Thailand and elsewhere, civil society is commonly thought of as the domain of a younger demographic with progressive agendas; and frankly not of people with powerful alternative sources of leverage and legitimacy. Yet this denies civil society membership to older generations based simply on age or agenda, and denies people their right to trade one community for another (or to be part of multiple communities simultaneously). It also speaks to the fact that in Thailand, many of the new, vibrant, and progressive civil society organizations formed during the 1990s, were coopted, marginalized, and/or discredited by Thailand’s color-coded and reactionary interest groups during the 2000s. Finally, it is important to ask whether the distinction between civil society and civil society organizations, or CSOs, is a meaningful one. For instance, must southern Thai villagers even confer with one another on an issue, much less organize themselves around it, to count as Thai civil society? Indeed, the Kra canal may seem like only a sub-issue of the BRI in Thailand, but it exposes a much larger challenge confronting the country and its citizens. A fifth and final point is that, regarding the BRI’s programs beyond physical infrastructure, Thai civil society is plainly conflicted. China’s Digital Silk Road, according to CFR’s Joshua Kurlantzick, “goes toward improving recipients’ telecommunications networks, artificial intelligence capabilities, cloud computing, e-commerce and mobile payment systems, surveillance technology, smart cities, and other high-tech areas.”[9] Fifth generation (5G) mobile internet technology, able to carry enormous caches of data at almost instant speed, is a major aspect of the DSR. Not only is China’s Huawei Technologies already a global leader in 5G’s development and application, but in 2019 Thailand indicated that Huawei was leading the race for building out 5G across the kingdom. Some of Huawei’s investment runs through CP, which operates the leading telecommunications firm in Thailand and which was invited to participate in Huawei’s 5G test networks in the Eastern Economic Corridor. Thai civil society has not notably opposed the government’s favorable view of Huawei—and it is not difficult to see why. In 2018, 74 percent of Thai citizens had regular access to the internet, and Thailand led the world in time spent online each day with a jaw-dropping 9.4 hours. Nearly half of that time—4.6 hours daily—was spent on mobile internet, also a world-leading figure. Bangkok had (and likely still has) the largest number of active Facebook accounts among cities globally, and Instagram was not far behind.[10] Thailand also ranked number one in the world in 2019 in mobile banking penetration.[11] As for mobile devices, sales of Huawei brand phones have taken off in recent years, cutting into the traditionally popular iPhone and Samsung markets. Yet in mid-2020, as Beijing threatened the use of force against Taiwan and substantially tightened control over Hong Kong, a collection of Thai netizens criticized China’s moves on social media. This sparked a backlash from Chinese social media users, which in turn led to netizens in Taiwan and Hong Kong reciprocating their support from Thailand and the formation of a so-called “Milk Tea Alliance,” after the trendy drink popular in all three locations. Illustrated by a new #MilkTeaAlliance hashtag, this social media activity created a kind of de facto online community. Moreover, when Chinese users pointed out free speech violations in Thailand itself, Thais undermined the critics by readily agreeing with them about the suppression of speech in the kingdom. Indeed, Thai civil society has long opposed Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act, which the government has used to censor or chill free speech. While the law predates the DSR by nearly a decade, its 2017 amendments were passed less than a year after the DSR’s announcement. Thai civil society has accused these amendments of having been inspired and informed—if not enabled—by China’s “Great Firewall” and other domestic digital policies and practices. They allow Thai authorities nearly unfettered authority to censor speech, engage in surveillance, conduct warrantless searches of personal data, and curtail the utilization of encryption and anonymity online. Analogous to this dynamic has been the mixed reaction in Thailand to China’s new Health Silk Road: like all Thais, leaders of Thai civil society want access to a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, and China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac have impressed with the speed at which they have produced one. Yet as early as April 2020, Sophie Boisseau de Rocher of the French Institute of International Relations noted “angry voices emanating from civil society” toward a Thai government that “failed to take strong action to fight the virus (in a bid not to offend China),” while Thai netizens were questioning the efficacy of China’s vaccine even before recent tests have cast further doubt.[12] In conclusion, just as China’s Belt and Road Initiative is many things to many countries, and to the many and diverse people within those countries; so is its relationship with Thai civil society a varied, nuanced, and evolving picture. As Thailand itself presents a unique situation to the BRI as a U.S. treaty ally, the world’s twenty-second largest economy (2019), an authoritarian democracy, and a superlative social media consumer; its civil society alternately ignores, accepts, welcomes, and opposes its numerous elements. This has been the case in Thailand for the past eight years, and can be expected to hold for the foreseeable future.  Endnotes ^ See, among others, Megan L. McCulloch, “Environmental Protest and Civil Society in China,” Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, September 2015, http://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/47303. ^ See David M. Lampton, Selina Ho, and Cheng Chwee Kuik, Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia, (Oakland: University of California Press, 2020). ^ See the World Bank, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=TH, accessed on February 1, 2021. ^ See David Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet: America & China in Southeast Asia, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 158. ^ See Kerry K. Gershaneck, Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to “Win Without Fighting,” (Quantico: Marine Corps University Press, 2020), 91. ^ Gregory V. Raymond, “Religion as a Tool of Influence: Buddhism and China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Mainland Southeast Asia,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, 42, 3 (2020), 347. ^ “Hearing Held on High-Speed Rail Project,” Bangkok Post, December 23, 2020. ^ See Benjamin Zawacki, “America’s Biggest Southeast Asian Ally is Drifting Toward China,” Foreign Policy, September 29, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/29/its-on-trump-to-stop-bangkoks-drift-to-beijing/. ^ Joshua Kurlantzick, “China’s Digital Silk Road Initiative: A Boon for Developing Countries or a Danger to Freedom?,” Diplomat, December 17, 2020, http://thediplomat.com/2020/12/chinas-digital-silk-road-initiative-a-boon-for-developing-countries-or-a-danger-to-freedom/. ^ See “Thailand Tops Internet Usage Charts,” Bangkok Post, February 6, 2018, http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1408158/thailand-tops-internet-usage-charts. ^ See Murray Hiebert Under Beijing’s Shadow: Southeast Asia’s China Challenge, (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2020), 305. ^ See Gershaneck, Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to “Win Without Fighting,” 88.

