Greater RECIPROCITY needed in Thai-Chinese relations

When Thailand re-established diplomatic engagement with Beijing in 1975, it was a bold step for a “junior” Asian state in whose distant past, as Siam, China had required the payment of regular tributes. In 1975 the People’s Republic of China badly needed international recognition. Much of the world – and many elite people in Bangkok – regarded communism as an overt threat. Chairman Mao Zedong was to be shunned, not accommodated.

But Thai Prime Minister MR Kukrit Pramoj understood that the best way to contain a rival’s potential for ill intent was to become friends with him. Mao asked Kukrit outright when they met in Beijing that year whether he feared communism. Kukrit replied that he had come to meet as friends, and that he had long admired the chairman.

He was less diplomatic on his return home, pointing out to critics that the reason he’d chosen MR Kasemsamosorn Kasemsri as Thailand’s first modern ambassador to China was because he was of royal blood and thus would never kowtow to the anti-monarchy communists.

Four decades later, China has shown Thailand repeatedly that its friendship is valuable and appreciated. Beijing in turn has always been ready to help in times of need and proved to be of significant aid to Southeast Asia during the Cambodian civil war. 

There were disruptions in the friendliness, notably in the wake of the massacre of Thammasat University students in 1976 by militantly anti-communist gunmen, and after a Thai policy shift aimed at ending the 

 Cambodian conflict in the early 1990s, which left China bristling.

Ultimately Beijing accepted such setbacks in an ever-changing world and, with the death of Mao and the end of the Cold War, adjusted its own policies accordingly. The 21st century is truly the century of China, the gravitational force of its economy irresistible. It has become the globe’s second-largest economy due to the foresight and guidance of its leaders, who have also fostered political and military alterations to meet the challenges of a new era. The “One Belt One Road” programme inaugurated two years ago embraces two channels to global trade – over land along the ancient Silk Road to Europe and by sea to Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and Africa. Financial institutions and other agencies have been established to facilitate trade along these routes.

Chinese factories can produce almost everything the country needs and keep much of the world stocked as well. Every consumer item used in our daily lives here in Thailand has at least some form of connection to China. When China and Thailand re-launched good relations 40 years ago, we were using only a few of its products, memorably a fountain pen. Now there are Haier television sets, not of the same quality as their counterparts from Japan and South Korea but a foot in the market nonetheless. By the same token we find ourselves mulling China’s Lenovo computer, smartphones – and high-speed railway system.

Due to China’s economic triumph and its increasing political and military power, perceptions of Chinese leaders have changed, as have their perceptions of the rest of the world. What remains important is to further enhance Thailand’s position in Chinese eyes, as more than just a minor trading partner and a tourist destination. China is important to Thailand, but we need to make Thailand more important to China.