Embracing proaction : the role of self-perception in Thailand's post-Cold War foreign policy

This thesis examines Thai foreign policy since the end of the Cold War as a focusing period. In its essence, it proposes that Thailand's post-Cold War foreign policy can be viewed as more proactive than what the conventional wisdom holds. Considering the strong influence of nationalistic sentiment amongst Thai people, this thesis suggests to look closely at the role of how this factor plays part in constructing Thailand's self-perception. In other words, it examines to what extent the way in which Thai policy-makers see their country, influences Thai foreign policy-making process and the possibility of transforming Thai foreign policy behaviour from reactive to proactive one. This thesis traces back the origin of this self-perception. It argues that Thailand's self-perception is a product of social construction throughout its modern nation­ state building process. It has resulted in a consensus view that Thailand and its people are in a better quality than its neighbouring countries. Coupled with its strong geopolitical position in mainland Southeast Asia, Thai policy-makers have been convinced that Thailand is a natural leading state in this area. This thesis argues that this self-perception has remained in its essence. The Cold War environment in which Thailand became a frontline state against communism accentuated this view whilst its surrounding neighbours were viewed with an antagonistic attitude. The prevailing globalisation since the end of the Cold War did not alter this self­ perception in its core. However, this thesis further contends that since the nature of the Thai state has transformed into the competition state model in which economic competitiveness replaced national security as an ultimate national interest. State's strategy then revolved into promoting its competitiveness. One way to achieve this goal was to promote economic co-operation. Operating within this logic, Thai decision-makers therefore maintained the perception that Thailand was in a suitable position politically and economically and should be a leading actor to foster regional co-operation. This thesis shows that Thailand's aspirations to play a leading role in Southeast Asia's development arguably reflect in its foreign policy throughout the post-Cold War period. Regional economic co-operation schemes preoccupied most of Thai governments' agenda since Chatichai Choonhavan until Thaksin Shinawatra. This thesis gives a detailed study of two major foreign policy ases in the Chuan government and the Thaksin government. They reveal that regional aspirations in both cases mattered in shaping foreign policy goals. Regardless of its success or failure to achieve these goals, this feature was a part of Thai foreign policy-making that shapes foreign policy direction and behaviour in the post-Cold War era. Therefore, this research finds that Thai foreign policy in the post-Cold War era has gradually become more proactive partly based on the self-perception and a re­ emergence of regional aspirations. Contrary to the conventional belief depicting Thai foreign policy as 'bamboo bending with the wind'-a policy of accommodating external forces in order to preserve its national security and status quo, this thesis demonstrates that Thailand has increasingly played a regional leading role. This leadership involved an active role in regional agenda setting and facilitating regional co-operation. This leading role is expected to illuminate Thailand's position in the region

Asia’s Social Infrastructure Demand Estimate : The Case of Thailand

Japane International Cooperation Agecy, Saitama University, Thammasat Universit

The rise of East and Southeast Asians tourists in Europe: the case of Vienna

Travelers from Asia have become a potential alternative for some of the traditional European tourist markets that have stagnated due to the economic crisis. The remarkable recovery of the Japanese market, the exponential growth of Chinese and Korean markets in addition to the high spending power of Thai and Chinese tourists have painted a highly positive scenario for the tourism industry in Vienna. This paper utilizes Vienna as a case study to explore the rise of Asian tourists in Europe. Tourism statistics, media reports and materials of destination marketing organization were analyzed for evaluation of the trends and growth of Asian outbound market to Vienna. The current study contributes to the tourism industry of Austria by highlighting the fragmentations in tourist consumption patterns of tourists from East and Southeast Asia

Malaysian bilateral trade relations and economic growth

This paper examines the structure and trends of Malaysian bilateral exports and imports and then investigates whether these bilateral exports and imports have caused Malaysian economic growth. Although the structure of Malaysia’s trade has changed quite significantly over the last three decades, the direction of Malaysia’s trade remains generally the same. Broadly, ASEAN, the EU, East Asia, the US and Japan continue to be the Malaysia’s major trading partners. The Granger causality tests have shown that it is the bilateral imports that have caused economic growth in Malaysia rather than the bilateral exports

Exchange rate misalignments in ASEAN-5 countries

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the exchange rate misalignments for Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand before the currency crisis. By employing the sticky-price monetary exchange rate model in the environment of vector error-correction, the results indicate that the Indonesia rupiah, Malaysian ringgit, Philippines peso and Singapore dollar were overvalued before the currency crisis while Thai baht was undervalued on the eve of the crisis. However, they suffered modest misalignment. Therefore, little evidence of exchange misalignment is found to exist in 1997:2. In particular, Indonesia rupiah, Malaysia ringgit, Philippines peso and Singapore dollar were only overvalued about 1 to 4 percent against US dollar while the Thai baht was only 2 percent undervalued against US dollar

PROCEEDING ASIA PACIFIC SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (APSA) CONFERENCE TRANSFORMING SOCIETIES: CONTESTATIONS AND CONVERGENCES IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, VOLUME 2

Proceeding of ASIA PACIFIC SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (APSA) CONFERENCE TRANSFORMING SOCIETIES: CONTESTATIONS AND CONVERGENCES IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, VOLUME