• OPINION

  Japan's dilemmas need bold answers

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/11/2023

  » Among the big countries vying for power and influence in the fluid and contentious geostrategic arena, Japan faces the most daunting challenges. Most of the recognised major powers in Asia, from China and India to Indonesia and South Korea, are rising and aspiring for bigger roles and grander objectives, while Japan's place in the global pecking order has been in decline. The last time Japan had to confront such an existential threat to its place in the world may have been in the 1860s when the Western powers shook up and threatened to take over the isolated and inward-looking martial society.

• OPINION

  The truth about Thai money politics

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/01/2023

  » As the election looms in Thailand, money politics returns with a vengeance.

• OPINION

  The misguided US 'democracy summit'

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 10/12/2021

  » The United States government under President Joe Biden is putting up the right fight in a counterproductive way in its online organisation of a "summit for democracy" this week. Much touted since he won the election in November last year, President Biden's summit of democracies has proved controversial, with both good intentions and unintended consequences. The real battleground, as clichés about the benefits and drawbacks of democracy go, is to make the case that popular rule where citizens should have rights and freedoms for their own collective self-determination is ultimately preferable and superior than all other forms of government.

• OPINION

  Age-old nature of the 'New Cold War'

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 19/11/2021

  » History is back with a vengeance. Contrary to what proponents of the "end of history" theory said a few decades ago, the ideological struggle of the 20th century between the "free world" versus "the socialist-communist" camp is still ongoing, despite the Cold War ending over three decades ago. The struggle now features the United States-led Western alliance versus the China-centric global network of nations with authoritarian tendencies.

• OPINION

  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.

• 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

  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.

• OPINION

  Thai justice system overhaul overdue

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 31/07/2020

  » Thailand's current talk of the country is undoubtedly the scandal centring on Red Bull scion Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya for the 2012 hit-and-run resulting in the gruesome death of a policeman on a motorcycle.

• 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

  Taiwan: a democracy in Asia that works

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/12/2019

  » Ask any Taiwanese who owns Taiwan, and the answer invariably will be "the Taiwanese people" or sometimes simply "the people". That the country should belong to its people should be obvious, but this is not always the case in a place where equality is lacking and entitlement is rife. Thailand is a telling example.

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