This is great. To find out what is really happening at the regional or local level, making politics transparent, rather than something one only gets from the rumours heard as an insider. The national newspapers that really probe into issues, rarely probe very deeply into local issues.
[…] I must admit that I had mixed feelings when I see pictures of bomb shells in Laos. A feeling of a guilty person, for up until my mid 30s I never knew what happened in part of my mother’s land. How ignorant is that? And yet a feeling of at last I have opened my eyes. I have listened carefully and think about the stories that people shared with me and try to understand what happened to them. […]
IMHO Southeast Asia areas studies **research will only achieve depth, if resources are pooled** across countries and across universities within a country.
Assuming that making research contributions to knowledge requires mentoring, and is not not just an “independent” study, there are simply not enough paid scholars around the world, much less in one country or locality, to mentor research.
Luckily, the world wide web nowadays provides a platform for publishing online specialised research journals. The use of referees and peer review for journal articles is also a lot easier. A good example of this is Michael Charney’s SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research at the University of London:
This journal has given me the opportunity to publish refereed articles on early modern Burmese history where there would otherwise have been no opportunities.
[…] In my last post I discussed the decline of Chiang Khong’s Wat Luang port and the Wat Luang Boat Operators’ Association. How can we understand such change in the context of the subregional development of river trade? First, the large long-distance Lao cargo boats that cross the river to load at Chiang Khong do not conform to the regulation of the Association anymore. The power of “micro-regulation”, that Walker discussed, has now turned to the state-run Port Authority at a new deep-water port (above) with the regulations determined by its head office in Bangkok. […]
Vichai N, has you really spent any meaningful amount of time in the Thai rural countryside as AW did? I think the rural/urban divide is very real, but things have been rather quiet on the surface because of the complete domination by the urban interest. This is starting to change.
He is the good example what a crown prince should be. Based on his speech & his conducts, he will be a great leader for Bhutanese. His comment on King Bhumibol spoke volumes. His comment is one of the countless positive testimonies on our beloved King. Rungsit University made a very wise move honoring the Crown Prince.
As someone who laboured for two years at a Thai university teaching macroeconomics and supervising the business English program with 20+ teachers, everyone of the 600+ sophomores at the university attending, writing the syllabus, curriculum, and assessment plans, writing every midterm and final exam, grading 200 to 350 students every semester, I can honestly say that **there is a radical rural-urban divide in terms of academic performance and sophistication**, and that this probably has an effect on the jobs they can get, this was also evidenced in the oral presentations from their senior year internships, but the divide is improving, and as urban students seek the comforts of the countryside for their university education, the mixing of rural and urban in rurally placed (and centrally funded) universities has beneficial effects.
I didn\’t realise the significance at the time, but a rice miller told me about the rice subsidies at a dinner party in northern Thailand in 2004. The abnormally above market prices were negatively affecting business for him, but they were putting above normal amounts of money in the hands of rice growers, which is good as far as I am concerned, because all my neighbors, who I love dearly, are rice farmers.
I started studying Thai language at ANU in 2006. Six first-year students enrolled in the second semester course. It must be just enough students to keep the faculty afloat.
As Nick has pointed out, the link between job prospects and Asian lanagues is not strongly emphasised within many professions. Especially if one wishes to remain in Australia.
The link between development studies (the focus of my studies) and Asian languages is a little clearer than between many other career paths. Maybe the development studies courses, however, could do more to promote language studies/Asian studies as a component of their courses?
While there’s clearly some fuzzy thinking here — six branches of govt and that stuff — Prawase isn’t all the way off on part of the problem in Thai administration:
“bureaucrats should be independent from politicians, who can no longer be removed or transferred from the post, because if the bureaucrats are strong, they can keep a check on politicians.’’
In any modern democratic state you have to find a balance between a permanent civil service and changing, elected politicians. (by comparison, in Singapore the bureaucrats, the politicians and the party are the same). The bureaucracy can be overly independent of politicians. But as under Thaksin, the civil service can also be politicized and corrupted. (Not that the Thai bureacuracy can’t be corrupt on its own.) Thaksin did wreck some of the good parts of the civil service, brining upthis problem.
