To see how Thailand is really doing, one needs to be outside the country. On a recent work trip to Hanoi, I found it inescapable that Thailand continues to fall behind even as its leaders pretend otherwise. Given the last two decades of political instability and prolonged economic doldrums, this trend is not surprising. Vietnam is moving ahead, while Thailand is beset by border and security issues left and right and is stuck internally, still trying to draft a new constitution amid declining economic growth.
Among Southeast Asian economies, Vietnam clearly has been the most impressive. Its economy is firing on all cylinders since I was last there a year ago. English proficiency is more widespread. Younger demographics appear energetic and enthusiastic, with an evident hunger for growth and development. In the think-tank space, Hanoi organised the third edition of the Asean Future Forum, which included in-person attendance by the government heads of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Timor-Leste, not to mention a United States deputy secretary of state and a United Nations undersecretary, while leaders of other Asian countries joined online.
Vietnam has a long-term plan to expand its economy aggressively to reach upper-middle-income status by 2030 and a high-income developed economy by 2045. If its economic growth continues at 7-10% per year, in just three years, Vietnam's economic size will surpass that of Thailand, which has been growing at 3% a year. In Hanoi at the AFF, Vietnamese leaders, from Prime Minister Le Minh Hung to President To Lam, joined the proceedings and related activities with visible confidence that their economy and society are on the right track despite external challenges faced by all countries.
Moving forward, Vietnam and Singapore now lead Asean, as Indonesia and Thailand used to. Under President Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia appears to have lost its way. Its economy is severely challenged by the threat of state-led centralisation and potentially incipient nationalisation. Thailand, on the other hand, has been politically unstable for two decades, punctuated by street protests, military coups and judicial interventions, depressing growth trajectory for the foreseeable term. Vietnam has the size and a plan to lead the Southeast Asian bloc, whereas Singapore, as a small island-state, punches above its weight and provides a principled stewardship on regional issues, such as Myanmar's illegitimate military dominance.
Less sanguine is the Thai-Cambodian border conflict. As Thailand has revoked a 2001 bilateral Memorandum of Understanding, Cambodia has used this as justification to bring the Overlapping Claims Area (OCA) dispute to a Compulsory Conciliation body under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Thai revocation of the 2001 MOU partly stems from nationalist sentiments at home, which the Bhumjaithai Party-led coalition government under Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul campaigned on during the recent national election.
That the Thai-Cambodian conflict has come under UNCLOS provisions and drawn-out legal process over the next two years will be a thorn in Asean's side. Border tensions between the two sides are still raw, and renewed clashes cannot be ruled out despite a fragile peace accord and ceasefire agreement. However, as Cambodia chairs the Francophonie summit in November, Phnom Penh may not want instability and violence to spoil attendance, while Thailand's relative political stability after the Feb 8 election might make the Anutin government feel secure enough to lower nationalist temperatures in the country.
Myanmar has been another major sticking point. After the faux elections last December and January, Myanmar's military-backed government appears to have post-poll momentum, boosted by general-cum-civilian Min Aung Hlaing's recent five-day visit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. Less than two weeks later, Min Aung Hlaing received a big stamp of legitimacy when he visited President Xi Jinping in Beijing. To regain ground in the continuing civil war, Myanmar's resistance coalition will have to give external supporters, such as the European Union, Japan, and about half of Asean member states, something to work with if they are to hold out on recognising Min Aung Hlaing's post-election government.
The resistance coalition needs a dramatic turnaround, perhaps a drone campaign to retake some ground and shift perceptions. Battlefield dynamics will determine political directions in Myanmar. In this mix, the National Unity Government (NUG) leadership appears in need of a complete overhaul, although there is a lack of consensus on who could lead with the stature and visibility of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was arrested after the Feb 2021 coup and reportedly released to house arrest after the polls.
Against the backdrop of China's backing for Myanmar, there is also the issue of Min Zin, the founder and executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy, a regional think-tank focused on Myanmar and based in Chiang Mai. An American citizen, he was detained on 3 June after arriving at Kunming airport for a conference. China's Foreign Ministry has confirmed his "criminal detention on suspicion of espionage and endangering China's national security".
As Min Zin is well known and respected among regional think tanks, his abrupt detention does not reflect well on Chinese officialdom. However, the detention is perceived as a signal from China to the regional think-tank circuit that Myanmar dissidents and anti-(Myanmar) regime proponents in the neighbourhood outside Myanmar now have to exercise more caution and impose more self-censorship.
The Chinese detention of Min Zin further underscores Beijing's support for Min Aung Hlaing as well as the broader China-Myanmar relationship and all that goes with it, from a deep-sea port in the south and a gas pipeline crisscrossing the country to rare-earth mines in northern Kachin state.
Overall, Min Aung Hlaing is now likely to build more and seize momentum on three fronts. First, he wants to regain Myanmar's head-of-government seat at the Asean-centred summits later this year and to reclaim Myanmar's seat at the UN, now occupied by the National League for Democracy-led government's appointee Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun. In the medium term, he will want to retake Myanmar's rotational turn as Asean chair, perhaps after Timor Leste's in 2029, following Singapore's in 2027 and Thailand's in 2028.
