Thammasat University students are cordially invited to download a free Open Access book from the website of ANU Press, Australia’s first open-access university press.

A Genealogy of Bamboo Diplomacy: The Politics of Thai Détente with Russia and China may be downloaded at this link.

It was written by Associate Professor Jittipat Poonkham, PhD.

Dr. Jittipat is Associate Professor of International Relations and Director of International Studies Program in the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University.

He is the co-editor of International Relations as a Discipline in Thailand: Theory and Sub-fields (Routledge, 2019).

The TU Library collection includes other books written and edited by Dr. Jittipat.

The publisher’s description of the new book follows:

In 1975, M.R. Kurkrit Pramoj met Mao Zedong, marking the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations and a discursive rupture with the previous narrative of Communist powers as an existential threat. This book critically interrogates the birth of bamboo (bending with the wind) diplomacy and the politics of Thai détente with Russia and China in the long 1970s (1968–80).

By 1968, Thailand was encountering discursive anxiety amid the prospect of American retrenchment from the Indo-Pacific region. As such, Thailand developed a new discourse of détente to make sense of the rapidly changing world politics and replace the hegemonic discourse of anticommunism. By doing so, it created a political struggle between the old and new discourses.

Jittipat Poonkham also argues that bamboo diplomacy – previously seen as a classic and continual ‘tradition’ of Thai-style diplomacy – had its origins in Thai détente and has become the metanarrative of Thai diplomacy since then. Based on a genealogical approach and multi‑archival research, this book examines three key episodes of Thai détente: Thanat Khoman (1968–71), M.R. Kukrit Pramoj (1975–76), and General Kriangsak Chomanan (1977–80). This transformation was represented in numerous diplomatic/discursive practices, such as ping‑pong diplomacy, petro‑diplomacy, trade and cultural diplomacy, and normal visits.

Dr. Jittipat notes in a preface:

This book is about the birth of bamboo diplomacy and the politics of Thai détente with Russia and China in the long 1970s. By 1968, Thailand was encountering discursive anxiety amid the disastrous catastrophe of the Vietnam War and the prospect of American retrenchment from the IndoPacific region. To cope with such anxiety, it was vital to the Thai state to develop a new narrative in order to make sense of rapidly changing world politics. The discourse of détente was an answer. It transformed Thai foreign policy away from the hegemonic discourse of anticommunism, and by doing so it created a political struggle between the old and new discourses. The book therefore also argues that bamboo diplomacy – previously seen as a classic tradition of Thai-style diplomacy – had its origins in Thai détente. It gradually emerged in the early 1970s and has become the metanarrative of Thai diplomacy since then. That said, the discourse of Thai détente and the birth of bamboo diplomacy are two sides of the same coin…

His introduction begins:

‘Bamboo’ or ‘bending with the wind’ diplomacy is a key concept frequently used in international relations (IR) and describes Thailand’s diplomacy in particular. It alludes to the way in which the country has pursued a flexible, pragmatic policy, aimed at maintaining national survival and independence. In bamboo diplomacy, Thailand is blatantly playing one great power off against the others amid great power competition. The extant literature almost always treats this concept as universal, highlighting its historical continuity and heuristic tool of justification for appropriate foreign policy. For example, Pavin Chachavalpongpun sees bamboo diplomacy as a ‘traditional’ or ‘classic’ Thai diplomacy, which continued ‘since Siam’s old days up to Thailand’s modern era’. For Arne Kislenko, Thailand’s diplomacy was ‘a long-cherished, philosophical approach to international relations’, which is ‘always solidly rooted’ but ‘flexible enough to bend whichever way it had to in order to survive’.2 These works largely neglect to ask the key question: when and how this strategic discourse came about. This is a puzzle of discontinuity or rupture, rather than continuity.

The book is first and foremost a genealogy of bamboo diplomacy. Its purposes are twofold. One is to critically interrogate how the birth of ‘bamboo’ or ‘flexible’ diplomacy emerged and became the dominant or hegemonic discourse in Thai foreign policy. It should be noted here that Thailand in the pre-1968 period had sought to adjust relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the example of which was Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram (Phibun)’s attempt to work with Beijing between 1955 and 1957. However, these diplomatic practices were generally short-lived and merely tactical in the sense that they were used as a diplomatic tool in order to bargain with the US. Importantly, these diplomatic practices were not understood at that time as flexible or bamboo diplomacy. In particular, Phibun’s ‘brief encounter’ with China was seen as part of a broader narrative of non-alignment. In other words, these previous diplomatic practices, despite their significant moves, were neither explicitly challenging the hegemonic discourse of anticommunism nor directly establishing the new discourse of détente par excellence. The book argues differently, that the term ‘bamboo’ diplomacy was discursively produced only by the late 1960s, when Thailand began to conduct a different set of diplomatic practices toward the USSR and China. In addition, as an epistemic knowledge, the term ‘bamboo’ diplomacy was not used before the 1970s. In order to justify contemporary diplomacy, many academic works retrospectively used this recently constructed concept to explain past diplomatic history. They anachronistically linked the new concept to the balance of power diplomacy of King Chulalongkorn, which will be subsequently discussed in this chapter. In this sense, rather than following a conventional history in the study of Thai foreign policy, this book historically problematises the dominant knowledge and situates it within history. Therefore, my argument is that bamboo diplomacy was recently constructed as a new narrative in order to manage the anxiety instigated by the changing landscape of regional and world order – in particular, the prospect of American retrenchment from the region – as well as to make sense of how the world worked in the new era of détente.

This leads to the second purpose of the book, which is to investigate and reassess why and specifically how Thailand transformed its foreign policy towards the Soviet Union and the PRC in the long 1970s (1968–1980), when the country pursued détente with the Communist powers…

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)