Foreign policy has served Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s own ambitions for regional leadership and for his business empire, academics at a Chulalongkorn University seminar said yesterday.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science lecturer, said the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, the Economic Cooperation Strategy and the Bangkok Process, along with bilateral trade strategies were intended to enhance Thailand’s international role.

They were also formulated to further Mr Thaksin’s own wishes to influence the region, mirroring the late Gen Chatchai Choonhavan’s ambitions for Indochina when he was premier in the early 1990s.

The objectives and conduct of these policies were beset with conflicts of interest involving corporate concerns of the Shinawatra conglomerate and the business interests of his associates, Mr Thitinan charged.

The stalled Bangkok Process to find solutions for Burma has proven the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the military junta, is most effectively dealt with from a position of strength, not concessions and accommodation, he said.

“It would be a win-win solution if we took a hard-line stance as we might not be condemned by the international community. It the SPDC did not comply we would have nothing to lose.

“But the PM has to relinquish some of his business expansion [ideas] and sacrifice his own family interests,” he said.

On Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai’s bid for the UN
secretary-general post, Mr Thitinan said the chances of him winning did not look good.

Mr Thitinan said if Mr Surakiart did not succeed it will only be
embarrassing for him in the short term, but in the long term the country would lose face.

“We need to demonstrate our distinction, like Indonesia did in being moderate, democratic and the largest Muslim country in the world when it bid for the Security Council [seat]. Thailand’s approach is unclear,” he said.

Former ambassador to the UN, Asda Jayanama, said the Thaksin government’s unconventional diplomacy was to use bargaining chips with other countries rather than getting any tangible benefits.

“With the policy U-turn to the US, the Thaksin government became associated with the anti-terror agenda rather than balancing it with multilateralism under the UN auspices,” Mr Asda said.

Instead of playing the major powers off against each other and maintaining distance from them, the premier had chosen a trade-off policy by exchanging anti-terror for non-Nato major ally status. He had also curbed the Falungong movement in Thailand for closer economic ties with China, he
said.

“Our foreign policy has been formulated with a total lack of preparation and turned out to be simplistic,” Mr Asda said.

Mr Thitinan agreed Thai-US free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations are not purely driven by economic considerations, but the overall Thai-US relationship.

Similar political and strategic considerations were also at work in the Thai-China FTA, he said.