Will Thailand have to get involved in the South China Sea tensions?

[thailand49]

Diplomacy or kissing A,  the attention and visit by both countries.  This time they will have to choose if there is a real conflict old master or new?   LOL. 

[Kohkah]

3 hours ago, Jerno said:

Will Thailand get involved...?  Of course not!  When there's been past armed conflicts and (many) wars, Thailand has never picked sides. Have never sent Military to aid any other country during wars.  Can't even admit or commit to the undeniable fact that Putin/Russia is a barbaric aggressor and totally wrong invading Ukraine.  

What about Korea war?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand_in_the_Korean_War

What about Vietnam war?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand_in_the_Vietnam_War

 

[Plus Esse Quam Simultatur]

Thailand won't involve in anything unless they can gain from it and by gaining I mean earn money. They will sit on the fence like vaulters 

[KIngsofisaan]

Will Thailand use it's subs to aid China in an invasion of Taiwan?

[MichiganMarty]

can't see any upsetting china going on

[actonion]

Thailand only take sides   with the country thats winning

[daveAustin]

2 hours ago, grain said:

Not quite correct. Thailand certainly picked sides in WW2 and sided with the Axis and a declaration of war was sent to the USA. There were also Thai troops fighting in Vietnam. And I read long ago that some Siamese troops were fighting in Europe during WW1, from memory they were attached to the French Indo-China colonial forces.

Sure, Thais were fighting in Vietnam (Brits were there too, notably the sas), but that is not country level Thailand. 
Any sort of spat in the South China Sea, they will, very deftly, not be involved. 

[SunnyinBangrak]

4 hours ago, Jerno said:

 Can't even admit or commit to the undeniable fact that Putin/Russia is a barbaric aggressor and totally wrong invading Ukraine.  

Thailand will not have to get involved in the South China Sea scuffle, and nor should they. Thailand has been very intelligent by refusing the western narrative that you outline above - that the issue in Ukraine is 100% Putin's fault and that NATO are angels and their behaviour 100% perfect and certainly they didn't trigger Putin. An "undeniable" fact that is of course denied by many.

 I'm not usually praising the Thai government for their maturity in decision making, but here yes, well done.

[Poilu]

4 hours ago, Jerno said:

Will Thailand get involved...?  Of course not!  When there's been past armed conflicts and (many) wars, Thailand has never picked sides. Have never sent Military to aid any other country during wars.  Can't even admit or commit to the undeniable fact that Putin/Russia is a barbaric aggressor and totally wrong invading Ukraine.  

Thailand declared war on Germany in 1917 and their troops arrived in France shortly before the Armistice in 1918. After the war Thai troops occupied the town of Neustadt in Germany.

[bang saen guy]

The PM will do what CP tell him to do

[Johnny9]

Oh ..  what the heck Thai Military gonna do outside Thailand ...???

They're only good for hurt and kill Thai people only.

Beside , Thai Force are not gonna make any different on any world war.

Just only big talk from goofy Thai Generals, that's it.

 

..  Got That ...!!!

 

...

[grain]

1 hour ago, DUNROAMIN said:

Thais army entered the WW1 when it was over, went as peace keepers to Germany, never fired a shot in anger. 

I did read about some Thai (Siamese) troops fighting in WW1. It was long ago and I can't recall the title of the book. But from memory it was written by a British officer who post-war was attached to some diplomatic posting in Thailand, and he recounted how he had first come into contact with Thais during the war, they were in a unit attached to French colonial forces.

[chang1]

45 minutes ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

Thailand will not have to get involved in the South China Sea scuffle, and nor should they. Thailand has been very intelligent by refusing the western narrative that you outline above - that the issue in Ukraine is 100% Putin's fault and that NATO are angels and their behaviour 100% perfect and certainly they didn't trigger Putin. An "undeniable" fact that is of course denied by many.

 I'm not usually praising the Thai government for their maturity in decision making, but here yes, well done.

Rather off topic but here goes.

Putin didn't want NATO on his doorstep so why is he trying to move his doorstep to Nato countries? Putin is doing a land grab pure and simple. Same as the ccp wants to do with Taiwan and the South China Sea. 

If Thailand doesn't care about the ccp land grabs, why would other countries care if China invades Thailand? Appeasing aggressors only makes for worse problems later on - just ask Germans how being in putins pocket feels now?

[kingstonkid]

ASEAN is going to be the sticking point for Thailand and other countries.  Thailand didn't so much as declare war with the axis it just decided to not fight or argue with Japan openly.  A lot of Thai people died fighting Japan.

 

Thailand has spent the past decades playing both sides of the street it will be interesting to see how the government at the time resolve the issue if forced

[Excel]

1 minute ago, kingstonkid said:

A lot of Thai people died fighting Japan.

Whilst to a point that is true, most Thai people, an estimated in excess of 30,000 civilians and very very brave and kind people, died whist they were trying to help the POW's that the Japanese were keeping as animals. Many of those 30,000 were murdered in cold blood by the Japanese.