I think that is what Prawase is getting at, but again, fuzzy comments and fuzzier palace-like justifications (bureaucrats are good because politicians are bad) make a mess of the idea. Nor does he offset it with, what happens when the bureaucracy has no one to answer to? What is the prime job then of elected politicial leaders?
That suggests to that the problem is really that the people Thais are listening to on the problems of society are perhaps not the right people. Because, as well-meaning and selfless as he is, Prawase shows an inability to frame the problems and solutions in any precise and useful way. As this example shows, he actually succeeds in distorting the issue by bifurcating government into good bureaucrats and bad politicians.
That doesn’t take you to the essential question: who does a peasant go to when a government official is stealing his land or a policeman has extorted his money?
If the answer is the king, well, I hope he and Prawase have time for all the cases!
[…] Contributing to the dialogue on Lao history But the economy and society under Chao Anou┬Тs rule, for instance, has not been properly researched. Only recently has a Japanese scholar (Masuhara 2003) produced an economic history of the Lane Xang period, and more work could be done. …Read more: here […]
For me the answer to why Asian Studies is on the decline is simple.There are less students studying Asian studies. Why are there less students? Primarily, employers don’t really care or reward students who speak an Asian language.
In my experience and in talking to friends, many employers, particularly the government, are not rewarding students for their language skills.* Look at most job applications, you struggle to find a place to put your language skills, it is not usually an assessable selection criteria. Many friends also rarely have any opportunity to use the language they studied in their job. Now, if you are up against a candidate who doesn’t have any language skills, you will likely get the job, but how much extra money will you get for those 2-3 years of study learning the language?
* This is not universal as I know I got one job primarily because of my language skills.
Who fears the rurals? Such an exagerration coming from Andrew Walker suggesting that there exists a great divide between the Thai rurals and the cities is far from the truth! The cities depend on the rurals and vice-versa and such a symbiotic relationship do create some tugs of conflicts but their mutual dependency naturally gravitate to immediate amicable resolution.
Compared with many other countries, Thailand had always been fortunate because the Kingdom under its revered King Bhumibhol had always been united and stably harmonious. But the Kingdom’s moments of harmony were do disturbed by monsters with corrupt agendas, like Suchinda and Thaksin, who created the rifts and disharmony that Andrew Walker now hypes as a rural-against-urban pervasive distrust of each other.
The problem of the rurals: How to raise their incomes and their living standards? Thaksin’s fault was NOT that he had grandiose ideas how to raise the rural’s income. Thaksin’s fault was that his grandiosity hide a corrupt personal agenda to enrich himself, his family and cronies and THAT corrupted any virtue of all these village get-rich schemes he was rapidly pulling out of his magician’s populist hat to get the VILLAGE votes, whatever.
Thailand do need some HONEST champion for the villagers. Those many corrupt rural MP’s are much too corruptly preoccupied with personal interests to really matter to these villagers and the impoverished. Hopefully not a Chavez-clone. A Thai village champion who is more like that nobel-laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh who was sincerely inpired to solve his country’s poverty.
[…] Bhutan’s Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck -┬ the subject of a newly composed song titled “Precious Prince of Hearts” -┬ has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Rangsit University.┬ Back in August, I briefly discussed the ongoing cultural currency of this Bhutanese Crown Prince in the Thai scene.┬ ┬ His┬ iconic status┬ is┬ something that I still feel is worthy of much further reflection and analysis. […]
Yes, maybe some good will come from Thaksin and his demise – the elite might realise that the rural poor are more important than just getting their votes as a means to feathering their own nest.
It seems most succesful politicians use their position as a licence to print money for themselves, and Thaksin took it to a new level.
nice to hear from you! And thanks for your interesting comments on the rubber issue in Laos.
There are some nuances that I would like to point out in reply to your comments. As it is often the case, I should say that practice and theory do not always match.
