Principle, not profit, foremost in foreign affairs

THAILAND'S FOREIGN POLICY

The protracted political crisis has so far left the realm of foreign affairs in this country indeed foreign. There is a big question if Thai diplomacy is a casualty of the conflict and left in a moribund state.

Since Thaksin Shinawatra was toppled in a military coup in September 2006, Thailand has arguably survived without a foreign policy. Successive governments were too preoccupied with having to fight for their political existence. The unending political wrangling between various factions effectively put the country's foreign policy on the back burner.

Some Thais found it difficult to imagine if having a clear foreign policy was necessarily a good thing, especially if such foreign policy is to be made in the same way it was under Thaksin's rule.

What was wrong with Thaksin's foreign policy?

Thaksin himself would argue that he successfully elevated Thailand's international standing from obscurity to hegemonisation, through a myriad grandiose foreign policy initiatives, including the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) and the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (Acmecs), and therefore transformed Thailand from a mid-range power into the region's leading nation.

Thailand a la Thaksin became a donor country.

He promoted a business-oriented foreign policy that was designed to aggressively search for more markets for Thai products. Numerous free trade agreements were signed.

He even nominated his foreign minister, Surakiart Sathirathai, for the position of United Nations secretary-general.

Thaksin was never short of ambitious objectivess.

Thaksin also revamped the Foreign Ministry, with the CEO ambassador scheme being put in place. He then began to "colonise" this state agency and turned it into a policy-making factory that served his domestic needs, legitimate or otherwise.

Yet, Thaksin's foreign policy was as much ambitious as artificial. His impressive initiatives simply overlooked the national capacity and constraints. More importantly, they were tainted by conflicts of interest involving the corporate concerns of the Shinawatra family. His personal business interests in neighbouring countries revealed the exploitative nature of Thai foreign policy.

Under the Abhisit administration, Thai foreign policy has undergone an extreme makeover. The Democrat-led government has rejected Thaksin's business-first mentality and re-introduced a seemingly principle-based foreign policy. This time principle, not profit, represents the mainstay of Thai diplomacy.

By denouncing Thaksin's past initiatives, the current government hopes it would also de-legitimise his foreign policy - a much-needed strategy to alienate Thaksin further from Thai political circles.

Members of the academia and local media seem to have embraced Mr Abhisit's new direction in Thai foreign policy. His government has spent the past six months fixing the country's diplomatic missteps caused by Thaksin and his cronies.

Thailand's cosy relations with her immediate neighbours, during the Thaksin years, were mostly built on personal relations, and sometimes did not necessarily reflect national interests. The Abhisit administration has re-invented Thai foreign policy to become more accountable, especially in the year Thailand is chairing Asean.

Because his government has no record of civilian supremacy, injecting a democratic principle in foreign policy might just redeem a sense of legitimacy it sorely needs in these hours of political turbulence.

Last month, the government issued a statement, on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, voicing grave concern at the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, in which she is charged with violating her house arrest rules by allowing American John Yettaw into her residence. Thailand saw the need to toughen its stance and that of Asean vis-a-vis the Burmese junta to prove the country's respect for democracy - a position extolled by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The media called it a renaissance of the "flexible engagement policy" initiated by the Democrat Party in the late 1990s. It legitimised the Thai concern over the troubling domestic situation in the neighbouring country especially if it had the potential to create a negative impact on Thailand.

Burma's response to the Thai statement was predictable. It reproached Asean's statement and criticised Thailand for breaching the non-interference rule. What followed was the Burmese army's attacks on the Karen National Union which disturbed the Thai-Burmese border by the influx of Burmese refugees fleeing the fighting, probably as punishment for Thailand's hard-line policy towards Rangoon.

With Cambodia, Thailand may have continued to play a nationalistic card in the Preah Vihear temple case. At a deeper level, what the Abhisit government has done in "de-personalising" Thai policy towards Cambodia should be commended. Many Thai-Cambodian shady businesses were reportedly promoted by the Thaksin regime. This explains why Thai policy has often been held hostage by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Hun Sen has been known for his sharp tongue. He once angrily responded, "Suvanand was not even worth a blade of grass at Angkor."

In 2003, Thai actress Suvanand Kongying, was misquoted as saying that Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand, an incident that caused the ransacking of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh.

More recently, Hun Sen confronted the Thai leadership, suggesting that Thailand should give up its Asean chairmanship because of its escalating domestic situation.

He himself is a devout nationalist, often speaking about the use of force against Thailand to protect so-called Cambodian sovereignty. His love for Thaksin remains evident.

The latest Thai opposition to the UN declaration at the World Heritage meeting in Spain, with a proposal that the grounds of the disputed temple be placed under joint Thai-Cambodian maintenance, could be perceived not only as a defence of Thai interests, but also a bold move in Thai diplomacy which refuses to become too elastic in accordance with the preferences of Cambodian leaders like in the past.

Domestically, Thai politics seems to have calmed down, at least for now. This allows the government to rethink and reformulate its future foreign policy. So far, the making of a more responsible and transparent diplomacy has been met with a favourable response from foreign ministry officials.

But not everyone appreciates the latest reinvention of Thai foreign policy. Starkly differing judgements continue to surround the Abhisit government's push for a new direction in the country's foreign policy, which can come across as belligerent and antagonistic towards Thai neighbours.

However, as the Abhisit government has consistently argued, Thailand might have gained a few enemies as a result of its tougher diplomacy.

But the country's foreign policy, for the first time since 2001, has definitely gained a more ethical and moral reputation.

• Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun, author of the forthcoming "Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin Shinawatra and His Foreign Policy" is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

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