After seizing power in a coup in early February, the Myanmar military has increasingly cracked down on civil society, the media, and opposition politicians. In recent weeks it has shuttered most independent media outlets, arrested many members of the National League for Democracy, and unleashed security forces on demonstrators in many parts of the country. But the Myanmar junta ultimately seems to seek to legitimize its rule, both by gaining recognition from leading regional powers and other countries around the world, and creating a supposed process that will lead to an election in the future. In this strategy of building a democratic facade, it clearly looks to the neighboring Thai armed forces as an example. For more on the links between the Thai and Myanmar militaries, and how the Myanmar army is likely to fail in its attempts, see my new World Politics Review article.

Myanmar’s coup is a disaster for Myanmar, but it also is a signifier of the continuing regression of democracy region-wide in Southeast Asia. The region, which once had made significant progress toward democratization, has backslid badly in recent years, with regression in former bright spots including Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as Cambodia and now Myanmar. This backsliding affects not only domestic politics in Southeast Asian states but also has an effect on other countries in the region—a kind of diffusion effect in reverse, in contrast to the diffusion effect that can occur during waves of democratization. For example, the Philippines used to be one of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states that often vocally stood up for democratic rights in other countries, a fairly unique stance in ASEAN. Now led by Rodrigo Duterte, however, who is undermining the Philippines’ own democratic norms and institutions, Manila is much quieter on the Myanmar coup. Duterte himself has grabbed more power during the pandemic, with a new antiterrorism law giving the government extraordinary powers, amidst the ongoing extrajudicial drug “war” as well. The Philippine government, like many other regional governments, has called the coup simply Myanmar’s internal affair. Thailand, for all its challenges, in the past did sometimes have groups of politicians and civil society activists who were highly engaged in Myanmar politics and advocated for reform there. During the long period of junta rule in the 1990s and 2000s, many Myanmar activists sought safe haven in Thailand as well. Now, Thailand is cracking down on civil society, students, activists, opposition politicians, and the Thai government, dominated by military men, is not going to push for any change in Myanmar. If anything, the Myanmar generals may try to steal a march from the Thai generals who have used a wide range of judicial and election chicanery to cement their power, as Bertil Lintner argued a recent Asia Times article. The Myanmar generals may eventually, as he notes, allow an election, but with a system that, like the Thai electoral system, uses machinations to reduce the power of the most powerful parties—the National League for Democracy (NLD) in this case—and to promote the military’s favored parties and its allies. In some ways, such a system might seem fairer than Myanmar’s current first-past-the-post system, which allowed the NLD to take more seats in parliament than its actual share of the vote, and hurt the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and several ethnic parties. But the Myanmar military would not really be changing the electoral system to promote more fairness—rather it would be to try to permanently defang the NLD. Meanwhile, other countries that had led on Myanmar in the past, like Indonesia and Malaysia, have been relatively quiet, consumed by their own domestic politics, and by COVID-19; they also have suffered their own democratic regression. In the past, the Indonesian government had seen itself as playing a central role in helping the Myanmar military supposedly move toward civilian government, and give up its role as directly involved in politics. But Indonesia itself has seen a return to greater military involvement in politics and domestic policymaking under the Jokowi government, and Jokowi has been muted in response to the coup as well. And, powerful actors in Southeast Asia, like Japan, also have said little; Japanese companies have invested heavily in Myanmar in recent years, pushed in part by the Japanese government. Japan sees itself in intense competition for strategic influence with China in Myanmar, and is unlikely to prod the Myanmar military much. So, the regional democratic regression emboldens the Myanmar military, and, alas, also makes it easier for them to keep power. This post is adapted from my recent Twitter thread on the same topic.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center of Southeast Asian Studies. King Maha Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne in October 2016, ending the authoritative and long reign of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. But in the period since Thailand’s 2014 military coup, the death of Bhumibhol in 2016, and the current day, the kingdom has entered a period of precarious political transition—an interregnum between the prior political status quo and an as-yet-unknown new political reality. In this precarious interregnum Thailand has undergone massive upheaval. Thailand’s prior political system was one in which King Bhumibhol was invested as the central source of political legitimacy—a source of legitimacy above elected politicians. That system now is dying. Meanwhile, a new political system in which the king would not provide such a source of legitimacy above elected institutions, experimented with in the past decade during a series of Thai elected governments, remains basically unborn. Indeed, a new Thai political model, and what role the monarchy might play in such a model, has not been fully formed or even envisaged. In this critical moment, the key players in Thailand’s prior political system are trying to block any transition. Meanwhile, the protest movement that has built in the streets in Thailand in recent months is calling for constitutional changes and reforms to strengthen democracy and questioning the power of the king. This protest movement has broken the taboo of openly discussing and even criticizing the monarchy, and the current government has struck back by reviving the use of the lèse-majesté law and arresting multiple protest leaders. Meanwhile, the new monarch lacks the moral authority that his father, Bhumibhol, amassed during his decades-long reign, which made him genuinely popular and respected among many Thais. With the new king lacking such moral authority, royalist and military elites in Thailand are able to hold onto power through force, like the arrests of protestors, and by empowering unelected, politicized institutions like the judiciary to harass and disqualify political opponents. The interregnum has produced a legitimacy crisis both in the current Thai government and also likely will produce a legitimacy crisis in any more democratic government in the future. Indeed, the interregnum has triggered a myriad of crises in Thailand. First, there is a crisis of institutions that can determine the fate of Thai politics. The two institutions of the monarchy and the military, seemingly inseparable politically, have been greatly affected by the death of King Bhumibol. Bhumibol’s death brought instability in the monarchy and the armed forces, and despite laws restricting media coverage of the monarchy, Thais are aware of the growing instability within the monarchical institution. One problem with the monarchy is that the institution was immensely personified during Bhumibol’s reign. This personification of the monarchy in Bhumibhol’s person was effective in promoting the monarchy, as the king was personally popular, but royalists disregarded the danger of the interregnum in which the new king would likely fail to match up with the revered charisma of his father. And that is what has happened. The new king cannot match his father’s charisma, yet the monarchy remains enormously powerful and highly personalized—except now in a person lacking the charisma and moral authority. Worse, since the coup of 2014, Vajiralongkorn has actually played a part in sustaining this volatile interregnum, undermining democracy, and trying to restore older, greater royal powers. Meanwhile, the military has continued to exploit the royal institution for its own political benefits, potentially causing severe tensions between these two institutions. Second, there is a crisis of the state, broadly characterized by corrupt systems and a lack of good governance. The royal transition from Bhumibol to Vajiralongkorn has impacted a range of state and quasi-state systems, including the Buddhist Sangha, the judiciary, and the management of the Thai economy. Third, there is a crisis of Thai politics, impacted both by the transitional period and also by Thailand’s persistent economic and political inequality; despite being the wealthiest country in mainland Southeast Asia, Thailand is one of the most economically unequal states in the world. The divisions in Thai politics between “red shirts,” who backed the earlier populist, Thaksinite governments, and the more traditionally conservative and anti-Thaksin “yellow shirts” has morphed into another kind of division now best characterized as between “royalist” and “anti-monarchist.” The gulf between these two sides has widened since the 2014 coup, the repressive period after, and the 2019 election. Civil society, meanwhile—from the media and social media users to nongovernmental and civil society organizations—also has been immeasurably affected by the increasing polarization in Thai society in the period since Bhumibhol’s death. Consequently, Thailand is trapped in a political crisis that has already damaged its prospects for democracy. The crisis has sparked the on-going street protests, and there is no end in sight for how the kingdom could resolve these problems. This post is adapted from the book Coup, King, Crisis: A Critical Interregnum in Thailand.