It is true that, in theory, rubber could work better than any other opium substitute so far proposed to upland farmers. Yet, there are restrictions in terms of altitude and climate (which opium does not have). Rubber can only be planted at an altitude between 600 and 900 m above sea level (frosts on high elevations have destroyed entire plantations in 2000). This means that highland farmers still need to relocate to lower elevations to be able to plant it if they lack land availability. And there has been a lot of dislocation and relocation driven by rubber over the last couple of years.
Also, I agree that the Chinese have been pushing the crop in Laos relying on a big rubber market demand in China, as they have been doing for other crops such as banana, water melon and pumpkin in Muang Sing. However, until the end of the 90s in China rubber was sold and manufactured within the protectionist State price regime which guaranteed some security to the farmers on price fluctuation. With the liberalization of rubber production and processing, in the last few years a few private firms have been competing with State companies in the manufacturing and therefore in deciding the price on the market. Farmers in China are afraid that with an over production of rubber in Laos in the next few years the latex price will drop. If this is the case, then cultivators on both sides of the border will be affected.
One more thing. A distinction should be made between the different types of contract that Chinese have been signing with local farmers in Laos and between the scope of the investments.
In some cases plantations are established by Lao smallholders with the financial support of relatives from across the border, lowland wealthy Lao investors or small Chinese investors. This form is relatively widespread. The area varies from 3-4 ha up to 20-50 ha. Usually the Lao farmers provide land, while the Chinese investor supplies capital covering all the set-up expenses for the plantation. The agreement between the contracting parties is usually marked by 3 types of contract:
тАв verbal agreements between the two parties (mainly between cross-border relatives)
тАв informally written contracts between the two parties not ratified by local authorities
тАв legally signed contracts ratified by local authorities
The second form of investment is based on larger land concession schemes. Plantations are established through massive investments by Chinese companies. Plantations extend over very large areas, up to hundreds of ha. Chinese companies sign the contracts directly with the Lao central government, arranging the rubber set up with the villagers later on. The terms of the contracts are similar to the ones arranged in case of small-scale investments above, with the risky difference that Chinese investors have a much larger share of plantation area that they plan to manage by employing local labor. So far, wage rates proposed by the companies prefigure dangerous labor exploitation. Yet, this type of plantation is becoming a more widespread model despite its ambiguities in relation to labor and land use rights.
Small-scale investments by Chinese relatives seem to be sounder than big concession-type investments by Chinese investors. The former despite often being based on unofficial contracts, guarantee more security to the farmers in terms of capital and land use rights, as they rely on family or friendship trust; concession type contracts are more ambiguous in terms of labor input and remuneration, marketing of latex, and duration of land lease. Moreover, by virtue of the fact that they involve larger areas of land, the latter model is more risky, for it reduces land availability to the farmers for the whole duration of the contract (30-40 years).
Finally, none of the contracts that I have viewed in Muang Sing area had the price set from the Chinese investors. They usually say that the investor will buy the latex from the farmers at the current price on the market, which means that it won’t guarantee much security for the farmers, if latex price drops.
These nuances make the whole rubber venture very risky for the Lao farmers. Yet, we want to hope that their expectations will be fulfilled by the facts and a bit of luck…
Thank you for correcting my error. You are right; only Gen. Sondhi is Muslim. Gen. Prem & Surayud are both Buddhist. Only Gen. Prem is from the South while Petchaburi is the hometown of Gen. Surayud is, and Patumthani is where Gen. Sondhi grew up.
I got some informations last August in Nalae district, Luang Namtha province about these rubber fields which now extend everywhere on the slopes near the upper part of the Nam Tha river.
Seeds are given by a private Chinese compagny and planted alongside with rice, on some kinds of small terraces (I have pictures for those interested). The trees can start producing some rubber after seven years. The price has been set up (for now) at 13 000 Kips per kilo. During the 30 first years (which means from years 7 to year 37 after planting the tree), the Chinese compagny will take 35% of this price for themselves and give the rest back to the villagers. After that, 100% of the price will go to the villagers. A rubber tree can usually live on up to more or less 50 years.
