This book is a delight. I bought my copy from Amazon about a year ago and I doubt a week goes by without dipping into it. One of the most carefully and lovingly constructed books on my shelf (and I have a few).
Also, your accusation about the risk of falling into the royalist argument because the royalists argue Yingluck should be separate from her brother is ridiculous. The royalists may also like green curry. Would you dislike green curry if that were the case ?
Just because Yingluck consults her brother doesn’t mean she is beholden to him. I want to see Yingluck become separate from Thaksin because the Thaksin versus the establishment narrative is toxic.
Here’s one reason why we can’t have nice things in the media: President Obama gave a joint press conference early this morning (U.S. time) in Bangkok with the Prime Minister of Thailand. They discussed the fighting in Gaza, human rights, trade and the so-called “fiscal cliff.” But what was Fox News’ first reaction? The good looks of Obama’s Thai counterpart. Oh, and his comments about Thai food.
To their credit, Fox News was the only news network to cover the entire news conference, according to Mediaite. But given Fox’s usual lack of interest in Obama’s public remarks, I can’t help but think they had a reporter champing at the bit for a gotcha question or were desperately hoping he’d make a faux pas on Israel (he didn’t) or Benghazi (it didn’t come up, much to Fox’s disappointment, I’m sure).
Fox & Friends co-host Clayton Morris noted that the press conference “touched on everything from Thai food (everyone laughed appreciatively) to what’s going on in Israel… and also human rights abuses in and around the Asian region as well.” Then co-host Dave Briggs jumped in:
Two real observations from the folks on Twitter this morning. And one is the relative attractiveness of the Prime Minister of Thailand (Morris nodded his head in emphatic agreement and co-host Ainsley Earhardt said, “She’s quite beautiful”) another being the President’s thoughts on Thai food! I mean, that is going deep but that is speaking my language!
Earhardt did quickly say that Prime Minister тАкYingluck ShinawatraтАм is “also very smart.” And the entire Curvy Couch Crew complimented her for speaking English. But if they had bothered to do any research, they might have known that she got a master’s degree at Kentucky State University.
Finally, after those “enlightening” insights from the hosts, they tossed to reporter Wendell Goler
Interesting, but I thought the article neglected the most important issue: the refusal of Cambodia, as current chair of ASEAN, to allow a joint declaration by ASEAN on the South China Sea dispute due to pressure from China. The US wants ASEAN solidarity on this issue in order to isolate China, while China wants to treat the issue on a bilateral level, where presumably it could get its way.
The South China Sea is of immense importance to China strategically. Most of its energy needs passes through this region. If there were a future conflict with a great power, China would need to control this region in order to prevail. Hence China’s willingness to expend a lot of diplomatic capital to assert its interests here.
With Vietnam and now Myanmar in the US camp, only Cambodia is holding out. Presumably Obama wanted to talk Hun Sen around to the US line, but seems to have failed. (Interestingly, at least privately, Thaksin appears to be backing Hun Sen’s approach of acquiescing to China’s demand that the issue be dealt with bilaterally (see http://www.forbes.com/sites/timferguson/2012/10/30/qa-thaksin-sits-down-with-forbes/4/). Thaksin and Hun Sen have a common interest in opposing Thailand’s royalists, who not long ago were shelling Cambodian villagers on the Thai-Cambodian border. So it’s possible Thailand may also secretly be backing Cambodia. Also, of all the nations of ASEAN Thailand has the strongest relations with China).
Another very interesting issue is that if Cambodia is aligning itself more with Chinese interests, what will this mean for Cambodia’s formerly close relations with Vietnam? And will Cambodia be drawing closer to Thailand?
But I have a quibble on one point where you write: “…On a broader stage, Obama’s visit is another sign that Yingluck is internationally accepted as a leader in her own right, further weakening the claim that she is a puppet of her exiled brother…”
I can’t see any evidence for this, and much evidence against it.
A few photo-ops shouldn’t be seen as evidence that Yinglak is not beholden to her brother.