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Thais woke up on Thursday to breaking news: Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha had issued a statement informing the public that the government and all security agencies will adopt much tougher measures in dealing with protesters who have been gathering regularly in Bangkok, to call for constitutional changes, a new government, and even reforms to the monarchy. This statement by Prayuth implies that the draconian lèse-majesté laws, and harsh displays of force, might be employed against some of the demonstrators. “The situation is not improving,” Prayuth declared, and also said there was “a risk of escalation to more violence.” Besides the new order to crackdown issued by Prayuth, other signs suggest that the government and security forces are preparing to use force to end the protests. Although King Vajiralongkorn’s has publicly stated that Thailand is a “land of compromise,” the Thai state has increasingly stepped up pressure on the demonstrators. On November 17, thousands of protesters attempted to gather in front of parliament to put pressure on legislators to accept a proposal calling for constitutional amendments. Parliament rejected most of their requests, refusing any motions to change the country’s constitution. In the streets, the demonstrators were suppressed by high-speed water cannons mixed with toxic agents, and at least fifty-five people were injured. Someone also reportedly used rubber bullets and possibly live ammunition against the demonstrators, although security forces denied they had fired bullets at the protesters. At the same time, hardcore yellow-shirt royalists have attempted to provoke the protesters, potentially to help cause violent confrontations between the two sides that would provide a context for a tougher crackdown by the security forces. The next day, November 18, protesters regrouped and marched toward the Police Department in central Bangkok. The mission was to take action against the police who suppressed the protesters. Demonstrators damaged properties of the Police Department as well as some other public buildings. They sprayed graffiti on the walls and on some roads, including some derogatory messages about the king, such as messages calling for the king to operate under the constitution, rather than exerting political and financial influence not normal in a constitutional monarchy. When the protest was over, the leaders announced a follow-up meeting, on November 25—and this time it will be at the Crown Property Bureau, which the king has taken personal control of. The protest there will be a means of further highlighting desires for monarchical reform. And they could well be met at that protest by a new show of force. While ignoring the protesters’ demands for change, King Vajiralongkorn seems to have decided to appear in more often in public in Thailand these days. One might see this as a strategy of narrowing down the gulf between the monarchy and the people, and potentially defusing public anger. But even with greater outreach from the king, it has remained an uphill task to win the hearts and minds of Thais willing to demonstrate for change. The protesters, and many other younger Thais, want dramatic shifts. They want the monarchy to be accountable, responsible and transparent, in ways it has never been before in the kingdom. So, neither side in the standoff seems likely to compromise. And the potential for a more severe crackdown on the demonstrations is growing.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Three months have passed and the protests in Thailand have intensified. One of the main messages of the demonstrations has become clear—the protesters believe the monarchy is in need of immediate reform. In just three months, Thais have repeatedly stretched the boundaries of what is acceptable to discuss in public—and at large gatherings—regarding the monarchy. Today, even in the face of harsh lèse-majesté law, Thais at the demonstrations talk openly about their monarchy, mostly in a fiercely critical way. Meanwhile, the opposition in parliament is demanding that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha resign, though he has so far refused. On Monday, a large group of Thai protesters demonstrated in front of the German Embassy on Sathorn Road in Bangkok. They submitted a letter requesting the German government to investigate whether King Vajiralongkorn has exercised his royal power on German soil. (This is a question that has been raised by German politicians as well, who do not want the king wielding power over Thailand from Germany.) In an even more explosive allegation, the demonstrators accused the king of playing a role in a rash of disappearances of Thai anti-royalist activists, possibly while he was living in Germany. Protesters also continue to use social media to raise questions about the monarchy and make statements about the monarchy that once were taboo. The latest move by the protesters has made the political situation more explosive, but so too have subtle actions by the palace. The king already has played a central role in army politics. His personal appointment of the previous and current army chiefs is testament to this intimate relationship, and he also has overseen the establishment of a Royal Command Guard, with five thousand troops. In the face of these street protests, the king has generally remained silent, taking no position vis-à-vis the call for a monarchical reform. But he also has subtly conveyed his support for a group of royalist demonstrators who also have taken to the streets to defend the palace and display their loyalty to the monarchy—and who have led to violent clashes in areas of Bangkok. Protesters as young as high school students have been attacked in some cases, such as during one incident near Ramkhamheang University. The king has signaled his subtle support for the royalist movement to fight back. As James Buchanan of Mahidol University International College in Bangkok has noted, the king, at his palace, publicly praised a royalist supporter who had faced off with protesters, telling the supporter, “Very brave, very good, thank you.” The king also appeared to greet Buddha Issara, a controversial former monk who has been a force behind a prominent archroyalist group. Buchanan notes—and we concur—that through these messages the king is showing that he will not back down from the demonstrators, and will encourage royalists to fight back. This signaling is a tactic borrowed from earlier periods of conflict in Thailand. During Thailand’s 2010 protests and, ultimately, the harsh crackdown on them, then-Queen Sirikit (now Queen Mother Sirikit) and then–Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn made televised, highly-publicized visits to dead and injured soldiers who had been combating protesters. In this way, they clearly showed their support for the police and the army, and also for royalist supporters, some of whom were egging on violence. The king seems to have recent history on his side as well, and the protesters do not. As Larry Diamond shows in a fascinating new article in Democratization, in recent years most protest movements in developing states have failed. In Thai history, the combination of protesters and counter-protesters has often led to bloody clashes and, ultimately a military coup, under the pretext of restoring order, after pro-royalist counter-protesters try to provoke chaos. Although the current Thai government is packed with military men and was midwifed by constitutional changes created by a junta that lasted from 2014 to 2019, the idea of launching a coup against what is a de facto military-installed government is hardly out of the question, given Thailand’s history of coups. Some reports, like a recent article in the Economist, demonstrate how the king is already pushing the monarchy closer to a restoration of absolute monarchy, and a new coup could lead to a more clear proclamation of absolute monarchy. At the least, the continued demands by the protesters, increasingly touching on once-taboo areas of the monarchy, may eventually provoke a harsh reaction.

