Showing 1 - 10 of 12
Trump goes off-script, US gone rogue
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/03/2026
» It was not supposed to work like this. "America First" and "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) were supposed to be about an inward turn to repair, replenish and rebuild an externally overstretched and internally weakened country, weighed down by unnecessary global entanglements, unsustainable national debt, and unimpeded mass migration. It seemed for a time that the MAGA movement to prioritise America above and beyond the international system and its constituent parts had found its final prophet in President Donald J Trump. But now, somehow, President Trump has betrayed the movement that has carried him to office by waging a disastrous war on Iran in cooperation with Israel.
Remembering a journo like no other
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/04/2025
» Gwen Robinson was a quintessential journalist who probed for the best scoop and pried for the juiciest gossip, an old-style old hand the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. In the new contentious era of geopolitical conflict and geoeconomic tension underpinned by American economic nationalism, Robinson's journalist craft over more than four decades explaining and linking Asia and the West will be sorely missed.
Thailand's semi-democracy returns
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 01/12/2023
» The appointment of Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha as privy councillor has neatly bookended Thai politics over the past decade. It coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the street demonstrations that were led by the People's Democratic Reform Committee, paving the way for Gen Prayut to stage a military coup in May 2014. While the interim was a period of hard and soft military-authoritarian rule in 2014-19 and 2019-23, the new moving balance in Thai politics is a semi-democracy of sorts under the Pheu Thai Party-led coalition government.
The anatomy of waning youth protests
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 19/03/2021
» By all accounts, Thailand's youth protest movement over the past year has lost steam. Its key leaders have been charged on anti-monarchy grounds and jailed without bail, while the rank-and-file are demoralised, still on the move but in thin numbers. On the other side, the incumbent centres of power have reasserted control and put down what at its peak was the most vociferous and vigorous anti-establishment movement Thailand had seen in decades.
Thai education reform is top priority
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 09/10/2020
» Of the myriad reforms that have been demanded by the ongoing student-led protests, Thailand's deficient and outdated education system is second to none. Education reform has become a self-contained and separate agenda for change. Thai students across the country, particularly in high schools, have been awakened and angry at the fact that they have been kept in the dark and cloistered in a state-imposed mind bubble for so long. Unless it is answered, this awakening and anger is likely to galvanise more protests and point to broader changes that have been pent up for decades.
Thailand needs firmer Covid-19 action
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/03/2020
» While being on the right track, the government's latest response to the new coronavirus (Covid-19) by closing schools and entertainment venues, as well as putting off the Songkran break, is likely to prove too little, too late, once again. As other countries have shown, the sooner firm and hard measures are put in place, the better and likelier efforts to contain and remedy Covid-19 will be successful. An early global lesson from the fast-spreading virus is to be pre-emptive and pro-active, "front-loading" the pain of social adjustments and economic damages rather than playing catch-up and ultimately paying a higher price.
Developing by managing demographics
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/09/2019
» Once upon a time, it was feared that the earth would become overcrowded and its inhabitants unable to find enough to eat. This fear has not only proved unfounded but it has gone in the opposite direction. What almost every nation fears now is a decline in inhabitants as the birth rate cannot keep up with the longevity of the aged and elderly, imposing unsustainable burdens on working-age segments of the population. Every region is afflicted with this demographic predicament, especially in affluent societies where the birth rate decline is acute, such as Japan.
Thailand's tale told via 'The Nation'
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 28/06/2019
» Nearly five decades ago, The Nation newspaper started out as a pro-democracy, anti-military news organisation. It was fiercely independent and invariably hard-hitting vis-à-vis the powers-that-be. An English-language newspaper owned by Thais from the outset, it prided itself for having neither fear nor favour. Its lamentable expiry as a print newspaper today -- an online version will continue -- provides multiple parallels for Thailand's contemporary political history, ongoing polarisation and the changing nature of the business of journalism worldwide.
Royal command sets a new balance
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 11/02/2019
» Thailand's political earthquake last Friday has caught observers at home and abroad off guard. Within half a day, Thai politics went through an unprecedented political roller coaster. It all ended with a press release from the royal palace at night, effectively reversing what had taken place in the morning.
'My country's got' these socio-political ills
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/11/2018
» The explosive Rap Against Dictatorship music video that has taken Thailand by storm has raised myriad socio-political questions and issues. Known in Thai as Prathet Ku Mee, the sensational music video has been viewed on YouTube more than 25 million times in just 10 days in a country of 69 million people, a feat in its own right and a record for its artistic kind in Thailand. How this five-minute rap song in the Thai language has done so much says a lot about where Thailand has been and where it is going.