• OPINION

  Thailand's superpower courtship

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 19/11/2012

  » Whether it comes out of Bangkok or Washington, foreign policy ultimately derives from domestic politics. Long after United States President Barack Obama leaves Bangkok on this round of shuttle visits to three mainland Southeast Asian nations as part of his East Asia Summit (EAS) tour, Thailand's foreign relations will still be stuck and able to find traction only at the margins without much forward direction from the middle until the country's domestic tension and turmoil find a lasting political settlement and a new equilibrium.

• OPINION

  Thailand should let go of Dawei pipedream

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 31/05/2013

  » No matter how hard it tries, the government keeps coming up short on its planned development of the Dawei deep-sea port in Myanmar.

• OPINION

  Recalibrating majority rule, minority rights

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 14/06/2013

  » From Turkey to Thailand and elsewhere where political legitimacy derives from electoral democracy, the relationship between majority rule and minority rights has become problematic and in need of recalibration. If a more effective majoring-minority moving balance is not found, electoral democracy is likely to be discredited and undermined to the detriment of societies it was cultivated and designed to govern.

• OPINION

  Government meddling harms unity efforts

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 14/08/2013

  » The tendency of governments to shoot themselves in the foot never ceases to amaze. In Thailand's latest high-profile case of official self-affliction, the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra lost the plot when it tried to rope in key domestic power brokers to work on a "political reform council" and invited prominent international figures to promote reconciliation and unity. Conflating these two parallel tracks of reform and compromise has led to controversy and confusion. The best way for the Yingluck government to ensure the utility and effectiveness of these exercises is to get out of the way completely.

• OPINION

  Syria crisis poses enormous risks for global order

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/09/2013

  » The brewing brinkmanship over the Syrian government's apparent chemical weapons use against its own population has the ring of reality internet show about it that marks a new era in foreign policy formulation and the maintenance of international order. If the fluid international manoeuvrings turn out farcically, what is left of what we know as order in the international system will be further undermined and leave us with growing turbulence and inchoate anarchy as this new century progresses.

• OPINION

  Changing our education timetable is a really dumb idea

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/09/2013

  » It has become a cliche to say that Thailand's education system needs an overhaul. From the coloured political divide and industrial upgrading to broader economic competitiveness, it is said that education is the root cause of the country's political and socio-economic ills. This is not untrue. Symptomatic of these education woes and defects are the confusion and contradictions among bureaucrats and administrators over the timetable for the next school year. Thai kids are not only being taught poorly but they are not even sure when to go to school again after the summer recess.

• OPINION

  Opportunities and risks in Myanmar's chairmanship

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 05/10/2013

  » No country resembles a laboratory of political and economic development more than Myanmar. A country with effectively two capitals, old and new, in Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar is briskly moving from one reform to another. Its multiple exchange rate system has been unified and stable. The infrastructure is receiving facelifts all over, much slower than demand but moving forward nevertheless. Human resource capacity is being bolstered in short order.

• OPINION

  The politics behind Thailand's amnesty controversy

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/11/2013

  » Thaksin Shinawatra has achieved a feat undoable by other Thais. By trying to absolve himself of a criminal conviction and other alleged crimes and infractions, Thaksin has united his rank-and-file supporters and opponents.

• OPINION

  Policy momentum flounders after amnesty debacle

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 15/11/2013

  » Even before its peddlers in parliament made a panicky retreat, the expansive amnesty bill to absolve all those involved in Thailand's political conflict going back to 2004 already yielded longer-term ramifications.

• OPINION

  Global realities test Obama’s Asia pivot

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/05/2014

  » President Barack Obama can't be blamed for not trying. Having missed the Asean-related summit season from last October because of the US government’s "shutdown", the president allotted an entire week for a make-up trip that recently took him to South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines to shore up his strategic foreign policy reorientation towards East Asia, also known as the "Asian pivot" or "rebalance".

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