Most of the contracts were signed with lowland Tai-L├╝ villages and very few highland Khmu and Lamet people are growing rubber -which means that contrary to what Mr Haughan says, this rubber development does not prevent relocation from highlanders in the lowland, at least in Nalae.
“Thaksin’s populism does not show, as Sondhi claims, that the rural electorate is stupid, but rather that it is becoming more politicised and more astute in getting what it wants.”
Yes. Yes. What is incomprehensible is that the post-coup powers that be are completely ignoring the income redistributions and new focus on the rural that Thaksin initiated.
Cleaning up the books and fiscal integrity is fine. Obviously, the new benefits of the rural poor need to be made more transparent, unlike the hidden rice support subsidies, for instance, but the rural is not going to go away, they’ll have to deal with it sooner or later.
Furthermore, the much touted decentralisation more often than not will end in predatory rent-seeking provincial elites (for example sent out from Bangkok after corruption problems there) absconding with the little guy’s, teacher in the province, accumulated benefits and pension, or for instance in province X not using Rajaphat for the new university there, because rents can only be extracted from new virgin land without value, and so on. Decentralised provincial police, for instance, will be free to collect all the rents that they currently do and more. Local rentseeking curiously disappears for a time when the Bangkok police make their show appearance in a provincial city.
There’s no subsitute for developing stronger links between the provinces and Bangkok, in both directions. Farmers are the lifeblood of the country.
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Golden Boat update 3: the rise of a new port
This is great. To find out what is really happening at the regional or local level, making politics transparent, rather than something one only gets from the rumours heard as an insider. The national newspapers that really probe into issues, rarely probe very deeply into local issues.
Making good use of disposal
[…] I must admit that I had mixed feelings when I see pictures of bomb shells in Laos. A feeling of a guilty person, for up until my mid 30s I never knew what happened in part of my mother’s land. How ignorant is that? And yet a feeling of at last I have opened my eyes. I have listened carefully and think about the stories that people shared with me and try to understand what happened to them. […]
Same old story…Asian Studies on the decline
IMHO Southeast Asia areas studies **research will only achieve depth, if resources are pooled** across countries and across universities within a country.
Assuming that making research contributions to knowledge requires mentoring, and is not not just an “independent” study, there are simply not enough paid scholars around the world, much less in one country or locality, to mentor research.
Luckily, the world wide web nowadays provides a platform for publishing online specialised research journals. The use of referees and peer review for journal articles is also a lot easier. A good example of this is Michael Charney’s SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research at the University of London:
http://web.soas.ac.uk/burma/bulletin.htm
This journal has given me the opportunity to publish refereed articles on early modern Burmese history where there would otherwise have been no opportunities.
Golden Boat update 2: the “legend” of Wat Luang port
[…] In my last post I discussed the decline of Chiang Khong’s Wat Luang port and the Wat Luang Boat Operators’ Association. How can we understand such change in the context of the subregional development of river trade? First, the large long-distance Lao cargo boats that cross the river to load at Chiang Khong do not conform to the regulation of the Association anymore. The power of “micro-regulation”, that Walker discussed, has now turned to the state-run Port Authority at a new deep-water port (above) with the regulations determined by its head office in Bangkok. […]
The King Never Smiles?
Please let we live in our own way..And please do not touch our beloved King
The fear of the rural
Vichai N, has you really spent any meaningful amount of time in the Thai rural countryside as AW did? I think the rural/urban divide is very real, but things have been rather quiet on the surface because of the complete domination by the urban interest. This is starting to change.
“Precious Prince of Hearts” takes Rangsit degree
He is the good example what a crown prince should be. Based on his speech & his conducts, he will be a great leader for Bhutanese. His comment on King Bhumibol spoke volumes. His comment is one of the countless positive testimonies on our beloved King. Rungsit University made a very wise move honoring the Crown Prince.
