A
birthday party’s dinner guests were bubbling with cheer until the subject of
China came up, causing some of the Thais to suddenly turn gloomy.
“People in Thailand are worried,” said a former
foreign ministry diplomat, placing down his glass of red wine. “China’s economy
is so big, and ours is so small, that we cannot compete with all the Chinese
things being sold here. It is especially a problem for Thai S.M.E.s,” he said,
referring to small and medium-sized enterprises.
“China will own us!” said an official interpreter
for top government leaders, expressing her outrage at Beijing’s rapidly growing
influence on Bangkok’s economy.
“Of course China will also own America, but
your economy is so big you can just tell Beijing that you won’t pay all the
money you owe, and they can’t do anything about it. But Thailand is small. We
can’t say no to Beijing.
“Thailand will be like a vassal of China,” she
said.
U.S. corporations are also fretting about how
to compete in a region where the shared knowledge of Chinese dialects and an ancient
heritage, give China some unique advantages over America.
China’s ability to sell food, household goods and
other items at lower prices than Thai manufacturers has also pleased customers
in this Southeast Asian nation.
Beijing is simultaneously increasing its military
and cultural influence in Thailand, trying to wean Bangkok away from Washington
and other foreign governments while expanding China’s reach southward.
Chinese migrants have been settling in Thailand
for generations, arriving through Laos and across the Mekong River or, more
often, by sea from China’s southeast coastal towns to Bangkok.
The earliest arrivals melded into a relatively
unpopulated land centuries ago, maintaining some Chinese roots while mixing with
ethnic Mon, Shan, Khmer and Thais to produce offspring who are today generally
called Sino-Thais.
Many Thais admire local Chinese for educating
their kids in Thailand’s private “Chinese schools” while keeping their families
united and working hard as a business team.
Thailand’s newly elected government meanwhile is
expected to confirm Yingluck Shinawatra as the country’s first female prime
minister in August. She appears eager to allow China to construct high-speed
trains on five main routes across Thailand, replacing this country’s decrepit,
accident-prone railway.
The first 380-mile (615-km) Chinese rail line
would link Bangkok and Thailand’s northern border town of Nong Khai, where a
railway bridge over the Mekong River already leads to Vientiane, the capital of
tiny Laos — an impoverished country wedged between Thailand and China.
The Chinese railway projects could take a decade
or more to complete, but Thailand’s integration with China would be greatly
enhanced.
The collision in China on July 24 of two
bullet trains, which killed at least 39 people, has raised questions however
among some Thais about Beijing’s ability to build safe trains.
In January, Chinese investors began building a
$1.5 billion China City Complex near Bangkok which could employ more than
70,000 Chinese citizens.
They would be able to import parts from China,
manufacture the items into finished products on Thai territory, and export them
elsewhere as “made-in-Thailand” without suffering some of the expensive tariffs
which made-in-China products must pay.
The Chinese will also be able to sell the
700,000-sq-meter complex’s clothing, household items and other goods to people
within Thailand, free of tariffs.
“Apart from the business opportunities in
Thailand, Chinese exporters can also promote their products to developed
markets such as the European Union and the United States through this project,”
said Yang Fangshu, chairman of the ASEAN-China Economic and Trade Promotion
Center.
In 2006, when Thailand’s military staged a
coup and toppled the prime minister, Washington suspended $24 million in military
assistance and restricted high-level meetings.
Beijing, however, described the coup as
Bangkok’s internal affair and gave $49 million in military aid and credits to
Thailand, while increasing the number of exchange students at both countries’
staff colleges, and convincing the Thai military to participate in yearly,
small-scale Special Forces joint exercises.
Chinese and Thai special forces held a 15-day
joint anti-terrorism drill, “Strike-2010,” during October in China’s southern
Guilin city to practice shooting, assaults and strategy.
During the same month, more than 100 troops
and officers from the China Marine Corps’ amphibious special warfare unit
participated in a 10-day “Blue Strike-2010″ drill with their Thai counterparts,
using light weapons, underwater combat equipment, amphibious reconnaissance and
anti-terrorism equipment.
It was the first time Chinese marines conducted
a drill with a foreign army abroad.
But China has sold inferior weaponry to Thailand,
making some Thai military officials wary of becoming dependent on Chinese
supplies.
For Bangkok, commerce with Beijing appears to
be much more important than military links.