Weeks of demonstrations in Thailand have now spread across the country. They continued over the weekend even as the authorities have arrested multiple protest leaders, issued an emergency decree banning gatherings of more than five people publicly, begun to crack down on independent media outlets, and started to disperse protests with more aggressive measures like water cannons and tear gas. Indeed, defying the ban, some ten thousand people gathered in Bangkok to protest last Sunday, calling for democratic reforms and, increasingly, for discussion of the monarchy and monarchical reforms. The protests often were jubilant, and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha publicly mooted the idea of holding an emergency session of parliament to resolve tensions and end the crisis in the streets. Notably, however, Prayuth also has warned that the government would protect the monarchy, cautioned demonstrators “to be extra careful,” and overseen a stepped-up use of flagging messages on social media that could violate the draconian Computer Crimes Act. In recent days, he also has approved a ratcheting up of arrests, media crackdowns, and other tools of intimidation. Bluntly, the military—which midwifed the current Thai government—and the Thai monarchy simply cannot allow any real monarchical reform and also still retain the political powers they have amassed over decades. Such reform, if it made Thailand a truly constitutional and transparent monarchy, would badly damage the power of the king, and the power of the military that has as a primary objective upholding the monarchy. And while the public discussion of the monarchy by the protesters is new, Thailand has had multiple episodes in the past—2010, 1992, 1976, 1973—of the armed forces allowing reform-minded demonstrations to build up in the capital or parts of the capital, before cracking down with brutal force. A harsh crackdown is a very strong possibility now. Already, there are ominous signs. In recent years, Thai dissidents critical of the monarchy have disappeared in neighboring countries, a sign of the serious consequences for those pushing for monarchical change. Generals around Prayuth are, if anything, more hardline and more royalist than Prayuth himself, and would likely be more willing than the prime minister—who is hardly a dove—to push for harsh action if the protests continued and more directly target the monarchy. In fact, Prayuth’s position within the government has only weakened as the protests have gone on, making Deputy Prime Minister (and hard-liner) Prawit Wongsuwan more powerful. The government could respond to divisions within it by trying to calm tensions and using the parliamentary session to broker peace in the streets and made at least cosmetic attempts to answer the protesters’ grievances. But Prawit’s hardline history suggests that taking a calming approach is not his normal style. The emergency decree, like past emergency decrees, provides a legal authority for a harsher, potentially bloody crackdown. The king himself, meanwhile, as Pavin Chachavalpongpun has noted, has not said anything about the protests or made gestures that he wants to foster peace and offer an olive branch to the demonstrators. Had he wanted to signal a moderate approach to the demonstrations, he easily could have done so already; his father, in 1973 and 1992, gave clear signals that he wanted to defuse the crises, and indeed helped do so. No such signals have come from the current king.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.  The crackdown on Thai protesters at dawn on October 15 brought an abrupt end to overnight demonstrations focused on constitutional reforms and the military, which witnessed violent clashes and the disruption of the royal motorcade. The protests and counterprotests heightened the tension on both sides of the increasingly polarized and dangerous political divide in Thailand. The government announced a state of emergency in Bangkok, exercising absolute control over civil liberty. For now, assembly in public with more than five people is illegal, though protesters continue to flout these restrictions. At the crackdown on October 15, the government employed security forces to disperse the crowds. Core leaders of the protests were detained, including the lawyer-turns-activist Anon Numpa, raising the question whether these arrests could serve to abort future protests.  Early in the protest, an organized group of yellow shirts, or royalist, counterprotests moved toward the protesters near the Democracy Monument and set about systematically provoking the pro-democracy protesters. This led to violent confrontations. Moreover, several hundred state officials, clad in yellow t-shirts with blue scarves, were seemingly deployed at the protest venue, in an attempt to provide a counterweight to the demonstrators for reform. Their closely cropped haircuts and yellow costumes signified that these state officials likely were part of groups of royal volunteers technically helmed by King Vajiralongkorn.  The peak of the protest was reached when a royal motorcade transporting Queen Suthida cut through the wave of demonstrators, alerting the authorities of her security in the midst of angry crowds. Surprised that the route of the motorcade had taken this direction, instead of avoiding demonstrations, the protesters took the opportunity to yell at the Queen, “Our tax! Our tax! Our tax!”—suggesting anger that Thai taxes were being used to pay for the royal family’s lavish lifestyle. This was the first time, since the end of the absolute monarchy, that the revered royal family had received such hostile treatment from demonstrators, in such a public way. The protesters confronted the motorcade even though the Thai monarchy is protected under the draconian lèse-majesté law, which forbids any insults towards the king and queen.  The state of emergency has left no casualties, as protesters were agreeable in terminating their activities. Yet the position of the government right from the start of protests was firm; there would be no compromise. This position suggests that, if demonstrations continue in Thailand, in violation of the ban, a tougher crackdown could be coming. Last Friday, according to the New York Times, authorities “sprayed demonstrators with water cannons and sent rows of riot police officers at them, forcing a retreat. More than 20 protest leaders have been arrested.” Two of the protest leaders were charged on Friday in a manner that could potentially result in their being imprisoned for life.  Yet again over the weekend, protesters continued to mass in Bangkok, defying the ban. Indeed, protests spread to other parts of the country, suggesting they are unlikely to die out on their own any time soon. By organizing on social media and in other ways harder for the authorities to track, the protesters have been able to continue rallying. King Vajiralongkorn has stayed silent through this series of protests, even as demonstrators demand monarchical reform. The silence of the king could be read like a silent order that he wishes the authorities to deal harshly with the demonstrations, and has no interest in directly interacting with the protestors and hearing their complaints. And now that core leaders of the protests are in custody, the authorities are ramping up their suppression of demonstrators, and the possibility of life imprisonment has been mooted, it seems hard to imagine where this movement goes from here. Some protesters had counted on the pro-democracy oppositions parties in the country to take their demand forward for serious parliamentary debate about reforms. It is evident, however, that these parties fear the repercussions of such action. They do not want to be perceived as anti-monarchists and are unlikely to bring such discussions to the floor of parliament. 