Yinglak has been in politics for less than two years. It is difficult to believe that she could suddenly run a mass political party – and the country – as her brother has been doing for much of the last 12 years, and having been in politics for the decade prior to this. We know that Thaksin is in contact with Yinglak regularly, as often as 2-3 times a week according to the recent Forbes interview with Thaksin (according to the same interview Thaksin also met with Kissinger, and is in contact with China’s leaders, Hun Sen, and other world leaders). We also know that Thaksin regularly meets Puea Thai MPs.
But the more important point is that by saying approvingly that Yinglak is not a puppet you risk falling into the royalist argument. You appear to be agreeing that Yinglak SHOULD NOT be a puppet for Thaksin, which is what the royalists have been demanding.
My question is, why not?
Firstly, at the last election Peua Thai campaigned on a platform, “Thaksin thinks, Puea Thai does”. That’s what got them elected. That’s why Thaksin has won the last five elections. So why should Thaksin not call the shots?
But secondly, and more importantly, why shouldn’t Yinglak represent her brother? He has been driven out of politics by a coup, a politically-motivated court case engineered by his royalist enemies, not to mention threats of assassination. Thaksin has every right to have a representative (whether it’s a sister or brother-in-law or whoever) at the head of his political party when the royalists prevent him from doing so himself by these extra-parliamentary means.
All this is not to say that Yinglak does not have some very good political skills of her own. But the idea that she is, or should be, independent of Thaksin is wrong, in my view.
On the issue of cross-ethnic class-based solidarity, I’ve got an article in the October 2012 issue of Sojourn titled “Cross-ethnic labour solidarities among Myanmar workers in Thailand”, which may be of further interest.
In the eyes of a Cambodian youth, Obama’s visit to Cambodia is a missing opportunity. He was so overwhelmed with human rights issues and with one Cambodian man that he failed to speak or do something to inspire the mass Cambodian youth and people, who after decades of civil war caused by both domestic and international circumstances are looking for positiveness, acceptance, inspiration etc. He failed to leave any great/ inspiring image for Cambodian people to remember of his historic visit to this tiny nation. We were waiting for the arrival of the world’s most superpower country, that his arrival should bring great meaning to our country and people. Instead, he just came and then left. I am also a supporter of human rights, but the ways the president sent the messages to the countries he visited is seen as unfair to Cambodia. In Thailand, he did not mention about human rights issues in the deep South and the political prisoners under the lese majeste law…
Well Wen Jiabao had his audience with the King. A very stiff affair it must be said. Watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S9xAepnk6I . The King does not appear to speak – in fact almost nods off at the very end, and who could blame him.
But surely this is also an interesting symbolic marker in Thailand’s political history when the Chinese Premier is carefully given equal status to long time US allies. No doubt noted by Obama’s team.
From the bemoaning and hissing of HR groups and their ilk, it is clear that the most significant factor is Obama endorsement of RMTDD, and legitimizing U Thein Sein as The overseer.
Going now beyond being the mouth piece must recruit among the military part/guns of the MPs that are willing to see this checked and balance of guns vs Laws/legislation prevail.
U Thein Sien can easily accomplish the above within the constraints of RMTDD, defined loosely and approved by SPDC/guns, while persuading the guns for restraint when the Laws can clearly be more beneficial to all.
Let hope it will take less than the useless careless period to make the legislative part of check and balance indispensable even to the military/guns.
Thus making Don Jameson:
“–whether it might be reversed at some point.”
Unwarranted.
Until then the military will continue to create more problems than it has meant to solve since 1962.
The difference now and then?
A now pragmatic and involved West as opposed to a permissive absentee West.
As expected Don Jameson’s article was full of good sense. There should, however, be more strong criticism of the Americans trying to pressure him against Cambodia. Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch has been lying about Cambodia for years. See his submission to the US Senate about the 1993 election and my comment on my website, “Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome in Cambodia” (search’Brad Adams’). Lies about that election are still in recent issues of Cambodia Daily, showing that the editors of that would-be press organ do not know what the election was about.
