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  • News & article

    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.

  • News & article

    Global turmoil and Thailand's political reset

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/12/2018

    » As the world moves into 2019, there is a consensus that the roughly seven-decade-old rules-based liberal international order no longer works. Either it has to be fundamentally revamped to suit new realities and the international distribution of power and wealth, or it will be increasingly violated and marginalised. In a remarkable parallel, Thailand's hitherto political order that lasted about seven decades also requires adjustment and recalibration.

  • News & article

    Semantics and Thailand's political divide

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 25/09/2015

    » Language can be about power as much as communication. It can tear societies apart or bring them together, depending on its design and application.

  • News & article

    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.

  • News & article

    '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 <i>Prathet Ku Mee</i>, 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.

  • News & article

    Thai geopolitical balancing compromised

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/07/2018

    » Thailand is demonstrably famous for its foreign policy balancing. From the era of imperialism and two World Wars through the Cold War, Thailand's gifted geography and diplomatic finesse and skill shepherded the country's sovereignty and independence through the thick and thin of geopolitical headwinds. Whatever happens out there, the Thais (and their Siamese forebears) had a way to diplomatically navigate and geopolitically balance their national interests to stay out of harm's way.

  • News & article

    US presidential poll and implications

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/11/2020

    » It is surprisingly unsurprising. Contrary to most polls and pundits, incumbent United States President Donald J Trump did not lose by a landslide in the presidential election this week. The final results are so close that both candidates, Mr Trump and Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, have claimed victory. Despite ongoing rancour and acrimony until the next US president is sworn in next January, several outcomes and implications are already clear.

  • News & article

    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.

  • News & article

    Thai police graft highlights bigger issues

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 26/04/2024

    » There is no bigger news on the current Thai political scene than corruption among the top echelons of the police force. At issue is the tussle between Thailand's two senior-most cops, Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn and Pol Gen Torsak Sukvimol, both accusing each other of being on the take. Their high-stakes feud would normally be a run-of-the-mill story for the infamously shady Thai police but this case has become a mirror and microcosm of structural graft that is corroding the highest corridors of politics, economy, and society.

  • News & article

    Thailand between the US and China

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 29/03/2024

    » Amid what now has to be acknowledged as a direct non-military conflict and a geoeconomic war of sorts between the United States and China, Thailand is in a quandary. While characterising Thailand's geostrategic dilemma as a US-China binary can be exaggerated and misleading, it does have a point. As with many other developing countries in the region, Thailand will come under increasing pressure to choose between the two competing superpowers. The ability not to choose thus becomes an overarching geostrategic objective.

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