Much has been said of the ongoing global power shift from West to East, from North to South, from developed to developing countries, and so forth.
A painting on the walls of the US embassy depicts the national flags of Thailand and the US and the Statue of Liberty. The US ‘pivot to Asia’ highlights the shift of global economic power from the West to Asia. But for politics on the ground where ordinary people are affected, the asymmetric nature of global power and wealth between the West and East persists in visa applications and approvals which need to be amended with a visa reciprocity system. PATIPAT JANTHONG
Generally, global power and wealth are seen as shifting from North America and Europe towards Asia, with its two giants, China and India, and the dynamic and resource-rice economies straddling the Asian landmass from South Korea and Japan to Southeast Asia all the way to the Persian Gulf.
Hence the fanfare over the speculated "Asian Century" and the growing literature it has generated.
The asymmetry between the new loci of global power and wealth and the governance structures that underpin them is considered a major source of our global conflict and tension today.
Geopolitical and geoeconomic realities, in other words, require new global institutions and configurations that have become outdated since they were set up in the wake of the Second World War. But all that is the high politics of global power shift.
For low politics on the ground where ordinary people are affected, one need to look no further than the asymmetric nature of global power and wealth and visa applications and approvals.
Thailand, as a rising country from the developing world, needs to recalibrate its visa regime and bring it in line with the country's place in the global pecking order.
Every traveller is likely to have a horrible visa story to tell. Thai authorities do not treat immigrants well in many cases. Some foreigners who are gainfully employed or sustainably retired here in Thailand are regularly maltreated and harassed by Thai authorities. Visa renewals for foreigners are a laborious exercise of having to get out and back in the country for a new three-month stamp.
Those who are well-heeled and secure in their income, deserving of longer-term visas, are treated like second- and third-class aliens. Migrant workers from neighbouring countries, with and without documentation, receive appallingly poor treatment, including extortion. There is no doubt Thailand's immigration agencies, particularly the police, can do a better job.
At the same time, there exist in Thailand foreigners who are less desirable. Some of them are louts and misfits unable to make it in their country but are well accommodated in permissive and "anything-goes" Thailand, where living and livelihood are comparatively easy and good value.
Thai business rackets peddle a lucrative trade in visa renewals in cahoots with immigration authorities.
And there is a wide assortment of foreigners in the business of mischief and illicit crimes who deserve more official scrutiny.
Thailand is not unlike other countries with a large number of foreign residents. But when it comes to visas, the asymmetries are protrusive. Except Asean countries and South Korea _ the latter exempts Thais from visa requirements because Thai soldiers fought for their side in the Korean War _ ordinary Thai passport holders have to acquire visas for wherever they go.
It used to be the case long ago when many Thais overstayed their visas. In the United States in the 1960s and 70s, these Thais were known as "Robinhoods", illegally working and repatriating dollars home. Unless they derived from moneyed families or were funded by government scholarships, few Thais could afford a private education in US universities. The same goes for Thais in Britain and elsewhere.
Few Thai companies back then could hardly have hoped to invest in the West. It was all one way then. The West was where the wealth and power, ideas and technology, and the best schools resided. And it was where we went.
Now the situation has changed and the visa landscape is one of the most uneven playing fields in the dynamics of the global power shift.
Many Westerners now come to our shores to retire, seek cheap and good healthcare and marry Thai women for twilight care and companionship. A top Western diplomat quit in the middle of his tenure to join a Thai multinational enterprise. Other top Western diplomats want to drum up Thai investments in their countries as more Thai companies pour money into the West.
London condos are being sold at The Siam Paragon shopping mall, and Western schools and universities are advertising here weekly to garner Thai students and the money they would bring.
Thus there needs to be visa reciprocity where Thailand is concerned. It is a troubling sight to see Thais being put through the painstaking hassle of visa applications when almost all of them are only going to spend and invest money in Western countries on education, tourism and business.
While they now spend large sums for private education in the West, young Thais and their guardians have to wait anxiously in austere and intimidating holding rooms to receive their visas. Thai tourists, who are mad shoppers with considerable depths of spending power everywhere they go, have to endure long queues and the inferiority of having to justify and plead for permission to visit Western countries.
Part of the problem is that many embassies now privatise their consular work by outsourcing the front end of it to a monstrous 12-year-old monopoly called VFS Global, which runs visa application centres in several dozen countries, especially Commonwealth countries such as United Kingdom and India.
Without VFS, embassies would need more consular officers and local staff to handle visa applications. But with VFS, local applicants get the short end of the stick in two ways. They pay much more _ UK visas, for example, are a commercial enterprise _ and they get the same brooding service at the visa windows.
Instead of service-minded, customer-friendly smiles for exorbitant fees like a 75-baht SMS, VFS gatekeepers are akin to colonial mandarins whose job is to keep colonial masters at the top and local subjects subservient. Monopolists are not made to be service-minded and customer-friendly.
It is of course the burden of the visitors to obtain appropriate visas. If Thais can't come up with good enough universities, then their children will have to go abroad and pay more. If Thais want to visit Western sites and enjoy cooler climes, they have to put up and pay. But there is no reason why Thai immigration authorities should not strengthen our visa regime and seek visa reciprocity.
Thailand should do away with "visas on arrival". Why should Westerners show up and gain entry on arrival for a month when Thais have arduous encounters trying to get a visa to spend money in Western countries?
This removal would help us weed out tourist arrivals to focus on higher-end travellers. The cost structure of Thai visas overseas should be brought in line with international visa costs.
If outsourcing front-office consular work is required, Thailand should seek alternatives to VFS to promote competition. Thailand should bolster intra-Asian tourism much like its domestic tourism campaigns. There is so much history and so many sites to see in our Asia. There are Singapore's universities for our students and Japan's and South Korea's landscapes for those seeking cooler climes.
Thailand is a proud country, its people characterised by a rare joie de vivre spirit. It is time Thailand stands up for its travellers. Visa reciprocity should be our guiding principle on immigration matters vis-a-vis the countries from where relative power and wealth are shifting on the way towards our neighbourhood.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.