As for the real problems in Cambodia which might reasonably have been discussed, Thailand has them all in spades, but no one points the finger in that direction. Thailand was of course a good anti-Communist US ally and sent troops to Vietnam, while the present Cambodia came into being because of strong Vietnamese aid. See end of “Kicking Vietnam Syundrome”, In the view of one of the most experienced reporters on Southeast Asian affairs, Philip Bowring [writing in 2008], Cambodia along with Viet Nam, “have exceeded most expectations in combining stability and increasing prosperity”, while “the two leading middle-sized, middle-income states, Thailand and Malaysia [with which Cambodia has, by too many western observers, been invidiously compared since 1979] are casting a shadow over the region” as their regimes and societies are collapsing into farce – indeed to the extent that the Thai Foreign Minister, in a talk at Johns Hopkins University, characterized his country as “behaving like a banana republic”, while Hun Sen increasingly appears as a wise statesman. [ Philip Bowring, “Farcical, maybe, but serious too”, International Herald Tribune, 12 September 2008, p. 7. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, IHT 15 April 2010, p. 3. And as noted in an earlier publication, “one of its senior statesmen has warned of collapse into a ‘failed state’”. ]
“We Nobel Peace Prize laureates condemn the persecution Bradley Manning has suffered, including imprisonment in conditions declared “cruel, inhuman and degrading” by the United Nations, and call upon US citizens to stand up in support of this whistleblower who defended their democratic rights.”
Please wait and see what’s about to happen in Thailand politics by Nov. 24-25th. A gigantic anti government demonstration preceding a military coupe, well planned and funded by the Royalists & people in & around the Palace. It’s their last struggle to survive despite the US & China warning.
Without going into any detail, the situation in 1932 and today are more or less completely different. I don’t think that any conclusions from that time can be taken for today. Nevertheless the book of Thawat is very interesting and useful, not the least as it provides a slightly different interpretation of the periode prior to 1932 then most other so-called “histories”
I attended the AEPF and visited the relocated villagers 26 km away from Vientiane. Our visit resulted in a fact sheet to the delegations and this article:
I do sometimes wonder if there is a US interest in keeping Thai democracy weak.
On the one hand they make all the right noises publicly but, on the other, as the Thai cables revealed, they are secretly sucking up to the coupmakers. And while the cables only really gave an insight into 2006 it almost a certainty that the US have backed every single coup.
Maybe the US realise that a more democratic Thailand might see its interests being better served by closer links to China? The cultural and social links are already there and this will only grow when ASEAN opens up more. Also China is the future economic power, not the USA.
Maybe the USA military relationship with Thailand has been understated in all the post-Obama visit analysis?
Thailand is still considered as a plaything of the US defence establishment – lots of contracts, lots of contractors and lots of cash. And that’s before the long-term strategic details are taken into account.
So who will guarantee the US that that status quo is preserved? Well, the Thai Army almost certainly has and if Thai democracy is a price to pay for US strategic ends, so be it.
Much historical evidence points to that being the case and Thailand is still well within the US-sphere. And being in the US sphere doesn’t always guarantee apple pie, rock n roll and democracy. Just look at the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan etc.
80 (I predict 82) years on it will be totally unlike the 1932 coup. Almost all watching the maelstrom streamed live will condemn it. The chaos! Bright red blood and yellow pus will flow down gutters. The people are already in control. They just need to convince those stopping them!
Anyone need an ojek? My views are free, and my wheels are cheap.
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Gender, sex and poetry at ANU
This book is a delight. I bought my copy from Amazon about a year ago and I doubt a week goes by without dipping into it. One of the most carefully and lovingly constructed books on my shelf (and I have a few).
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
Also, your accusation about the risk of falling into the royalist argument because the royalists argue Yingluck should be separate from her brother is ridiculous. The royalists may also like green curry. Would you dislike green curry if that were the case ?
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
Just because Yingluck consults her brother doesn’t mean she is beholden to him. I want to see Yingluck become separate from Thaksin because the Thaksin versus the establishment narrative is toxic.
