Thailand has for decades been adept at navigating between great powers. Its foreign policy has been likened to “bamboo diplomacy” – bending with the wind but not breaking.
Mr Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a former permanent secretary and vice minister for foreign affairs in the previous Thai government, told me: “We need the Chinese, but we also have to stand up to China. Thailand should show leadership in Southeast Asia, we cannot show that we are subject to their pressure.”
He added: “We also need the US to maintain the balance of power, but it’s certainly not in our interest to align with the US against China.”
Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun, professor at Kyoto University’s Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, does not see a dramatic shift towards China. “I don’t think there has been any major shift in Thai-Chinese relations. This has been the kind of relationship we’ve had for quite some time,” he said.
He noted how former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose daughter and current Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is widely seen as his proxy, had visited his family’s ancestral tombs in China.
Thaksin and his sister Yingluck, who was also prime minister before being unseated in the 2014 coup, are fourth-generation Hakka Chinese immigrants with ancestral roots in Guangdong, China. In 2001 Thaksin visited the ancestral village; in 2014 he again visited the place together with his sister.
Yet while Thailand has been good at balancing the big powers, these are testing times – and the deportation of the Uyghurs reflects poor diplomacy on Thailand’s part. “They could have done the same thing (deport the Uyghurs) – but more intelligently,” said Dr Pavin.
Separately, when asked whether it was valid to infer that the Uyghur episode suggested Thailand was tilting toward – or even deferring to – China, a senior Thai official pushed back, calling the premise flawed.
“It’s not a yes or no answer,” the official said. “It’s about accommodation.”
Nirmal Ghosh is a former foreign correspondent and independent author and writer based in Thailand and Singapore.