In recent days, protests and counterprotests in Thailand have pushed the country closer to dangerous conflict between pro-democracy demonstrators, who also increasingly have called for monarchical reforms, and the royalist military and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, himself a former general who launched the 2014 coup in the kingdom. Protests have been building for months, and have shifted from just focusing on constitutional reforms and calls for a new election to demanding reforms of the monarchy, which historically has been a taboo subject in Thailand and protected by lèse majesté laws. Despite regular arrests of protest leaders, the demonstrations show no signs of abating. In recent days, the standoff has become much more serious. Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn lives primarily in Germany but recently returned to Thailand, as the German government warned him not to be conducting state business from Germany. On Wednesday, protestors gathered in downtown Bangkok, confronting military and police and counterprotests. The demonstrators are infuriated by the king’s growing influence over Thai politics, the military, and Crown Property Bureau funds, his unwillingness to actually live in Thailand, and his often-chaotic personal lifestyle. In fact, the king is so much more willing to openly wield power than his predecessor father, and as a result he has made himself more open to public criticism. The situation remained mostly calm, but when the motorcade of Queen Suthida traveled down a main road this week in the capital, following a ceremony at the Grand Palace, it was confronted by protestors waving the three-finger Hunger Games sign, now a symbol of protest in Thailand. They heckled the royal motorcade, making fun of the royals’ lavish, and state-supported, lifestyle, although there was no effort to commit violence by the demonstrators. Still, open heckling of royals shows how far Thailand has come, in just months, to abandoning the taboo about critiquing the monarchy—and directly showed the monarchs, from inside their cars, the anger of some Thais. (The demonstrators say they did not intend to hinder the royal motorcade, although the government says they did.) Still, even though the protests had not swelled into violence, the government cracked down hard by Thursday morning Thailand time, declaring a severe state of emergency. The state of emergency bans gatherings of more than five people, and the government also arrested multiple protest leaders. Now, the potential for real violence looms. Protestors continue to turn out in the streets, on Thursday defying the government’s orders not to gather in large numbers in public. The authorities arrested more protestors, but they do not seem to have stopped the demonstrators’ willingness to assemble. So far, the authorities have not resorted to measures like those used against demonstrators in 1976, 1992, and 2010—shooting demonstrators and committing other bloody acts. But this remains a real possibility.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. After weeks of reformist protests in Bangkok and other parts of the country, Thailand’s demonstrators, who initially focused on a broad range of issues including investigations of disappeared Thai activists and constitutional reform, have come to focus more intently on reforming the monarchy, a longstanding taboo in the kingdom. Last weekend’s protest, which took place on September 19 and 20, was organized in part to remember the coup of September 19, 2006 that overthrew the elected government. However, the demonstrations, which reportedly drew as many as thirty thousand people, making them the largest in Thailand since the 2014 coup, were clearly not primarily to commemorate 2006: They were focused on the present day. And while the protestors did still make a range of demands, including rewriting the constitution and asking the current government, midwifed by the 2014 coup-makers, to step down, they also called for immediate reform of the monarchy. On Saturday, in a highly unusual event in Thailand, protestors openly spoke about the climate of fear surrounding discussions of the monarchy, discussed the disappearances in exile of critics of the royal palace, and called for change. Indeed, the demand for immediate monarchical reform is now an official objective of the protesters, and more and more demonstrators have spoken up about the monarchy. Given the immense power of the monarchy, built partly upon its intricate ties with the military but also on decades of laws protecting the palace and on links between the palace and many prominent Thai businesses, such an objective is indeed an arduous task. It also probably is quite dangerous. For now, some demonstrators are simply trying to end limits on discussion about the monarchy, which is somewhat still protected under lèse-majesté laws—though they also clearly want the monarchy to operate under real, constitutional limits. Open discussions like those on Saturday night are designed to break down taboos. And on Sunday, the student leaders of the protests launched a ceremony, embedding a new plaque onto the surface of Sanam Luang, near the Grand Palace. The original plaque that had been there was made by the People’s Party, a group that abolished the absolute monarchy in what was then Siam in 1932. But that older plaque mysteriously vanished in 2017. So, the new plaque was designed to symbolize a reclamation of popular political rights. “At this place, the people have expressed their will that this country belongs to the people and is not the property of the monarchy, as they have deceived us,” the plaque read. By the next morning, the plaque was missing. Initially the student leaders also planned to move the crowd to the Government House to hand over a letter with demands for monarchical reform. But they instead decided to pass on the letter to General Surayud Chulanond, president of the Privy Council, an advisory body to the king. Surayud, a former prime minister, was trusted by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and is an important ally of the monarchy. The showdown took place in front of the Privy Council Office. For a brief moment, many feared that it could lead to violent confrontation. Eventually, a high-ranking police officer, as a representative, agreed to take the letter from a protest leader to deliver to Surayud. Where will the protest movement go from here? Parit Chiwarak, a leader of the demonstrations, called for another protest on October 14; this time the date coincides with the massacre of students from Thammasat University in 1973. Other protest leaders have suggested calling a demonstration for September 24, Meanwhile, Parit suggested a number of efforts designed to diminish the royal symbols in everyday life in Thailand. For example, he suggested that people raise three fingers, the Hunger Games symbol that has caught on in Thailand as a symbol of protest, every time they listen to the national anthem, or blow their horns when they are stuck in the traffic because of the royal motorcade, or withdraw money from Siam Commercial Bank, of which King Maha Vajiralongkorn is the largest shareholder. Parit told demonstrators, “Get all your money out [of Siam Commercial Bank] and burn your bank book.” It is true that publicly demanding reform of the monarchy is an impressive achievement in itself, given the taboo nature of the topic and potential harsh penalties for criticism of the monarchy. The demonstrations have led to rising awareness of the politicization of the monarchy. Yet, the long-term consequences of this political activism are still unknown. It is clear that the demonstrations will continue in the coming months; there is no sign that they are winding down. But there will likely be a harsh response. Many demonstrators already have been charged with sedition. And in the past, prolonged demonstrations that touched on the monarchy were met with deadly force.