The fear of the rural
As someone who laboured for two years at a Thai university teaching macroeconomics and supervising the business English program with 20+ teachers, everyone of the 600+ sophomores at the university attending, writing the syllabus, curriculum, and assessment plans, writing every midterm and final exam, grading 200 to 350 students every semester, I can honestly say that **there is a radical rural-urban divide in terms of academic performance and sophistication**, and that this probably has an effect on the jobs they can get, this was also evidenced in the oral presentations from their senior year internships, but the divide is improving, and as urban students seek the comforts of the countryside for their university education, the mixing of rural and urban in rurally placed (and centrally funded) universities has beneficial effects.
I didn\’t realise the significance at the time, but a rice miller told me about the rice subsidies at a dinner party in northern Thailand in 2004. The abnormally above market prices were negatively affecting business for him, but they were putting above normal amounts of money in the hands of rice growers, which is good as far as I am concerned, because all my neighbors, who I love dearly, are rice farmers.
Same old story…Asian Studies on the decline
I started studying Thai language at ANU in 2006. Six first-year students enrolled in the second semester course. It must be just enough students to keep the faculty afloat.
As Nick has pointed out, the link between job prospects and Asian lanagues is not strongly emphasised within many professions. Especially if one wishes to remain in Australia.
The link between development studies (the focus of my studies) and Asian languages is a little clearer than between many other career paths. Maybe the development studies courses, however, could do more to promote language studies/Asian studies as a component of their courses?
Prawase Wasi’s sufficiency democracy
While there’s clearly some fuzzy thinking here — six branches of govt and that stuff — Prawase isn’t all the way off on part of the problem in Thai administration:
“bureaucrats should be independent from politicians, who can no longer be removed or transferred from the post, because if the bureaucrats are strong, they can keep a check on politicians.’’
In any modern democratic state you have to find a balance between a permanent civil service and changing, elected politicians. (by comparison, in Singapore the bureaucrats, the politicians and the party are the same). The bureaucracy can be overly independent of politicians. But as under Thaksin, the civil service can also be politicized and corrupted. (Not that the Thai bureacuracy can’t be corrupt on its own.) Thaksin did wreck some of the good parts of the civil service, brining upthis problem.
I think that is what Prawase is getting at, but again, fuzzy comments and fuzzier palace-like justifications (bureaucrats are good because politicians are bad) make a mess of the idea. Nor does he offset it with, what happens when the bureaucracy has no one to answer to? What is the prime job then of elected politicial leaders?
That suggests to that the problem is really that the people Thais are listening to on the problems of society are perhaps not the right people. Because, as well-meaning and selfless as he is, Prawase shows an inability to frame the problems and solutions in any precise and useful way. As this example shows, he actually succeeds in distorting the issue by bifurcating government into good bureaucrats and bad politicians.
That doesn’t take you to the essential question: who does a peasant go to when a government official is stealing his land or a policeman has extorted his money?
If the answer is the king, well, I hope he and Prawase have time for all the cases!
Contributing to the dialogue on Lao history
[…] Contributing to the dialogue on Lao history But the economy and society under Chao Anou┬Тs rule, for instance, has not been properly researched. Only recently has a Japanese scholar (Masuhara 2003) produced an economic history of the Lane Xang period, and more work could be done. …Read more: here […]
Same old story…Asian Studies on the decline
Nick:
For me the answer to why Asian Studies is on the decline is simple.There are less students studying Asian studies. Why are there less students? Primarily, employers don’t really care or reward students who speak an Asian language.
In my experience and in talking to friends, many employers, particularly the government, are not rewarding students for their language skills.* Look at most job applications, you struggle to find a place to put your language skills, it is not usually an assessable selection criteria. Many friends also rarely have any opportunity to use the language they studied in their job. Now, if you are up against a candidate who doesn’t have any language skills, you will likely get the job, but how much extra money will you get for those 2-3 years of study learning the language?
* This is not universal as I know I got one job primarily because of my language skills.