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
Here’s one reason why we can’t have nice things in the media: President Obama gave a joint press conference early this morning (U.S. time) in Bangkok with the Prime Minister of Thailand. They discussed the fighting in Gaza, human rights, trade and the so-called “fiscal cliff.” But what was Fox News’ first reaction? The good looks of Obama’s Thai counterpart. Oh, and his comments about Thai food.
To their credit, Fox News was the only news network to cover the entire news conference, according to Mediaite. But given Fox’s usual lack of interest in Obama’s public remarks, I can’t help but think they had a reporter champing at the bit for a gotcha question or were desperately hoping he’d make a faux pas on Israel (he didn’t) or Benghazi (it didn’t come up, much to Fox’s disappointment, I’m sure).
Fox & Friends co-host Clayton Morris noted that the press conference “touched on everything from Thai food (everyone laughed appreciatively) to what’s going on in Israel… and also human rights abuses in and around the Asian region as well.” Then co-host Dave Briggs jumped in:
Two real observations from the folks on Twitter this morning. And one is the relative attractiveness of the Prime Minister of Thailand (Morris nodded his head in emphatic agreement and co-host Ainsley Earhardt said, “She’s quite beautiful”) another being the President’s thoughts on Thai food! I mean, that is going deep but that is speaking my language!
Earhardt did quickly say that Prime Minister тАкYingluck ShinawatraтАм is “also very smart.” And the entire Curvy Couch Crew complimented her for speaking English. But if they had bothered to do any research, they might have known that she got a master’s degree at Kentucky State University.
Finally, after those “enlightening” insights from the hosts, they tossed to reporter Wendell Goler
Obama in Cambodia and Myanmar
Interesting, but I thought the article neglected the most important issue: the refusal of Cambodia, as current chair of ASEAN, to allow a joint declaration by ASEAN on the South China Sea dispute due to pressure from China. The US wants ASEAN solidarity on this issue in order to isolate China, while China wants to treat the issue on a bilateral level, where presumably it could get its way.
The South China Sea is of immense importance to China strategically. Most of its energy needs passes through this region. If there were a future conflict with a great power, China would need to control this region in order to prevail. Hence China’s willingness to expend a lot of diplomatic capital to assert its interests here.
With Vietnam and now Myanmar in the US camp, only Cambodia is holding out. Presumably Obama wanted to talk Hun Sen around to the US line, but seems to have failed. (Interestingly, at least privately, Thaksin appears to be backing Hun Sen’s approach of acquiescing to China’s demand that the issue be dealt with bilaterally (see http://www.forbes.com/sites/timferguson/2012/10/30/qa-thaksin-sits-down-with-forbes/4/). Thaksin and Hun Sen have a common interest in opposing Thailand’s royalists, who not long ago were shelling Cambodian villagers on the Thai-Cambodian border. So it’s possible Thailand may also secretly be backing Cambodia. Also, of all the nations of ASEAN Thailand has the strongest relations with China).
Another very interesting issue is that if Cambodia is aligning itself more with Chinese interests, what will this mean for Cambodia’s formerly close relations with Vietnam? And will Cambodia be drawing closer to Thailand?
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
Thanks for the timely article.
But I have a quibble on one point where you write: “…On a broader stage, Obama’s visit is another sign that Yingluck is internationally accepted as a leader in her own right, further weakening the claim that she is a puppet of her exiled brother…”
I can’t see any evidence for this, and much evidence against it.
A few photo-ops shouldn’t be seen as evidence that Yinglak is not beholden to her brother.
Yinglak has been in politics for less than two years. It is difficult to believe that she could suddenly run a mass political party – and the country – as her brother has been doing for much of the last 12 years, and having been in politics for the decade prior to this. We know that Thaksin is in contact with Yinglak regularly, as often as 2-3 times a week according to the recent Forbes interview with Thaksin (according to the same interview Thaksin also met with Kissinger, and is in contact with China’s leaders, Hun Sen, and other world leaders). We also know that Thaksin regularly meets Puea Thai MPs.
