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  • OPINION

    Misguided myopia of asking the rich

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 24/04/2020

    » Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's initiative to seek more cooperation and assistance from Thailand's 20 wealthiest billionaires is understandable. Thailand needs all the help it can get to handle and manage the social and economic ravages of the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. But making an appeal in writing from the top to the country's richest is short-sighted and misguided on many levels. It displays a government at the end of its tether and a leader who is being forced to own up to mismanaging the country for the past six years.

  • OPINION

    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.

  • OPINION

    Global disarray as institutions falter

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/08/2015

    » The international system as we know it is unravelling. Rules and institutions that were set up seven decades ago no longer hold the same weight and authority as they used to. As we grapple with an exacerbating global disorder, established powers and players and old rules and institutions need to be revamped and reinvented to accommodate new realities. Otherwise global tensions will mount, most probably accompanied by confrontation and conflict.

  • OPINION

    Thai charter court deserves scrutiny

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/08/2023

    » Amid the volatility and confusion during the interim since the May 14 election, Thailand's Constitutional Court has further thickened the plot by accepting a petition to rule on whether a parliamentary vote using the meeting rules to deny the renomination of Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat's premiership was unconstitutional.

  • OPINION

    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.

  • OPINION

    Where have the media reformers gone?

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 18/02/2022

    » After two decades marked by two military coups in 2006 and 2014, Thailand is supposed to be a "reformed" country by now. While all kinds of reforms were promised with each military takeover -- from political parties, parliament and constitution to the bureaucracy, military and police -- none has taken place. In fact, pledged reforms have gone in the opposite direction in the past. Nowhere is this reaction and restoration of old power and interests more evident than in Thailand's media industry.

  • OPINION

    Thailand's irresponsible runaway debt

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 11/06/2021

    » A major lasting damage Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will eventually leave behind is his government's co-optation and capture of autonomous agencies that used to safeguard and uphold Thailand's macroeconomic well-being and political level-playing field.

  • OPINION

    What the 'Pimrypie' sensation foretells

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 22/01/2021

    » While it became a storm in a teacup, the recent phenomenon involving YouTuber and online retailer Pimradaporn "Pimrypie" Benjawattanapat yields longer-term implications and meanings. Pimrypie's charity drive for Children's Day that provided solar panels and electricity to underprivileged kids in a far-flung village of Omkoi district 300 kilometres from Chiang Mai spoke volumes about the structure and shortcomings of Thailand's paternalist state and what needs to be done to tackle it.

  • OPINION

    Thai Airways a microcosm of Thailand

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 29/05/2020

    » Not so long ago, when air travel was not so commonplace, Thai nationals studying and working abroad could feel like they were half-way home when they saw Thai Airways (THAI) planes on tarmacs around the world. It was a symbolic comfort to know that getting on one of the national flag carrier's aircraft would eventually end up getting them home. As THAI has entered a massive and unprecedented reorganisation plan, the national airline is a microcosm of Thailand itself.

  • OPINION

    RCEP without India poses new hurdles

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/11/2019

    » On the face of it, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is an Indo-Pacific trade pact that would shore up the stalled world trade liberalisation and stem the rising tide of protectionism in the global economy. India's withdrawal from the RCEP -- whose other 15 members comprise the 10 Asean economies along with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- is a major setback, posing new challenges for the Asean-centred trade bloc. Asean should persuade India to return to the RCEP fold, while preparing for a much less promising RCEP15 as second-best outcome.

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