The fear of the rural
Who fears the rurals? Such an exagerration coming from Andrew Walker suggesting that there exists a great divide between the Thai rurals and the cities is far from the truth! The cities depend on the rurals and vice-versa and such a symbiotic relationship do create some tugs of conflicts but their mutual dependency naturally gravitate to immediate amicable resolution.
Compared with many other countries, Thailand had always been fortunate because the Kingdom under its revered King Bhumibhol had always been united and stably harmonious. But the Kingdom’s moments of harmony were do disturbed by monsters with corrupt agendas, like Suchinda and Thaksin, who created the rifts and disharmony that Andrew Walker now hypes as a rural-against-urban pervasive distrust of each other.
The problem of the rurals: How to raise their incomes and their living standards? Thaksin’s fault was NOT that he had grandiose ideas how to raise the rural’s income. Thaksin’s fault was that his grandiosity hide a corrupt personal agenda to enrich himself, his family and cronies and THAT corrupted any virtue of all these village get-rich schemes he was rapidly pulling out of his magician’s populist hat to get the VILLAGE votes, whatever.
Thailand do need some HONEST champion for the villagers. Those many corrupt rural MP’s are much too corruptly preoccupied with personal interests to really matter to these villagers and the impoverished. Hopefully not a Chavez-clone. A Thai village champion who is more like that nobel-laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh who was sincerely inpired to solve his country’s poverty.
High Himalayan Prince, Low Price Souvenir
[…] Bhutan’s Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck -┬ the subject of a newly composed song titled “Precious Prince of Hearts” -┬ has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Rangsit University.┬ Back in August, I briefly discussed the ongoing cultural currency of this Bhutanese Crown Prince in the Thai scene.┬ ┬ His┬ iconic status┬ is┬ something that I still feel is worthy of much further reflection and analysis. […]
The fear of the rural
Yes, maybe some good will come from Thaksin and his demise – the elite might realise that the rural poor are more important than just getting their votes as a means to feathering their own nest.
It seems most succesful politicians use their position as a licence to print money for themselves, and Thaksin took it to a new level.
Borders of rubber
Hi James,
nice to hear from you! And thanks for your interesting comments on the rubber issue in Laos.
There are some nuances that I would like to point out in reply to your comments. As it is often the case, I should say that practice and theory do not always match.
It is true that, in theory, rubber could work better than any other opium substitute so far proposed to upland farmers. Yet, there are restrictions in terms of altitude and climate (which opium does not have). Rubber can only be planted at an altitude between 600 and 900 m above sea level (frosts on high elevations have destroyed entire plantations in 2000). This means that highland farmers still need to relocate to lower elevations to be able to plant it if they lack land availability. And there has been a lot of dislocation and relocation driven by rubber over the last couple of years.
Also, I agree that the Chinese have been pushing the crop in Laos relying on a big rubber market demand in China, as they have been doing for other crops such as banana, water melon and pumpkin in Muang Sing. However, until the end of the 90s in China rubber was sold and manufactured within the protectionist State price regime which guaranteed some security to the farmers on price fluctuation. With the liberalization of rubber production and processing, in the last few years a few private firms have been competing with State companies in the manufacturing and therefore in deciding the price on the market. Farmers in China are afraid that with an over production of rubber in Laos in the next few years the latex price will drop. If this is the case, then cultivators on both sides of the border will be affected.
One more thing. A distinction should be made between the different types of contract that Chinese have been signing with local farmers in Laos and between the scope of the investments.
In some cases plantations are established by Lao smallholders with the financial support of relatives from across the border, lowland wealthy Lao investors or small Chinese investors. This form is relatively widespread. The area varies from 3-4 ha up to 20-50 ha. Usually the Lao farmers provide land, while the Chinese investor supplies capital covering all the set-up expenses for the plantation. The agreement between the contracting parties is usually marked by 3 types of contract:
тАв verbal agreements between the two parties (mainly between cross-border relatives)
тАв informally written contracts between the two parties not ratified by local authorities
тАв legally signed contracts ratified by local authorities
The second form of investment is based on larger land concession schemes. Plantations are established through massive investments by Chinese companies. Plantations extend over very large areas, up to hundreds of ha. Chinese companies sign the contracts directly with the Lao central government, arranging the rubber set up with the villagers later on. The terms of the contracts are similar to the ones arranged in case of small-scale investments above, with the risky difference that Chinese investors have a much larger share of plantation area that they plan to manage by employing local labor. So far, wage rates proposed by the companies prefigure dangerous labor exploitation. Yet, this type of plantation is becoming a more widespread model despite its ambiguities in relation to labor and land use rights.
