Showing 1 - 10 of 46
Government stability tests performance
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/04/2026
» Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has gone from strength to strength, leveraging a stopgap minority government late last year into solid majority rule after the Feb 8 election.
Trump's 'America First' in overdrive
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 23/01/2026
» President Donald Trump's extraterritorial capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on cocaine-trafficking and terrorism-related charges earlier this month and repeated demand to take over Greenland at the World Economic Forum this week are part and parcel of a belligerent and transformative "America First" paradigm that dates back at least four decades.
Digesting Trump's trip through Asia
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 07/11/2025
» Storming through Asia last week, US President Donald Trump's first stop in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 26, before moving on to Japan and South Korea over the next four days, capped by his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping before returning to Washington, was the most consequential for Southeast Asian economies.
Singapore turns 60 with much to show
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/08/2025
» No country turns 60 like Singapore. In a neighbourhood of political dynasties and varying shades of autocracies and flawed democracies, the little island state of six million got lucky with its strongman rule. When he died in 2015, Singapore's patriarchal founder Lee Kuan Yew left a great country behind. This weekend, Singaporeans can take stock of what's gone by and rightly celebrate its milestone with much to show for.
The tyranny of anarchy and what to do
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/03/2025
» It is both exciting and alarming to be a student of international affairs as the world is being turned upside down. In just two months, the second administration of President Donald J Trump has sent shockwaves rippling through the international system as the United States pulls back from its role as leader, underwriter, and guardian of the nearly 80-year-old international order that it instrumentally constructed after WWII. In view of the US's portentous withdrawal, relative anarchy in the international system is back with a vengeance, leaving Asean members and smaller states elsewhere to fend for themselves in a self-help geostrategic environment.
Smart geopolitics starts on home front
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/02/2025
» According to a longstanding axiom, all politics is local. If so, then smart and crafty geopolitics must start at home with sufficient domestic political stability and consensus about how the country should navigate what is increasingly a turbulent geostrategic chessboard. Put this way, few countries can appreciate the intersection of geopolitics and domestic politics more than Thailand. Its rocky and volatile home front over the past two decades continues to impede and constrain its geostrategic projection.
Two wasted decades in Thai politics
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/12/2024
» Now that Thaksin Shinawatra appears actively back in Thai politics, it is demoralising to look back at Thailand's wasted time and opportunities. Once a promising country on the way from democratic transition to consolidation in the late 1990s, Thailand has become semi-autocratic, and its rocky political trajectory over the past two decades is now structural. The traditional institutions of power that grew out of the Cold War have been calling the shots in earlier decades and are just unwilling to let the country move forward in the immediate years ahead.
Trump's tariff blackmail boosts Brics
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/12/2024
» Even before officially taking office, United States President-elect Donald J Trump is shaking up the international system with drama and fanfare unlike any other major leader in recent memory. His most recent outburst to slap 100% tariffs on the "Brics" countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates -- is a case in point. While it will coerce developing economies to think twice about the cost of going their own way, this tariff blackmail and others like it also risk pushing smaller countries away from the US to other rival big powers, particularly China.
New government is new wine in old bottle
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/09/2024
» On the face of it, the new government under Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra appears to be a generational shift and gender breakthrough. Ms Paetongtarn is the youngest prime minister ever at 38 and only the second female government leader after her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra in 2011-14. The Paetongtarn cabinet features a record eight women among 36 with more ministers in their 30s-50s and fewer above 60. Yet on closer scrutiny, the new and younger faces are largely family legacies and proxies, surrounded by old-style politicians, while the new government's policy directions sound dated not well-suited for the times ahead.
Srettha Thavisin fell to hidden forces
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 30/08/2024
» Hindsight is likely to place Srettha Thavisin in Thai political annals as a prime minister who tried his best but ultimately succumbed to forces way beyond his control. While his nearly 12-month tenure in office came up short on policy deliverables, it nevertheless reset Thailand's foreign policy projection on Myanmar amid more omnidirectional relations with the major powers.