In recent months, Thai students and other activists have staged a series of escalating protests. The demonstrations initially focused on demands for constitutional change and new elections, after last year’s vote was conducted in an unfair environment. The protestors also called for an objective investigation into the apparent abductions and murders of Thai dissidents living abroad, mostly in mainland Southeast Asia. In recent years, Thai dissidents living in Laos have turned up dead, disemboweled in the Mekong River with their bodies filled with cement, or have simply vanished. But as the protests have grown in size and spread across the country, reaching universities and secondary schools and other locales in smaller towns across the kingdom, the demonstrators’ demands increasingly have focused on greater transparency in and reform of the monarchy. Yet despite the monarchical taboo, and the real threat of punishment—several were arrested in late August, and royalists held a counterrally—they continue to push.  Indeed, the possibility for discussion and even reform of the monarchy in Thailand seems greater now than at any time in decades. But the potential for a violent crackdown also seems greater than at any time since the bloodshed of 2010, when at least ninety-one people were killed. For more on the potential implications of the protests, see our new article in World Politics Review.

Hunter Marston is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University. His research focuses on great power competition in Southeast Asia. According to recent surveys of Southeast Asia, China is now the most influential strategic and political power in the region. Yet China’s rise has been so rapid and consequential that few book-length studies have captured the complexity of Beijing’s expanding regional influence. The new book by Murray Hiebert of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Bower Group Asia, Under Beijing’s Shadow: Southeast Asia's China Challenge, fills this gap and shows in significant detail how Southeast Asian states are responding to China’s rise. Given his decades working in the region as a foreign correspondent and political analyst, Hiebert is well-suited for this challenge, and the result offers valuable insights on issues related to Southeast Asia, China, and broader rivalries in the region. The book portrays a region riven by a diversity of views toward China; this diversity prevents any unified response to China’s growing influence over Southeast Asia. As Hiebert shows, Southeast Asian states are of two minds regarding China: on the one hand, they are deeply dependent on China’s rise for their own economic growth and keen to continue trade with Beijing. On the other hand, they are increasingly nervous about China’s growing economic, diplomatic, and military power, its more assertive diplomacy, and its willingness to use its might unilaterally to get its way in the South China Sea—and potentially other parts of the region as well. Hiebert punctures several myths about the China-Southeast Asia relationship. For one, although media reports often portray mainland Southeast Asian states as close to China, or even as satellite states of Beijing, Hiebert offers a different view. He suggests, with considerably detailed country case studies, that mainland Southeast Asian states are not so easy to pigeonhole. China has constructed innumerable dams upstream on the Mekong, choking off much-needed water as countries down river face droughts as a result of climate change. At the same time, Chinese companies—in joint ventures with Southeast Asian corporations in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia—are building massive hydropower projects on the lower Mekong, leading to increased salt water flooding and environmental degradation. These dams have badly damaged the Mekong’s flow and often stopped the seasonal flow of rich nutrients essential to the cultivation of rice and other crops, and the fish which feed the populations of Southeast Asia. In so doing, they have angered many residents of mainland Southeast Asian states, even though governments like Cambodia and Laos and Myanmar remain highly dependent on Chinese aid, investment, and diplomatic support. Hiebert also gives ample coverage to the depth of nationalism within modern Myanmar, and how it is facile to say that Myanmar also has become some kind of satellite state of China. There is enormous resistance within Myanmar toward China’s proposed Myitsone Dam in Kachin State, which the previous government of President Thein Sein suspended in 2011 due to popular pressures. At the same time, China has covertly supported ethnic insurgents on Myanmar’s northern periphery, sometimes providing arms and munitions, a reality that has not gone unnoticed by Myanmar’s military, which views dependency on China as a “national emergency.” In addition, Hiebert shows that Southeast Asian hedging strategies, playing for time and keeping their options open, provides some grounds for believing that the region will not be totally dominated by Beijing. The ambiguity of Southeast Asian loyalties means that Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states have not made up their minds to side with Beijing. Hiebert argues that many of these states—even Cambodia and Laos, which seem to have less leverage to resist China’s influence and cash—will continue to avoid making stark choices. Malaysia also likely will continue to hedge. It has generally failed to respond to China’s provocations in the South China Sea or has done so quietly, believing that its “special relationship” would protect it from the bullying tactics to which China has subjected Vietnam and the Philippines. However, Hiebert notes Kuala Lumpur’s missile tests in July 2019, after China deployed a Coast Guard vessel near Luconia Shoal on Malaysia’s continental shelf. Later that year, Kuala Lumpur submitted claims to an extended continental shelf in that area to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. In fact, Hiebert’s account leaves open the possibility that Malaysia is standing up to China more often than it appears to outsiders. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, visited China four times during his first five years in office and has solicited major Chinese investment, even as Jakarta has pushed back against Beijing’s increased assertiveness in the North Natuna Sea. Indonesia’s economic dependence on China imposes limits to Jokowi’s willingness to stand up to China, but even he has often pursued a hedging strategy. The book also provides an even-keeled examination of Washington’s regional treaty allies Thailand and the Philippines, frequently described as tilting toward Beijing. Hiebert makes a compelling case that Thailand is still hedging against China, despite prevailing counterarguments regarding Thai foreign policy. Of the Philippines, he notes, “It is far from certain that Duterte’s sharp pivot toward China marks a long-term Philippine trend.” Interestingly, Hiebert predicts that Manila will swing back to an anti-China foreign policy after Duterte’s term ends in 2022 and a future administration in Manila seeks to rebalance relations with the regional powers. Second, Hiebert makes a compelling case that ASEAN should stop competing amongst itself and enhance cooperation, especially by strengthening dialogue on how to deal with China. As Hiebert points out, the main obstacle to deeper cooperation is the fact that Southeast Asian states often have varying levels of threat perceptions toward China and also often have different needs from the United States, the other major regional power along with Japan. Vietnam, for instance, has in recent years deepened its security cooperation with the United States, allowing a U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to dock at Danang for a week in 