Thanat Khoman - an embodiment of Thai diplomacy

As a Thai foreign minister during tumultuous times in Southeast Asia, where new countries won independence coupled with growing nationalism, Thanat wanted to unite the broken region. After all, Thailand was the only independent country that had escaped Western colonisation. But it took courage and vision to articulate the policy frameworks to promote “practical cooperation” among Southeast Asian countries and raised the country’s regional profile.
Obviously, initially, the idea of creating a new regional organisation was based on security and ideology to fight the spread of communism, rather than for economic cooperation such as the now-defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation. The Asia-wide security bloc proved overwhelming and too aggressive for some newly independent countries, such as Indonesia.
With his regional experience, Thanat realised that a more focused regional organisation would be better – one that was less dependent on outside extraordinary powers. Together they could fight against poverty through some forms of economic cooperation to counter communism. So, the Southeast Asian Association (ASA) was born in 1961 with Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines as members.
It is not wrong to say the idea of regionalism was being installed at that moment as they could identify shared aspirations and objectives. But ASA was still narrow in scope and Western security-oriented. Countries in the region still fought each other. Therefore, something bigger and more encompassing that captured the region’s diversities and concerns would be more suitable. Come in Asean. Learning from the Eastern European experience, Thanat was pragmatic and realistic enough to understand that support from neighbouring countries was more important than that of external major powers stationed far away. While the Thanat-Rush communique in 1962 provided Thailand with the much needed security assurance due to the political uncertainty in Laos at the time, it was no guarantee whatsoever that the US would defend Thailand if it was attacked.
Before the five foreign ministers showed their faces at the Saranrom Palace on August 8 1967, they were holed up at the palace first before moving to the resort town of Bang Saen to stay at the bungalo belonging to Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat at Khao Sam Muk, Laem Thaen, for further discussion before they could agree on a final two-page text, called “The Bangkok Declaration”.
Thanks to the Thai way of diplomatic pleasantries of “talk-talk and play-play” (with neighbouring countries it is “talk-talk and ramvong-ramvong”). Thanat disclosed that during the meetings, the invited leaders could parley in a “tee-len, tee-jing” style — tongue in cheek manners with lots of jokes that eased stress and tension. He also credited golf games during the meeting with being a pacifier.
Rodolfo Severino, the former secretary general of Asean (1998-2002), quoted Thanat as telling him that at Bang Saen, his Asean colleagues “played golf in the morning, had meetings in the afternoon and gathered for informal dinner in the evening”.
Indeed, the friendly atmosphere continued into the night at Thanat’s residence on Petchaburi Road, before they emerged triumphantly at the Saranrom Palace on the morning of August 8 with “The Bangkok Declaration”.
It is amazing how this 737-word document, with a simple announcement of collective efforts, could have such far-reaching impacts on the region, making it peaceful and prosperous. Now, after nearly five decades, Asean has become a burgeoning community of 625-million people living under one roof.
In retrospect, the way Thanat could engage all stakeholders – especially Indonesian and Malaysian protagonists – was a remarkable diplomatic milestone. It did not matter how long it would take, touching on sensitive issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity, because they would talk until they agreed unanimously.
In this connection, he recalled fondly the way former Indonesian foreign minister Adam Malik helped to coin the word “Asean” — Association of Southeast Asian Nations — replacing the earlier proposed awkward name of Southeast Asian Association of Economic Cooperation.
To this writer, this was the start of a consensus-making principle — a gruelling process negotiating over terms and meanings articulated by each Asean leader until an agreement was reached — most of time with the lowest denominator and often not the best solution — at the most crucial moment. However, that cardinal principle was broken in Phnom Penh in 2012. Thanat’s legacy is not only about being one of the founding fathers of Asean. He embodied the best of Thai diplomatic practices and finesse. Amid the hostile environment in the post-colonial era in Southeast Asia, Thanat was able to protect national and regional interests. So, he managed to gain trust from neighbouring countries and pull their leaders together and form Asean.
The biggest lesson to be drawn from his experience was a mammoth and valuable one. Under the governments of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat and General Thanom Kittachorn, the most stringent dictatorship regimes, the Thai Foreign Ministry, miraculously, was still able and capable of  conducting diplomacy to protect national interest for the sake of national survival. This was due to Thanat’s personal courage and vision, albeit limited by the military leaders.
The opposite was true after elected former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to power in February 2001 until September 2006. Of course, the domestic and external environment was far more fluid and complicated at that time. New factors impacting on foreign decision-making were aplenty, especially the role of civil society and grassroots groups and the private sector.
But it was the personalisation of Thai diplomacy which, dominated by vested interest groups, killed the brilliant minds of Thai diplomats and tarnished the respected Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
These days, foreign policy decision-makers prefer to protect “personal interests” for the sake of “personal survival”, which has unfortunately become imbedded in the ministry’s culture. Subsequent governments under Thaksin-controlled Samak Sundaravej, Somchai Wongsawat and Yingluck Shinawatra exhibited similar symptoms.
During the two administrations of former prime minister General Surayud Chulanont (October 2006-January 2008) and Abhisit Vejjajiva (December-2008-August 2011), the country’s foreign policies returned to a common sense of traditional modes of decision-making based on national interests. Today the Thai military is running the show much the same way as during Thanat’s tenure. But the only difference is that at present the country does not have Thanat-like leadership qualities, let alone much lesser ones.