Clearly not the 'perfect time' to dig Kra Canal

This is not a good time to embark on a massive infrastructure project without the public’s participation or ability to vote by referendum or be represented by elected representatives. It would be the largest port-and-shipping project in Thai history. It would require the digging of a waterway at least 300 metres wide and 50 kilometres long, high security to ensure safety and disaster preparedness, construction of international-standard ports at both ends, and joint oversight by Customs, Immigration, police and the military.

The current long-term crises facing Thai Airways and the State Railway are portents of greater losses by government agencies and hugely corrupt or inefficient bureaucratic waste-holes. There is an urgent need for billions of baht to be spent on just basic road repairs and maintenance of the ageing and overburdened Bangkok road network. 

Why not swim deeper into the Chinese Sea and bet stakes higher than can possibly be repaid in the Casino Royale Thai, gambling on the future of the nation? Because the country is over its head as it is. Solving these problems must start with the stakeholders within Thailand, not by looking for the next big thing that will take five or more years to muddle through and perhaps fail. 

Why start a huge, new, controversial project that could be prone to many various, lengthy delays, more changing political chairs or domestic cost overruns that increase public discontent, only to become part of China’s nouveau-imperial belt buckle?

Niels Jeffreys