But the more important point is that by saying approvingly that Yinglak is not a puppet you risk falling into the royalist argument. You appear to be agreeing that Yinglak SHOULD NOT be a puppet for Thaksin, which is what the royalists have been demanding.
My question is, why not?
Firstly, at the last election Peua Thai campaigned on a platform, “Thaksin thinks, Puea Thai does”. That’s what got them elected. That’s why Thaksin has won the last five elections. So why should Thaksin not call the shots?
But secondly, and more importantly, why shouldn’t Yinglak represent her brother? He has been driven out of politics by a coup, a politically-motivated court case engineered by his royalist enemies, not to mention threats of assassination. Thaksin has every right to have a representative (whether it’s a sister or brother-in-law or whoever) at the head of his political party when the royalists prevent him from doing so himself by these extra-parliamentary means.
All this is not to say that Yinglak does not have some very good political skills of her own. But the idea that she is, or should be, independent of Thaksin is wrong, in my view.
Racing for answers in divided Myanmar
On the issue of cross-ethnic class-based solidarity, I’ve got an article in the October 2012 issue of Sojourn titled “Cross-ethnic labour solidarities among Myanmar workers in Thailand”, which may be of further interest.
Obama in Cambodia and Myanmar
In the eyes of a Cambodian youth, Obama’s visit to Cambodia is a missing opportunity. He was so overwhelmed with human rights issues and with one Cambodian man that he failed to speak or do something to inspire the mass Cambodian youth and people, who after decades of civil war caused by both domestic and international circumstances are looking for positiveness, acceptance, inspiration etc. He failed to leave any great/ inspiring image for Cambodian people to remember of his historic visit to this tiny nation. We were waiting for the arrival of the world’s most superpower country, that his arrival should bring great meaning to our country and people. Instead, he just came and then left. I am also a supporter of human rights, but the ways the president sent the messages to the countries he visited is seen as unfair to Cambodia. In Thailand, he did not mention about human rights issues in the deep South and the political prisoners under the lese majeste law…
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
Well Wen Jiabao had his audience with the King. A very stiff affair it must be said. Watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S9xAepnk6I . The King does not appear to speak – in fact almost nods off at the very end, and who could blame him.
But surely this is also an interesting symbolic marker in Thailand’s political history when the Chinese Premier is carefully given equal status to long time US allies. No doubt noted by Obama’s team.
Kean on Obama’s visit
From the bemoaning and hissing of HR groups and their ilk, it is clear that the most significant factor is Obama endorsement of RMTDD, and legitimizing U Thein Sein as The overseer.
Going now beyond being the mouth piece must recruit among the military part/guns of the MPs that are willing to see this checked and balance of guns vs Laws/legislation prevail.
U Thein Sien can easily accomplish the above within the constraints of RMTDD, defined loosely and approved by SPDC/guns, while persuading the guns for restraint when the Laws can clearly be more beneficial to all.
Let hope it will take less than the useless careless period to make the legislative part of check and balance indispensable even to the military/guns.
Thus making Don Jameson:
“–whether it might be reversed at some point.”
Unwarranted.
Until then the military will continue to create more problems than it has meant to solve since 1962.
The difference now and then?
A now pragmatic and involved West as opposed to a permissive absentee West.
Kean on Obama’s visit
So Kean is the Inside Story anonymous correspondent? Quality work.
Obama in Cambodia and Myanmar
As expected Don Jameson’s article was full of good sense. There should, however, be more strong criticism of the Americans trying to pressure him against Cambodia. Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch has been lying about Cambodia for years. See his submission to the US Senate about the 1993 election and my comment on my website, “Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome in Cambodia” (search’Brad Adams’). Lies about that election are still in recent issues of Cambodia Daily, showing that the editors of that would-be press organ do not know what the election was about.