2018, for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War. There also has been speculation that Hanoi may file legal arbitration against Beijing’s maritime claims, and Hanoi has fostered military-to-military cooperation with Washington in other ways as well. Cambodia, on the other hand, has been all too willing to support Beijing’s interests. Under the increasingly authoritarian leadership of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Beijing has often facilitated China’s goals in Southeast Asia, dividing ASEAN. As Hiebert makes clear, Beijing knows how to cater its aid to Phnom Penh’s needs based on Western actions such as sanctions in response to unfair elections. Still, many Cambodians remain wary of China’s expanding influence in their country. Numerous Cambodians resent Hun Sen’s reliance on Chinese investment, which has transformed Sihanoukville into a Chinese outpost and may grant Beijing a naval base in the country. Sophal Ear, a political scientist at Occidental College, also warns about the risks of taking on unsustainable levels of Chinese debt: in 2018 roughly 48 percent of Cambodia’s $7.6 billion foreign debt was owed to China. Finally, Hiebert turns to the question of what all this regional complexity means for Washington, which has displayed a mixture of heavy-handed demands for regional fealty and ambivalence toward Southeast Asia. The Trump administration’s reduced interaction with the region has fed a perception in Southeast Asia of Washington’s declining influence. Hiebert provides a strong case for why and how the United States should restore its attention to the region and refocus its strategy toward Southeast Asia., including by regularly attending regional summits and increasing funding for much-needed physical infrastructure, including in the Mekong basin countries.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. A coalition of Thai youths, students and political activists has launched a series of protests since mid-July 2020. Over the weekend, the demonstrations swelled to the largest street protests in the kingdom since a coup six years ago, with some ten thousand protestors gathered around the Democracy Monument in Bangkok. When protests first started, their requests appeared to target solely the government. They called for the dissolution of parliament (so that fresh elections would be organized), amendments to the constitution and an investigation into the cases of abduction and killing of Thai dissidents outside of the kingdom. Many chanted “down with dictatorship” and gave the Hunger Games three-finger salute. In recent years, at least nine Thai dissidents living outside the country have been disappeared, with several of them turning up dead in a gruesome fashion. The weekend protests went off mostly peacefully, even though protesting is technically illegal under a current state of emergency. But the kingdom’s long history of brutal crackdowns on protest leaves cause for concern about a potentially violent eventual response, if demonstrations continue and possibly grow in size and forcefulness.  The protests also have been driven by rising anger at the Thai military—the current government, though elected, is dominated by a pro-military party and led by former junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha—and at the country’s febrile economy. In particular, although the government has had an effective record at containing COVID-19, with one of the lowest case counts and death tolls in Asia, political opponents have grown angry that the government has maintained a tough state of emergency, and some quarantines, while allowing the armed forces to disregard quarantine. (In fact, the kingdom’s success at battling COVID-19 has made it more feasible to hold street protests, with demonstrators having less fear that they will spread the virus by marching, chanting, and gathering.) And, even though the Thai government has handled COVID-19 well, the kingdom’s tourism and trade–dependent economy has been battered. The Thai economy shrank by 12.2 percent in the second quarter 0f the year, its worst downturn since the time of the Asian financial crisis. The severe downturn, combined with Thailand’s persistently high inequality and still-rigid economic and social hierarchies—it is one of the most unequal countries in the world—animates opposition, especially among younger people graduating from university, struggling to find work, and rebelling against traditional hierarchies.  But the protests also, increasingly, have come to focus on the monarchy, normally a taboo subject, in part because of harsh lèse-majesté laws the criminalize criticism of the king and other senior royals—laws that have been wielded repeatedly to jail and silence Thais. In this way, the protests are astounding—there has not been such a direct and public challenge to the Thai monarchy in decades. The demonstrators, as the New York Times reported, gathered and “raised their hands in defiance below a giant image of the king dressed in coronation regalia.” Demonstrators have held signs saying “No god, no kings, only man.” Some protestors have openly called for changes to the monarchy, while many student demonstrators have urged Thais to seriously address issues with the monarchy that have long affected their lives. On Twitter in Thailand, Thai hashtags that essentially mean “Why Do We Need a King” have circulated. One of the core leaders, Arnon Numpa, a young lawyer-turned-activist, repeatedly has called for an immediate reform of the monarchical institution, arguing that the king, Maha Vajiralongkorn, has bolstered his power through different channels. For several decades now, the supposedly constitutional monarchy of Thailand has often proven to extend its powers beyond constitutional norms and rules. Under the reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej (1946-2016), the monarchy intervened in politics, playing a role in sanctioning the overthrow of several civilian governments, while also using a network of allies to regularly wield power behind the scenes in Thailand. But the former king enjoyed a significant degree of reverence among Thais; his son, current King Maha Vajiralongkorn does not. Since the ascendance to the throne of King Vajiralongkorn, it has been evident that he has sought to augment his power, politically and financially. King Vajiralongkorn also could be seen to have paid little heed to the effects of COVID-19; he travels back and forth to Thailand frequently from Germany.  To increase pressure for change, several of the protest groups have proposed multiple demands, mostly regarding the role and responsibility of the monarchy. Some of their demands are rather radical in the context of Thailand. They have called for:  Creating a division between the personal property of the king and the Crown Property Bureau (CPB). In 2018, King Vajiralongkorn took sole possession of the CPB, worth some U.S. $30 billion. An end to the palace intervening in politics. Thailand has had the most coups of any country in Southeast Asia—and by some measures of any country in the world. The current king has forged closed ties with the military. Nullifying the order that permitted the transfer of military units to the direct command of the royal palace.  Ending state propaganda related to the monarchy. Investigating the deaths in exile of anti-monarchy activists.  The government and the palace so far have offered no signs of listening to demonstrators’ requests. It is unlikely that the government, or indeed the king, will give in the demands. Despite the mostly peaceful nature of the standoff so far, a number of students and activists have been arrested, charged and released on bail, including Parit Chiwarak, a Thammasat University student. And ultimately, given Thailand’s history and the strong views of Thai monarchists and the power of the military, the prospect of violence in Bangkok is very real.

