Thais generally want Thailand to do well anywhere. When it comes to sports, for example, we have even learned the rules of volleyball to support our women's national team, which has shot up from nowhere to be in the global top 10. But when it comes to diplomacy, where Thailand used to be world class, local cheering recently has not led to international results.
The latest casualty of Thailand's diminished international standing took place in New York, where Bangkok made a decade-long effort to win one of the 10 non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Such a setback understandably brings time to commiserate and comfort each other with the aim of doing better next time. But it is also time for tough takeaway lessons. Foremost is that Thailand must get its house in order before making such a costly international pitch again, that it cannot expect to gain international acceptance while having a military government that has curbed basic freedoms and repressed its own people.
In the first tally, where pledged support among the UN's 193 members is kept, Kazakhstan as Thailand's sole competitor came out on top with a 113-77 count. With a two-thirds requirement, the second "free" vote without pledges and obligations left no doubt. The 138-55 count left Thailand in the dust, and left Team Thailand with questions unanswered. For some US$20 million (700 million baht) reportedly spent on the UNSC campaign, from wining and dining to pricey flights to lobby far-flung governments and fancy receptions in New York, what was there to show for if the losing margin was so large? This whopping gap suggests we had no chance.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
Many have pointed out that Kazakhstan just fit the bill better in most categories. Unlike Thailand, it had never been on the UNSC. It offered a concrete selling point to the UN in denuclearisation, sounding the right tune for the international community. It reportedly spent more than twice as much as Thailand on the globe-trotting lobbying trail. It is also in Central Asia, a region that counts as part of the Asia-Pacific quota but is traditionally underrepresented at the UN.
Unsurprisingly, Astana had the backing of Moscow and Beijing, two of the UN's five permanent members. The three countries enjoy old ties that date back to communist times in past decades when Kazakhstan was part of the former Soviet Union. Since its latest military coup in May 2014, Thailand's military government has been wooing China and Russia for recognition and trade ties, while being criticised by Western countries for taking an authoritarian turn and clamping down on basic rights and freedoms. Ironically, it is reportedly these Western countries -- the United States, the United Kingdom and France, the other three UN permanent members -- that supported Thailand's UNSC bid.
To be sure, non-permanent UNSC seats are not decided by human rights and democracy records. Kazakhstan does not outshine Thailand on the democracy and human rights ledger. But perceptions have mattered over the years.
Kazakhstan has never been known as a bastion of democracy and human rights. Thailand, however, was seen as getting there only to have reversed its course for authoritarian rule, leaving many feeling jilted. Thailand's multiple governments, twin coups and a string of foreign ministers fed into global perceptions of a country that has gone off the rails.
For these reasons, Thailand should have abandoned the bid, saved us a large sum, and owned up to our military dictatorship that the world broadly no longer countenances coups in this day and age, unlike during the Cold War when Thai coups did not matter much abroad.
For Team Thailand, this is a tough loss. The Foreign Ministry is one of the country's top talent pools (second only to the central bank) because its entrance system is so rigorous, selective, and comparatively merit-driven. Yet professional Thai diplomats have had to work for inferior political bosses. For roughly half of the past decade, the Foreign Ministry was dominated by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, his clan and their political party machine.
When the Thaksin side was in charge, much of the foreign policy work involved battling with the other side at home in foreign arenas, such as the Preah Vihear temple case. Much of the effort was spent looking after Thaksin himself. There was a time when Thailand's foreign minister was Thaksin's part-time passport manager, equipped with democratic legitimacy but no diplomatic stature. During the rest of the past decade, the Foreign Ministry was busy keeping the Thaksin side at bay and explaining and justifying Thailand's twin coups to the world, armed with some stature but little legitimacy. Although its diplomats remain able and ready, Thailand's Foreign Ministry has not been doing foreign policy work directly for a decade.
But we knew all of this while conducting the UNSC race. In hindsight, it would have been better if we had cut our losses and accepted our diminished place in the global pecking order. Rarely has a country that has been known for its diplomatic prowess and pride sunk so low in the global arena.
Yet the authorities currently in charge wanted to prove that they can have their cake and eat it, too, by having a recurrent coup against international norms and a military government that the world should accept because it is a special case. The chief UNSC lesson should be that the world expects more of Thailand, that we are not as special as we would like foreigners to see us.