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The Sino-American Rivalry and the 2014 Coup in Thailand: Part II

China’s tactic has been cautious and very diplomatic. Thailand and China established its diplomatic ties in 1975. Throughout the latter half of the Cold War, Thailand and China formed a loose military alignment against the advancement of Vietnamese communists in Indochina. After the end of the Cold War, bilateral relations have remained healthy thanks to the absence of territorial disputes, the firm ties between the Thai royal family and the Chinese leadership, and the well-integrated Chinese community in Thailand. Thaksin, a model of successful Thai-Chinese, took advantage of his Chinese ancestral roots and a new surge in public awareness about China to craft a China-favoured policy to satisfy domestic enthusiasm for a closer relationship with Beijing.

A 2006 poll showed that more than 70 per cent of Thais considered China as Thailand’s most important external influence. The Sino-Thai FTA, the first between China and an ASEAN country, took effect on 1 October 2003. The FTA was invented to slash tariffs for fruit and vegetable flows in each other’s market. Thailand claimed that, as a result of his initiated FTA, bilateral trade reached US$3.1 billion, a 23 per cent increase in 2007 when compared with that of 2006.

General Prayuth Chan-ocha meets with a Chinese business delegation

Thailand has subsequently constructed an alliance with China in a similar way as it has done with the United States. The Cobra Gold exercise lent its form and purpose to Thailand’s military rapprochement with China. Since the early 1980s, Thailand has purchased armaments and military-related equipment under this partnership at “friendship prices”, much of which effectively amounted to, in the words of Anthony Smith, “military gift aid”. Although some of these armaments from China were merely scrap, they symbolised close military ties between the two countries. Sino-Thai military links are among some of the most developed in the region — second only to Myanmar, China’s quasi ally. To demonstrate such close links, the Marine Corps of China’s People’s Liberation Army trained with Thai Marines in an exercise which lasted for three weeks (26 October-14 November 2010), in the Gulf of Thailand. Some analysts claim Thailand is intentionally balancing its military and financial dependence on the United States by nurturing better relations with China.

At a deeper level however, Sino-Thai defence exercises and other military exchanges, although progressively advancing over the years, have quantitatively and qualitatively lagged far behind the U.S.-Thai security relations. In early 2010, China proposed joint military exercises to the Thai leaders with an all-expenses paid buffet of air, naval and land drills throughout Thailand’s jungles and coasts. Patrick Winn of the Global Post asserted that the People’s Liberation Army even suggested a replication of America’s centrepiece exercise, a full-on coastal assault led by amphibious vehicles, gunships and helicopters circling the Gulf of Thailand.

Despite its ambition, the People’s Liberation Army still lacks the American gear and expertise that Thailand now enjoys, Ian Storey argued. Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, also noted that a typical Cobra Gold exercise—summoning 12,000 troops and spanning two weeks—dwarfs the largest Sino-Thai drill: a 2005 naval operation that ended in less than four hours. Basically, China does not possess the same military capabilities as those of the United States, and certainly lacks sophisticated military know-how to lure Thailand away from its American friend.

It may be true that the overall Sino-Thai relations have greatly improved over the years and that the scale of Chinese military exercises with Thailand will probably increase in the future. But Thailand’s relationship with China is different from that with the United States. It is much less about security, but more on politics and business. Although China has rapidly modernised its army in the past decades and augments its military budget annually, it will take a while before the country could confidently challenge the US’ military supremacy in Thailand.

In any case, it is expected that Thailand will not allow its defence ties with China to be similar to the Thai-U.S. military relations. Surachart Bamrungsuk, a military specialist at Chulalongkorn University, averred that Thailand remained highly protective of Cobra Gold and its friendship with the United States. Because of incomparable values and firm commitment on the part of the United States as stipulated in the two key defence agreements, Bangkok will likely not attempt to jeopardise its military ties with Washington. Yet, at the same time, the Thai government sees nothing wrong with nurturing an intimate relationship with China in order to diversify its policy options.

Quietly, Thailand is sliding into China’s warm, embracing arms. Most Thai cabinet ministers and powerful businesses in Thailand have significant investments in China. Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand (CP), one of Southeast Asia’s largest companies, has been doing business in China since 1949. Bangkok Bank still has the largest foreign bank branch on Shanghai’s Bund waterfront, only recently have a few other foreign banks gained token footholds on China’s preeminent address. Activities between Thai and Chinese business conglomerates are regularly conducted, with the exchange of visits and the sharing of business information.

Thailand has also welcomed China’s soft power with arms wide open. More Thai students are now keen to learn Mandarin, prompting China to dispatch a large number of language teachers to Thailand.

Clearly, Thailand’s foreign policy toward China has been implemented on the basis of a win-win formula, based on their principal rule of “respecting each other’s sovereignty”. To confirm this, Thailand has repeatedly expressed its one-China policy and the support for China’s sabre-rattling towards Taiwan. In April 2008, the Thaksin-backed Samak Sundaravej government impressed the Chinese leadership in ensuring that the Olympic torch relay passed through Bangkok smoothly and peacefully and stood firm that it would not tolerate the pro-Tibet, anti-Chinese protesters, embarrassing to both Thailand and China. In return, Beijing has avoided intervening in the Thai domestic crisis.

But the question now is how China will continued to play the Thai junta card at the same time as China has wanted to assert its leadership in the region, in a more responsible way. More importantly, China may not necessarily be in competition with the United States all the time. Sino-American ties have other positive aspects, which could eclipse their competition in many parts of the world. It is a risk for the junta to put “all eggs in one Chinese basket”. That risk will heighten the vulnerability of the coup makers in Bangkok as they depend to much on China for the provision of political legitimacy.

 

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Centre for Southeast Asian Studies.

 

Read Part I

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