As for the real problems in Cambodia which might reasonably have been discussed, Thailand has them all in spades, but no one points the finger in that direction. Thailand was of course a good anti-Communist US ally and sent troops to Vietnam, while the present Cambodia came into being because of strong Vietnamese aid. See end of “Kicking Vietnam Syundrome”, In the view of one of the most experienced reporters on Southeast Asian affairs, Philip Bowring [writing in 2008], Cambodia along with Viet Nam, “have exceeded most expectations in combining stability and increasing prosperity”, while “the two leading middle-sized, middle-income states, Thailand and Malaysia [with which Cambodia has, by too many western observers, been invidiously compared since 1979] are casting a shadow over the region” as their regimes and societies are collapsing into farce – indeed to the extent that the Thai Foreign Minister, in a talk at Johns Hopkins University, characterized his country as “behaving like a banana republic”, while Hun Sen increasingly appears as a wise statesman. [ Philip Bowring, “Farcical, maybe, but serious too”, International Herald Tribune, 12 September 2008, p. 7. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, IHT 15 April 2010, p. 3. And as noted in an earlier publication, “one of its senior statesmen has warned of collapse into a ‘failed state’”. ]
Kean on Obama’s visit
“one political prisoner is one too many”
– At least three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates consider Bradley Manning to be a political prisoner.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/16/bradley-manning-americans-support
“We Nobel Peace Prize laureates condemn the persecution Bradley Manning has suffered, including imprisonment in conditions declared “cruel, inhuman and degrading” by the United Nations, and call upon US citizens to stand up in support of this whistleblower who defended their democratic rights.”
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
Please wait and see what’s about to happen in Thailand politics by Nov. 24-25th. A gigantic anti government demonstration preceding a military coupe, well planned and funded by the Royalists & people in & around the Palace. It’s their last struggle to survive despite the US & China warning.
Remaking the Nam Hinboun
Great post. Thanks for highlighting Watson’s response.
Obama in Cambodia and Myanmar
Ko Aung Zaw is an example of being a patriot.
As well as Ko Thant-Myint U.
These are the the strength within that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi need to ally with for a long lasting and enduring transition to a bettter Myanmar.
1932/2012: Reflecting on revolution
Without going into any detail, the situation in 1932 and today are more or less completely different. I don’t think that any conclusions from that time can be taken for today. Nevertheless the book of Thawat is very interesting and useful, not the least as it provides a slightly different interpretation of the periode prior to 1932 then most other so-called “histories”
Don Chan: once were tomatoes
I attended the AEPF and visited the relocated villagers 26 km away from Vientiane. Our visit resulted in a fact sheet to the delegations and this article:
http://www.dw.de/accusations-of-landgrabbing-overshadow-asem/a-16359368
Bhumibol, Obama, Yingluck
I do sometimes wonder if there is a US interest in keeping Thai democracy weak.
On the one hand they make all the right noises publicly but, on the other, as the Thai cables revealed, they are secretly sucking up to the coupmakers. And while the cables only really gave an insight into 2006 it almost a certainty that the US have backed every single coup.
Maybe the US realise that a more democratic Thailand might see its interests being better served by closer links to China? The cultural and social links are already there and this will only grow when ASEAN opens up more. Also China is the future economic power, not the USA.
Maybe the USA military relationship with Thailand has been understated in all the post-Obama visit analysis?
Thailand is still considered as a plaything of the US defence establishment – lots of contracts, lots of contractors and lots of cash. And that’s before the long-term strategic details are taken into account.
So who will guarantee the US that that status quo is preserved? Well, the Thai Army almost certainly has and if Thai democracy is a price to pay for US strategic ends, so be it.
Much historical evidence points to that being the case and Thailand is still well within the US-sphere. And being in the US sphere doesn’t always guarantee apple pie, rock n roll and democracy. Just look at the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan etc.
1932/2012: Reflecting on revolution
80 (I predict 82) years on it will be totally unlike the 1932 coup. Almost all watching the maelstrom streamed live will condemn it. The chaos! Bright red blood and yellow pus will flow down gutters. The people are already in control. They just need to convince those stopping them!
Anyone need an ojek? My views are free, and my wheels are cheap.