Small-scale investments by Chinese relatives seem to be sounder than big concession-type investments by Chinese investors. The former despite often being based on unofficial contracts, guarantee more security to the farmers in terms of capital and land use rights, as they rely on family or friendship trust; concession type contracts are more ambiguous in terms of labor input and remuneration, marketing of latex, and duration of land lease. Moreover, by virtue of the fact that they involve larger areas of land, the latter model is more risky, for it reduces land availability to the farmers for the whole duration of the contract (30-40 years).
Finally, none of the contracts that I have viewed in Muang Sing area had the price set from the Chinese investors. They usually say that the investor will buy the latex from the farmers at the current price on the market, which means that it won’t guarantee much security for the farmers, if latex price drops.
These nuances make the whole rubber venture very risky for the Lao farmers. Yet, we want to hope that their expectations will be fulfilled by the facts and a bit of luck…
Patiwat on Sarit and Sonthi
Dear Bangkok Pundit (#14),
Thank you for correcting my error. You are right; only Gen. Sondhi is Muslim. Gen. Prem & Surayud are both Buddhist. Only Gen. Prem is from the South while Petchaburi is the hometown of Gen. Surayud is, and Patumthani is where Gen. Sondhi grew up.
Golden Boat update 1
I look forward to reading your posts on this fascinating area and keeping current with the issues raised in Dr Walker’s excellent book.
Borders of rubber
I got some informations last August in Nalae district, Luang Namtha province about these rubber fields which now extend everywhere on the slopes near the upper part of the Nam Tha river.
Seeds are given by a private Chinese compagny and planted alongside with rice, on some kinds of small terraces (I have pictures for those interested). The trees can start producing some rubber after seven years. The price has been set up (for now) at 13 000 Kips per kilo. During the 30 first years (which means from years 7 to year 37 after planting the tree), the Chinese compagny will take 35% of this price for themselves and give the rest back to the villagers. After that, 100% of the price will go to the villagers. A rubber tree can usually live on up to more or less 50 years.
Most of the contracts were signed with lowland Tai-L├╝ villages and very few highland Khmu and Lamet people are growing rubber -which means that contrary to what Mr Haughan says, this rubber development does not prevent relocation from highlanders in the lowland, at least in Nalae.
The fear of the rural
“Thaksin’s populism does not show, as Sondhi claims, that the rural electorate is stupid, but rather that it is becoming more politicised and more astute in getting what it wants.”
Yes. Yes. What is incomprehensible is that the post-coup powers that be are completely ignoring the income redistributions and new focus on the rural that Thaksin initiated.
Cleaning up the books and fiscal integrity is fine. Obviously, the new benefits of the rural poor need to be made more transparent, unlike the hidden rice support subsidies, for instance, but the rural is not going to go away, they’ll have to deal with it sooner or later.
Furthermore, the much touted decentralisation more often than not will end in predatory rent-seeking provincial elites (for example sent out from Bangkok after corruption problems there) absconding with the little guy’s, teacher in the province, accumulated benefits and pension, or for instance in province X not using Rajaphat for the new university there, because rents can only be extracted from new virgin land without value, and so on. Decentralised provincial police, for instance, will be free to collect all the rents that they currently do and more. Local rentseeking curiously disappears for a time when the Bangkok police make their show appearance in a provincial city.
There’s no subsitute for developing stronger links between the provinces and Bangkok, in both directions. Farmers are the lifeblood of the country.