Showing 1-10 of 66 results
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US presidential poll and implications
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/11/2020
» It is surprisingly unsurprising. Contrary to most polls and pundits, incumbent United States President Donald J Trump did not lose by a landslide in the presidential election this week. The final results are so close that both candidates, Mr Trump and Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, have claimed victory. Despite ongoing rancour and acrimony until the next US president is sworn in next January, several outcomes and implications are already clear.
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Thai geopolitical balancing compromised
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/07/2018
» Thailand is demonstrably famous for its foreign policy balancing. From the era of imperialism and two World Wars through the Cold War, Thailand's gifted geography and diplomatic finesse and skill shepherded the country's sovereignty and independence through the thick and thin of geopolitical headwinds. Whatever happens out there, the Thais (and their Siamese forebears) had a way to diplomatically navigate and geopolitically balance their national interests to stay out of harm's way.
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Global turmoil and Thailand's political reset
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/12/2018
» As the world moves into 2019, there is a consensus that the roughly seven-decade-old rules-based liberal international order no longer works. Either it has to be fundamentally revamped to suit new realities and the international distribution of power and wealth, or it will be increasingly violated and marginalised. In a remarkable parallel, Thailand's hitherto political order that lasted about seven decades also requires adjustment and recalibration.
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Asian elections, democracy in 2024
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 29/12/2023
» Billed as the biggest election year ever as more than half of the global population goes to the polls, 2024 will be critical to the debate about democratisation and autocratisation. Asia will lead the way with elections in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia, while the most recent polls in Myanmar and Thailand offer long-term lessons about democracy and dictatorship. The salient themes next year will be about the self-perpetuating tendencies of incumbent regimes and the resilience of democratic rule when authoritarianism seemed to have the upper hand.
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Populism triumphs as election looms
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 24/03/2023
» Although the campaign season for Thailand's much-anticipated election has only just begun, populism has already become the runaway winner. All of the contesting parties have come up with a plethora of populist pledges to woo voters. That populism has triumphed in Thai politics bears multiple longer-term implications.
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Geoeconomics of the US-China tech war
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 16/09/2022
» Chinese President Xi Jinping's arrival in Central Asia this week in his first overseas travel in nearly three years is perhaps the most consequential irony of the coronavirus pandemic. As the place where the deadly pandemic began in early 2020, China was the first to swiftly and successfully suppress and contain Covid-19 within weeks, while its counterparts in North America and Europe languished for months under mounting death tolls and hospitalisations.
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Global politics in dangerous territory
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/09/2022
» While Russia's profound and transformational invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24 has fundamentally reshaped and reinforced contentious trends and contours in the geopolitics and geoeconomics of Asia, it did not set out a new direction in world politics. The international system had already been unravelling over the past decade, underpinned by the United States-China geostrategic rivalry and competition. Given deteriorating patterns and trends, the international environment is entering dangerous territory where what seemed unthinkable not long ago may soon appear to be very conceivable indeed.
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America, Asean in geostrategic drift
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/05/2022
» As Southeast Asia's renowned regional bloc, Asean has been wanting to have its cake as well as eat it. Its summit meeting with the United States in Washington this week is a testimony to trying to have it both ways. When Washington cares less about Asean, the nominally 10-member grouping frets about the lack of attention and priority. But when the US cares more, some Asean members are sceptical about its intentions and interests. This summit is likely to show that the US and Asean member states are less in line and increasingly unaligned.
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Russia's war causes regional disarray
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 18/03/2022
» President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine from Feb 24 is deeply consequential for Southeast Asia, both as a region and Asean as a regional organisation. Even though this region is relatively far away from the cut and thrust of Russia's war in Ukraine, Asean has already encountered new internal divisions stemming from the raging conflict in Europe. As a result, Asean's age-old approach of consensus will likely become more problematic in the search for new and more effective ways of cooperation among like-minded member states.
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Early implications of Russia's invasion
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/03/2022
» Just one week after his military invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has found some truisms of warfare the hard way. Once war starts, the fog that accompanies it and the friction that it creates lead to unanticipated and unintended outcomes. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, borne out of choice rather than necessity, appears to be dragging on, not the short and swift victory Mr Putin and his military planners might have envisaged. While Russia may still triumph on Ukrainian battlefields, it has lost the war just about everywhere else.
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