The senselessness of American policy towards Thailand

The sanctimonious attitude of Washington was best illustrated by president Ronald Reagan in his farewell address.

“I’ve spoken of the Shining City all my political life. … In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”

Reagan was talking about the ideal, with a capital “I”, that he upheld and in which he took great pride. He was a man of the 1950s, the golden age of America, when life was simple and straightforward – an era captured in Bill Bryson’s book “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid”.

The confidence of those times helps explain why the United States remains assured of its monopoly over democratic values, and of the universal and linear application of its own definition of democracy, human rights and freedom. The consequences of the crude implementation of what it preaches in foreign social, political and historical contexts do not matter in the slightest. The United States narcissistically sees itself as a knight in shining armour for political systems around the world; a knight whose governing principle is “my way or the highway”. The US Attorney General has even affirmed that US laws are applicable worldwide. 

On the other hand, it’s not so easy to understand how a country that produced foreign policy luminaries like Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft could have lost its way so badly in a new world order that is no longer bipolar, but much more complicated.

The Cold War is over and the US has found itself at a loss. Recently, US foreign policy has been conducted under the banner of free-trade agreements, and not much else, because Washington could not read the new international political narratives.

Neither is it easy to understand how a country that tortures prisoners and practises target-killings can talk about human rights. This is the same country where a Muslim boy was arrested for producing an alarm clock in class, and where police shot and killed an unarmed youth who was running to crime scene out of curiosity.

How can a country that took only a handful of refugees – while a much a smaller country like Thailand has accepted hundreds of thousands – talk about the right to asylum?

How can the US talk about setting the right political course for other countries when its own political system is in tatters? For evidence of this, look no further than the 2016 presidential race and its motley crew of candidates, particularly those of the Republican Party. President Barack Obama recently touched on the need for a constitutional amendment to make the American political system work again. With petty partisanship blinding lawmakers and policymakers from what is truly in the best interests of the nation, both domestically and internationally, is it any wonder that polls continue to show that public perception of Congress and the administration is dipping?

The rise of China is raising the level of American anxiety in many ways. President Obama came up with the rather intelligent and sensible idea of the “Asia Pivot”, but his people do not seem to know what it entails. So far, America’s approach to Beijing’s power play in the region can be described in two words: “misguided” and “clumsy”.

Thailand is a country with great strategic importance in the region. It is unfortunate that elected governments of recent years fostered turmoil with corruption, cronyism and political division  to the point where the country was becoming a failed state over which the government had absolutely no control.  Blood was spilled and lawlessness crept in. The military takeover was a necessity, not a luxury, given the political situation in May 2014.  

The coup was a bloodless one. Thais were not killing each other, in stark contrast to events in our neighbouring country where the Khmer Rouge murdered millions of their own. And yet, the US conveniently forgot the history and embraced that country’s leader as its peer. At the same time it is punishing Thailand with all sorts of instruments, from the threat of trade sanctions over allegations of human rights abuse, to the downgrading of military cooperation – oblivious all the while to the fact that our current government is making strenuous efforts to combat chronic problems it inherited. America demands an election as if it is an equivalent of democracy. But can democracy have a chance without rule of law and societal order? Does Washington care?

Ask Thais in the street and they will tell you that they are not without freedom.  Newspapers are free to criticise, and none has been shut down. Ask the New Democracy movement that has stirred up things politically what they stand for, and the answer is the canned one – democracy and elections. But what these words actually mean, they won’t be able to tell you.

As for the prime minister, ask ordinary people and most would say he is an honest and earnest man who takes his responsibilities extremely seriously, trying to do his best for the country and its citizens.  

Somehow, the US fails to see all this and continues to senselessly sermonise its simpleton mantra of elections and democracy, when it is evident that Thailand is heading that way even without American prodding. It is short-sighted for the US to alienate its oldest friend in the East at a time of international paradigm shift, particularly in Asia, where the South China Sea is becoming the ring for the major powers’ next great sparring match.

But what more can the world expect from a country whose next president could be Donald Trump? Who knows, with him as commander-in-chief, the US might see its first military coup, as authorities scramble to restore its status in the world.