With the exception of Thailand, the five countries of mainland Southeast Asia are some of the poorest in the Asia-Pacific region. According to the World Bank, Cambodia has a per capita GDP of around $1,600, while Myanmar’s is roughly $1,400. Laos and Vietnam fare only marginally better, each at around $2,500. Their political systems run the gamut from semi-democracies to authoritarian one-party states. Yet despite some initial missteps, they have all largely suppressed COVID-19, proving far more effective in addressing the pandemic than most developed countries, including the United States. Vietnam, a country of roughly 95 million people, has reported a handful of deaths and only 784 total cases, as of Sunday. It has seen a recent surge, centered on the coastal city of Da Nang, but even that outbreak remains small by global comparison. Its neighbors have done nearly as well. Thailand, which has a population of just under 70 million, has not had locally transmitted cases in weeks, and only around 3,300 cases in total. Many aspects of life are returning to normal in the capital, Bangkok, and in other parts of the kingdom. By comparison, Florida, with a population of around 21 million people, has recently been averaging about 6,600 new cases per day. Cambodia, meanwhile, has had only around 200 confirmed cases, and is even allowing in Americans, a risk few countries are willing to take right now. Laos and Myanmar have had only 20 and 358 confirmed cases, respectively. While the real number of cases is likely higher in all of these countries, their performance still stands out as a bright spot in the global fight against the coronavirus. Many of their maritime Southeast Asian neighbors, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia, are struggling with high caseloads. Few observers predicted mainland Southeast Asia’s success against COVID-19. Back in February, I criticized the region’s initial response to the pandemic; even several months later, I did not imagine how effective these countries would be in containing the virus. While Vietnam quickly responded to COVID-19 with border closures, lockdowns and a major public health campaign, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia were slow to stop all travel to and from China, the initial source of the epidemic, and some of their officials shared misinformation about the virus. Thailand, however, soon righted its approach. It imposed a state of emergency in late March, and launched a national task force to combat COVID-19. While the Thai government has used the state of emergency to suppress dissent—authorities arrested multiple opposition activists last week—it also appears to have helped slow the virus’s spread. Moreover, early lockdowns in Vietnam and Thailand probably helped smaller countries in the region like Cambodia, which did not impose restrictions quickly but may have benefited from having fewer travelers from its neighbors. More recently, mainland Southeast Asian countries have been world leaders in getting near-universal compliance with mask wearing, in many cases very early in the pandemic. At least 95 percent of Thais and 94 percent of Vietnamese wear masks in public. In some cases, like Vietnam, this is because the government imposes tough fines on anyone not wearing a mask in public. Other states have relied more on longstanding social norms promoting the use of face masks when sick. Countries in the region, even the repressive ones, have also displayed impressive levels of transparency about COVID-19 and the government response—even while they stifle dissent and limit the flow of information about topics other than the virus. In Vietnam, where the ruling Communist Party controls all aspects of political life, the Ministry of Health is putting case information online. Laos has embarked on a national public information campaign that is extremely transparent by the standards of one of the most autocratic one-party states in the world. To be sure, Vietnam’s response has built on years of “efforts to improve governance and central-local government policy coordination,” as Edmund Malesky and Trang Nguyen note in a recent report for the Brookings Institution. Many governments in mainland Southeast Asia have also worked to ensure that their coronavirus response measures impose minimal financial costs on their populations—critical moves to getting broad public buy-in. As Nguyen and Malesky note, Vietnam’s policy is to cover most costs for citizens related to the response to COVID-19, including quarantines, coronavirus tests and hospitalizations. Cambodia, in turn, has relied on aid from the World Bank and other overseas entities to help ensure that people are not opting out of COVID-19 restrictions due to an inability to bear the cost. Some of these strategies should be replicable in other developing countries, given enough political will. Masks are cheap and effective, and many other states could copy the combination of pressure and skillful public campaigns to get as many people to wear masks. Other hybrid or authoritarian states would do well to heed Vietnam’s example, which has shown that transparency about COVID-19 doesn’t necessarily endanger the state’s dominance over politics. In other words, if they come clean with their publics about the spread of COVID-19 and their responses to it, they are not necessarily setting themselves up for a broader political backlash. Likewise, other developing countries may be able to copy efforts from mainland Southeast Asia to ensure that COVID-19 quarantines and treatment remain free or highly inexpensive, which is the best way to get people to take tests, isolate and go for treatment. Beyond these clear strategies, some residents of the region, including several medical researchers, have suggested that mainland Southeast Asia may have benefited from unique cultural practices that make contagion less likely. For instance, many people in mainland Southeast Asia do not greet each other with handshakes or hugs, but instead with a palms-pressed-together gesture, while standing apart from the other person. Taweesin Visanuyothin, the COVID-19 spokesperson for Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health, told the New York Times that Thailand’s success “has to do with culture. Thai people do not have body contact when we greet each other.” However, in large, packed cities like Bangkok, Yangon and Ho Chi Minh City, people walk close together, jam into buses and other public transportation, and generally come quite close to each other. They may greet each other without body contact, but the sheer size of these places makes it hard to practice real social distancing. Thus, the true reasons for these countries’ success in containing the virus likely have more to do with their policy responses. Other researchers speculate that some people in mainland Southeast Asia may have some natural immunity to COVID-19. In one study from southern Thailand, more than 90 percent of people who tested positive for COVID-19 remained asymptomatic, a much higher share than normal. The reasons for this finding, however, remain unclear. One thing that is certain is that Thailand and its neighbors, which have had experience fighting other infectious diseases like SARS and dengue fever, have collectively emerged as a rare pocket of resilience in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. As similarly low-to-middle-income countries in Latin America are hit hard by the coronavirus, and nations across Africa brace for a surge in cases, their governments could benefit from looking eastward and taking lessons from mainland Southeast Asia’s response.