• OPINION

  Fighting chance for Malaysian opposition

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 08/05/2018

  » It would be hard these days to say anything about Malaysian politics without the risk of being branded as "fake news". But tomorrow 14,940,624 voters will have the last say, as they are expected to cast ballots at 8,989 polling centres throughout the country. Fake news aside, they will decide who is the real prime minister. After all, the leading contestants are both former and current Malaysian prime ministers, both of whom belonged to the same party, Barisan Nasional (the National Front), which has retained power for the past 61 years.

• OPINION

  Thailand's black site: Who is accountable?

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 15/05/2018

  » Suddenly Thailand, a name synonymous with coups and democratic struggles, has been mentioned repeatedly by US lawmakers and TV personalities over the last few weeks.

• OPINION

  'New Malaysia' can be a catalyst for region

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 22/05/2018

  » The recent Malaysian political tsunami will endow the country with more equality among different races and render positive impacts for the rest of the region and beyond.

• OPINION

  Baloney by any other name is still baloney

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 29/05/2018

  » It does not take long to find commonalities between US President Donald Trump's lies and Thai politics' platefuls of baloney. The same logic holds true for Mr Trump's war on the "deep state" and the outcry in Thailand over a "third hand" pulling the strings behind political happenings.

• OPINION

  Modi sees Asean as key to Indo-Pacific policy

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 05/06/2018

  » India took exactly 25 years to define its place in the broader Asia region. When Indian prime minister Narasimha Rao first outlined his country's "Look East" policy in 1993 in Singapore, economic imperatives were the main driving force and not much thought was given to strategic components. After all, it was before the rise of China, the decline in US influence, Japan's strategic-oriented foreign policy and the establishment of the Asean Community.

• OPINION

  Thailand revitalising Acmecs scheme

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 12/06/2018

  » Renewed schemes for the region's three great rivers -- under the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (Acmecs) -- are making a comeback after some soul-searching amid a plethora of connectivity plans. Bangkok will host the 8th Acmecs summit this Friday and Saturday.

• OPINION

  Trump-Kim meet a gift for Southeast Asia

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 19/06/2018

  » All the hullabaloo surrounding the historic Trump-Kim summit in Singapore must be discarded if one wants to seriously assess the overall ripple effects, in particular, the four-point statement. For the region, at least for now, the tight knot of a nuclear war has been untied. After all, President Donald Trump gave his personal assurance of this after he returned to the United States from his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. That is good for Southeast Asia as a whole. If there is a war, the region's progress would be badly undermined as much as, if not more, than those of the two protagonists. The US provides a marketplace and the Korean Peninsula remains the last stronghold of long-awaited peace and stability.

• OPINION

  Random thoughts from Trump's nation

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 26/06/2018

  » 'Iknow Bruce Lee. Aargh...aargh...aargh…!," screamed a black driver in front of me at the intersection near the Marriott Hotel in Rockville, Maryland.

• OPINION

  Thailand’s role in Indo-Pacific strategy

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 03/07/2018

  » Although much has been said about Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy after US President Donald Trump put forward the broad and vague concept last November, nobody is really clear what it really means and its implications. Eight months have now elapsed. Some key features have emerged through speeches and comments by senior officials including US Defence Secretary Gen James Mattis in Singapore and Matthew Pottinger, Senior Director of Asian Department, National Security Council, in Yangon and Bangkok.

• OPINION

  South Korea is wooing Asean and India

  News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 17/07/2018

  » For the first time since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korea, under the helm of President Moon Jae-in, has effectively been embedded in the regional scheme of things --political/security, economic and social/cultural. The country's previous four presidents -- Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye -- tried to do the same but sadly they repeatedly failed. Every time these leaders wanted to focus on Southeast Asia and South Asia, something happened in the Northeast, the Korean Peninsula in particular, that immediately distracted them. They became mesmerised and forgot the region. There was no consistency whatsoever.

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