Among Southeast Asia's governments, Thailand's may regret the most Donald Trump's departure from the White House. The government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has benefited from the Trump administration's de-emphasis of human rights and democracy in favour of geostrategic interests. A shift in emphasis under President-elect Joe Biden's administration is likely to ensnare the Thailand-United States treaty alliance in Thai domestic politics.
The pro-democracy side of the Thai political divide, which is led by younger generations under 40, will be looking for international solidarity and support, while the royalist-military regime will try to keep a lid on protests at home and democracy voices from abroad at bay. As a result, Thai-US relations will likely experience more friction under Mr Biden compared to the rather smooth ride Mr Trump gave the Thai military authorities.
An early sign of this trend is the recent non-binding US Senate resolution by Democratic senators in support of Thailand pro-democracy movement. None of this kind of overt support was evident under Mr Trump's watch.
While Mr Trump was abrasive, ill-tempered and dismissive of regional norms, much of the region approved of his policies. He was the first US leader to recognise and act on the breakdown of the post-war liberal international order. His administration understood that China posed a fundamental challenge to the regional status quo and pushed back against Beijing's attempts to change it in its favour. Freedom of Navigation Operational Patrols (FONOPS) undermined China's South China Sea claims, and the regular dispatch of warships kept strategic planners in Beijing off balance. Especially valuable were military exercises with regional partners and allies that built capacity and relationships.
Mr Trump's trade and technology war embraced a "decoupling" that pushed companies to reroute supply chains through Southeast Asia. Regional governments have been quick to seize that opportunity, offering incentives to attract new investment. Regional autocrats were happy that the Trump administration focused on Chinese misbehaviour rather than their own, and disregarded stains on their own democratic credentials. In the case of Thailand, Mr Trump hosted Gen Prayut, who had overthrown a democratically elected government in 2014, at the White House in October 2017.
Southeast Asian states have broadly had a positive assessment of the Trump administration.
While they bristle when asked to choose between the US and China, Asean nations recognised that intensified competition between Washington and Beijing created room for diplomatic manoeuvre. Neither was willing to antagonise a potential supporter or drive a government into the opposing camp. The region's importance was reinforced by the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept that guided the Trump administration. One need only look at a map to grasp the centrality of the region to US strategy. If Southeast Asia was critical to US policy, then Thailand, the largest country and only US ally in mainland Southeast Asia, assumed even more significance.
By and large, Thais understand that US relations with Southeast Asia in general and Thailand in particular will undergo a qualitative shift in tone and direction under Mr Biden. But they also want the Free and Open Indo-Pacific policy, or something like it, to survive the Trump administration. The preceding Barack Obama government's "rebalance" to Asia also used the Indo-Pacific as its geographical frame, but Thailand and Southeast Asia more broadly distinguish between it and the FOIP in one critical way: The rebalance was more talk than substance. Mr Obama is credited with understanding Southeast Asia and engaging on its terms. He showed up at Asean-led summits, deploying lofty rhetoric that matched the region's own insecurities and ambitions.
Yet there was a sense that Mr Obama did not have the stomach for the rough and tumble of regional geopolitics, especially when dealing with China. While regional governments believe in consensus-building and seek input to important decisions, they are realistic as well. They don't want America's multilateralism to provide cover for a failure to stand up to China's revisionism. For Southeast Asians, the US version of FOIP meant pushing back against China with all instruments and available resources. Mr Biden would do well to combine both the Trump and Obama approaches: tone down the rhetoric while standing firm against China and working with allies and partners to maintain regional peace and prosperity.
Mr Biden is likely to pursue a more traditional US foreign policy whereby human rights and civil liberties will reassume weight and prominence. How the US recalibrates democratic values and geostrategic interests will be consequential for Southeast Asia and Thailand, which is still struggling with the effects of the 2014 coup. Thailand is in the midst of an existential internal conflict over its political future. Once divided between red and yellow, urban and rural, today national divisions are generational: 40 is the dividing line. Younger Thais are eager to end political squabbling that has consumed their country for two decades, and are clamouring to modernise their country's political institutions, particularly the military and monarchy.
For the most part, the international community has sat this out. Mr Trump never spoke out against Thailand's military government. A Biden administration may feel compelled to stand more publicly for democracy and human rights. This will create tension in bilateral relations at times, although it need not downgrade them as occurred when the Obama administration imposed sanctions after the 2014 coup.
The US must not be silent but it should not throw fuel on the fire. This is a Thai fight. Balance is key. Washington should be supportive of democracy and rights without lining up directly behind the student-led protest movement for Thailand's overdue reform. A focus on democracy and human rights is unlikely to drive Thailand into China's arms any more than is already the case. A victory for the students, perhaps manifested as reform and compromise, is likely to yield a future Thai government more inclined to challenge the inroads China has made in their economy and the political influence it has gained as a result.
It is open knowledge that Thailand has been under-performing and underwhelming in its economic potential, foreign relations, and overall strategic heft because of navel-gazing and costly conflict at home. Accordingly, the Biden administration needs to bear in mind Thailand's struggle to arrive in the 21st century with a workable democratic system that subsumes a monarchy within it rather than a royalist political order that suppresses popular grievances.
The Biden government would do well to recalibrate and rebalance democratic values and geostrategic interests by standing up for democracy and basic rights while standing up to China at the same time. Mr Biden does not have to be like Obama in posture and projection any more than he has to reject all that Mr Trump has done. If Mr Biden can find a way to be armed with democratic values without alienating regional states like Thailand, while taking China to task with muscle and resources on geostrategic battlegrounds from the South China Sea to mainland Southeast Asia, the US will likely stand in good stead in Bangkok and other Southeast Asian capitals.
Brad Glosserman is deputy director of and visiting professor at the Center for Rule Making Strategies at Tama University in Tokyo, and Thitinan Pongsudhirak, PhD, teaches at the Faculty of Political Science and directs the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. An earlier version of this article appeared in Pacific Forum's PacNet.