Showing 1 - 2 of 2
A geopolitical pivot
Life, Published on 01/12/2017
» During the Indochina War years from the 1950s through to the 1970s, America's seven military bases in Thailand symbolised the extraordinary extent of US influence over the politics and development of the Kingdom. In the subsequent 30 years, American influence in Thailand has slowly but steadily waned, largely supplanted by a rising China. Thailand, which had been a linchpin of America's Asian strategy, is now instead a linchpin of China's Asian strategy. American soldiers on R&R have been replaced by Chinese tourists, American airbases by plans for Chinese high-speed rail links. China, not the US, is now Thailand's largest trading partner.
The business of shared Indonesian and Thai history
Life, Published on 05/10/2015
» The story of the life and times of Liem Sioe Liong (1917-2012), one of the most powerful overseas Chinese tycoons of Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, is a fascinating tale of an impoverished Fujian immigrant who arrived in Indonesia in his twenties. Over the next half century, he rose to achieve extraordinary wealth in Suharto's Indonesia and went on to play pivotal role in supporting Suharto's economic development programme.