Thailand’s “government officials and academics sympathetic to the U.S. see the dynamic of China rising — and the U.S. receding — likely to continue, unless the U.S. takes more vigorous action to follow-up with sustained efforts to engage on issues that matter to the Thai and the region, not just what is
perceived as the U.S.’s own agenda,” said a confidential American Embassy cable to Washington in February 2010.
Thailand’s “government officials and academics sympathetic to the U.S. see the dynamic of China rising — and the U.S. receding — likely to continue, unless the U.S. takes more vigorous action to follow-up with sustained efforts to engage on issues that matter to the Thai and the region, not just what is
perceived as the U.S.’s own agenda,” said a confidential American Embassy cable to Washington in February 2010.
The cable, “10BANGKOK269,” was titled:
“China’s Sustained, Successful Efforts to Court Southeast Asia and Thailand —
Perspectives and Implications.”
It was signed by then-U.S. Ambassador Eric
John and released by WikiLeaks.
The cable’s section subtitled, “China Rising,
U.S. Fading?” warned: “Indications that the U.S.’s historically close
relationship with Thailand and the region is being challenged by the rise of
China have become increasingly evident in recent years in a variety of arenas,
not just economically but diplomatically, culturally, politically, and even in
some security areas.”
The U.S. Embassy even felt competition on a
diplomatic level.
“We have also noticed an ever increasing quality
to the Chinese diplomatic presence in Thailand. Many Chinese diplomats are
fully fluent in Thai, led by the Chinese Ambassador, who has spent 17 years of
his career posted here and routinely makes local TV appearances.
“Those that do not have previous Thai
experience, like the DCM [Deputy Chief of Mission] are smart, articulate, and
increasingly confident in speaking up at English-language international
relations seminars once the preserve of ’Western’ diplomats,” the cable said.
China’s roll south also includes prostitution,
gambling and other hedonistic offerings, most surprisingly in and around a tacky,
Greco-Roman building complex on the Lao side of the Mekong River across from
Thailand.
Chinese recently leased a 25,000-acre Special
Economic Zone from the Lao government and constructed an extravagant casino,
topped by a garish golden crown, in newly created Kapok City.
The Chinese complex will also offer golf,
restaurants, hotels, an airport and shopping malls.
Construction includes a 46-km road linking the casino to Huay Xai town on the Mekong River, according to Chiang Mai’s Citylife magazine, and will help the area prosper.
Construction includes a 46-km road linking the casino to Huay Xai town on the Mekong River, according to Chiang Mai’s Citylife magazine, and will help the area prosper.
“Before, it was opium and drug businesses,
maybe only 10 years before,” in the area, the casino’s manager told the
magazine.
“There were no roads, no electricity, no water.
Laos is developing, and it is good for them.”
Several top Thai corporations are meanwhile
trying to make profits by investing in China, hoping to copy the perceived
success of Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group.
In 1979, CP Group — known in China as the Chia
Tai Group (Zheng Da Ji Tuan) – was the first multinational enterprise to invest
in China’s agribusiness.
Famous in Thailand for chicken and other food
products, they expanded into China by focusing on the growing, processing and
marketing of poultry and other edibles, alongside investments in huge supermarkets,
entertainment complexes, automotive and other industries, plastics, and TV
media.
More recently, Thailand’s agricultural
exporters have been exporting magosteens, durians, pomelo, tamarind and other
food to China, helped by a deal signed in April which streamlined customs
checks for road shipments.
Sealed trucks are now able to speed to northern
Thailand’s border town of Chiang Khong, cross the Mekong into northwest Laos at
Huay Sai, travel further north on Route 3 to the Lao-China border town of
Mohan, and enter southern China’s Yunnan province for delivery by superhighway
to Jinghong and Kunming.
Before the agreement, trucks had to stop at the
Thai-Lao border for laborious reloading onto different vehicles inside Laos,
and again be unloaded and reloaded at the Lao-China border.
Alternatively, Thai exporters use Bangkok’s
port to ship goods along the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea into Hong
Kong.
China, however, produces much larger and more
diversified foods for export into Thailand, threatening local producers and
worrying consumers who fear China’s deadly toxic contamination.
Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration recently
increased checks on food arriving from China, testing for mercury, melamine,
pesticides and other hazardous substances.
Source: Scoop
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