Thammasat University students interested in ASEAN studies, Myanmar, Thai studies, political science, international relations, diplomacy, sociology, law, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 18 September Zoom webinar on Thailand-Myanmar Relations in Regional Perspective: Issues and Challenges.
The event, on Monday, 18 September 2023 at 1pm Bangkok time, is presented by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore.
The TU Library collection includes books about different aspects of Thailand-Myanmar international relations.
Students are invited to register at this link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yCEmwKxVTZ27kyWhb4GSEg#/registration
The event webpage explains:
About the Webinar
Since the coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, Thailand’s role as immediate neighbor and a founding ASEAN member has been a topic of discussion in assessments of bilateral and regional approaches to the Myanmar crisis. During the Prayut government’s tenure, Thailand maintained a position of engaging primarily with the State Administration Council (SAC). In the recent general election, pronouncements made for a more assertive foreign policy that would reduce engagement with the SAC, and explore innovative ways to involve Myanmar refugees in Thailand’s economy, added to the interest in Thailand’s future position on and response to the Myanmar crisis. The political dynamics surrounding the formation of a new government in Thailand has also given rise to speculations on what approach that new government will take on responding to the Myanmar crisis, bilaterally and in the ASEAN context.
The Thai and Myanmar Studies Programmes at ISEAS invite a distinguished foreign policy expert to share his assessment of the challenges and/or opportunities for moving forward on this policy.
About the Speaker
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. […]
The TU Library collection includes a number of examples of the published research of Aj. Thitinan.
Last month, an article in The Diplomat by other experts suggested:
Why Thailand Should Mediate the Crisis in Myanmar
The case for proactive, multilateral, pro-peace diplomacy
The past two-and-a-half years have seen Myanmar enmeshed in a spiraling political crisis.
Since the 2021 coup that toppled a civilian-led government under the National League for Democracy (NLD), the country has been embroiled in a civil war during which at least 3,800 civilians have been killed by the military, and another 23,000 have been arrested. The military and affiliated forces have cracked down upon dissent, opposition, and civil society organizations that they perceive as a threat to their tenuous grip on power.
The civil war has also triggered an ongoing humanitarian crisis, with a large number of internally and externally displaced persons. Estimates suggest that up to 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since the coup. Up to 9,000 refugees are now seeking shelter in Mae Sariang district in northwestern Thailand, where humanitarian aid is provided.
While most of the pro-democracy resistance have coalesced around the National Unity Government (NUG), there are also select fringe militias and ethnic armed groups that have taken the opportunity to engage in territorial expansion and reenact long-standing rivalries. It is likely that neither the incumbent government nor the fragmented and structurally disadvantaged opposition rebels will prevail anytime soon.
While Myanmar’s military government is rumored to have withdrawn from chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026, the actions of the officially non-recognized and illegal regime in Myanmar have widened the existing fissures within the regional bloc. The fundamental question concerns the extent to which principles of democratic legitimacy and minimal norms of decency should be upheld, even at the expense of ASEAN solidarity and consensus.
An ASEAN that refuses to speak up for the interests of the ordinary citizens of its member states would have its legitimacy and credibility significantly eroded; but an ASEAN that merely vocally repudiates the junta regime without creating a clear off-ramp or showing any ability to exert actual influence over Naypyidaw, would be fundamentally ineffective in pursuing the goals of partial normalization and restoration of a less malign political order in Myanmar. The bloc’s Five-Point Consensus peace plan that was agreed in Jakarta in April 2021 by ASEAN’s member states, including Myanmar’s military junta, remains under-enforced and only partially implemented. […]
Thailand’s Unique Position
The above challenges raise the question: Could Thailand, as the ASEAN member most geographically proximate and historically connected to Myanmar, have a greater role to play? It is clear that Thailand is uniquely positioned in several distinctive ways, which has two clear implications. The first is that Thailand has an obvious stake in bringing about peace in Myanmar, beyond the obvious moral and humanitarian imperatives. The second is that among ASEAN’s member states, Thailand is best-placed to play a critical role as a mediator between the Tatmadaw, the NUG, the Myanmar public, and other opposition forces.
On the latter point, the Thai political establishment plausibly has the most personnel and interpersonal access to past and present senior leaders of the Tatmadaw. The Thai and Myanmar armed forces are close collaborators on regional peacekeeping and anti-drug trafficking operations, with generals on both sides on personally friendly terms. To take one example, in 2012, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was named the “adopted son” of Prem Tinsulanonda, the former chief of the Royal Thai Army (RTA). In 2014, the post-coup government in Thailand received official endorsement from the Myanmar military. Both governments are known to advocate economic and security cooperation in relation to the infamous Golden Triangle.
With Thailand set to embrace a new, civilian-led government with clear military representation in the coming weeks, the RTA will remain a significant player in the country. The long-standing connections between Thai military elite and the Tatmadaw should be harnessed by the incoming administration in order to pursue substantial concessions regarding Myanmar’s brutally oppressed activists and political prisoners. It is also in the interests of the incoming Pheu Thai-led government to shift Thailand’s Myanmar policy away from unquestioning accommodation, to strategic engagement with clear moral baselines.
Secondly, Thailand and Myanmar are highly economically interconnected. A volatile Myanmar caught in developmental limbo is not in the interest of its eastern neighbor, with which it shares a 2,416-kilometer border – the longest among its five borders.
Thailand is the second-largest trading partner of Myanmar, though bilateral trade has significantly declined in recent years due to a combination of political instability and tightened border controls. Tatmadaw-imposed restrictions concerning equalizing exports and imports, and stipulating that payments must be made via a junta-controlled bank, have damaged business confidence, as well as creating huge bottlenecks at land border crossings. Additionally, Myanmar’s labor market faces substantial vulnerabilities, with war-related disruptions contributing towards a labor productivity drop of 10 percent since 2019, with nearly half of households experiencing food access concerns.
These business-related considerations, coupled with Thailand’s significant dependence upon Myanmar for energy production and imports, highlight the urgent need for Bangkok to act. Stabilizing and reviving supply chains and securing Thai businesses and investors’ interests in the country requires both military and rebel factions to arrive at a sustainable modus vivendi.
Thirdly, Thailand has long played an integral role in shaping the diplomatic outlook and strategy adopted by ASEAN. As one of the founding members of the organization and a key regional player during the Cold War, Thailand had been a primary promulgator of “mediator diplomacy.” In 1961, with the only three members then in the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) locked in a bitter Konfontasi in Malaysia, Thailand sought to provide a neutral foundational space for Southeast Asian nation-states to explore the space for a Southeast Asia-centered and -driven economic grouping, eventually culminating in the establishment of ASEAN in 1967.
Since then, Thailand played a key role in nudging ASEAN members to weigh non-intervention over calls for changes to the totalitarian Khmer Regime (more indicative of intricate balancing of powers between the USSR and China than perhaps any substantive normative position). It also advocated the establishment of the ASEAN Free Trade Area in the 1990s, and addressed the challenge posed by insurgent groups along the Thai-Malay border and in Southern Philippines. Recent years have seen a reduction in Thailand’s mediation capacity, as its attention has shifted precipitously towards deepening ties with and balancing between Beijing and Washington, and away from intervening non-militarily in regional disputes and disagreements. If Thailand wishes to revive its erstwhile leadership functions within ASEAN, it needs to play a more active role to resolve Myanmar’s crisis. […]
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)