[RayOday]

3 hours ago, grain said:

Not quite correct. Thailand certainly picked sides in WW2 and sided with the Axis and a declaration of war was sent to the USA. There were also Thai troops fighting in Vietnam. And I read long ago that some Siamese troops were fighting in Europe during WW1, from memory they were attached to the French Indo-China colonial forces.

Correct. Additionally Thailand deployed 65,000 troops to support the Korean conflict. 40,000 Thai troops served in the Vietnam conflict fighting alongside U.S. and South Vietnamese troops. 351 Thai troops were killed and 1358 were wounded. Thailand supported the anti communist factions during the Laotian civil war. There were smaller deployments of Thai forces during the conflict in East Timor and non-combatant forces were sent post Iraq invasion to support the rebuilding effort.

As might be expected the Thai armed forces have a ratio of  generals and admirals of 1 per 212 troops whereas the U.S. has 1 per 1430. Different business I guess. In 2021 Thailand announced a plan to reduce their bloated leadership 25% by 2029. I wonder how they are progressing. 

[BE88]

2 hours ago, Excel said:

But let's face it, joining in with the US in the Vietnam war was something that I doubt they choose to do, rather what they were told to do as some kind of recognition for the millions upon millions of dollars that the US poured into Thailand to build the infrastructure necessary for their ( the US ) war. 

And now it's China's turn to build infrastructure for their war.

 

[ThailandRyan]

3 hours ago, 2baht said:

It will be interesting to watch them bow to the Emperor! ☹️

Will he be wearing new clothes that are invisible...a story book told me so...

[2baht]

7 minutes ago, BE88 said:

And now it's China's turn to build infrastructure for their war.

 

They've been doing that for many years now.....a lot of it on stolen islands in the South China Sea.

[BE88]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Very few people seem to know the allies conducted bombing raids on Bangkok. They still find unexploded ordinance here and there. The battle of Prachuap lasted only a few hours, then Thailand agreed to be occupied by Japan. 

The bombs on Prachuap was a mistake by the Japanese, they did not know it was a holiday resort but was aware of what happened and the King immediately declared that he was welcome to Prachuap as armed tourists.

[BE88]

9 minutes ago, 2baht said:

They've been doing that for many years now.....a lot of it on stolen islands in the South China Sea.

It is not exact they have not stolen it from any country they have built these islands on rocky cliffs in their sea on the example of Dubai.

[2baht]

1 minute ago, BE88 said:

It is not exact they have not stolen it from any country they have built these islands on rocky cliffs in their sea on the example of Dubai.

Taiwan, Japan, Philippines and Vietnam would beg to differ.

[worldexpress]

6 hours ago, Jerno said:

Will Thailand get involved...?  Of course not!  When there's been past armed conflicts and (many) wars, Thailand has never picked sides. Have never sent Military to aid any other country during wars.  Can't even admit or commit to the undeniable fact that Putin/Russia is a barbaric aggressor and totally wrong invading Ukraine.  

I understand and fully sympathize with your sentiment about the ball-less stances of recent Thai governments on world issues but factually, your statements are completely incorrect. They were a major contributor and host to the American forces during the Vietnam War (Pattaya wouldn't be today's Pattaya without the U.S. G.I.s back then). A quick search on Wiki yielded: "About 40,000 Thai military would serve in South Vietnam, with 351 killed in action and 1,358 wounded." Also, "During the course of the Korean War, Thailand dispatched a total of 11,786 soldiers to Korea. It is recorded that 129 Thai soldiers lost their lives in the war, 1,139 were wounded, and five were missing in action (MIA)," also according to Wiki.

 

 It is true that the Kingdom "chose" to be neutral during WWII, on the surface politics, but their silent choice in reality was taking of the side on the Axis. Remember River Kwai? Japanese still came onto Thai soil to carry out their military objectives and commit atrocities against the Allied troops.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with you, however, their stance and initial actions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine were disgusting. 

[BE88]

9 minutes ago, 2baht said:

Taiwan, Japan, Philippines and Vietnam would beg to differ.

If we exclude Taiwan which is China and only because Japan and Vietnam and the Philippines have stood by and watched,

China astutely applied an old Western rule of who plants a flag of the uncovered nation on a virgin place automatically becomes the owner.

No country could contest this legal action.

 

[2baht]

3 minutes ago, BE88 said:

If we exclude Taiwan which is China and only because Japan and Vietnam and the Philippines have stood by and watched,

China astutely applied an old Western rule of who plants a flag of the uncovered nation on a virgin place automatically becomes the owner.

No country could contest this legal action.

 

Is China's 9 dash line legal and valid? 

 

 

 

 

China's 9 dash line is an invalid territorial claim because:

It is illegal. It endangers the sovereignty of multiple states with exclusive economic zones in the south china sea.

[robertson468]

4 hours ago, grain said:

Not quite correct. Thailand certainly picked sides in WW2 and sided with the Axis and a declaration of war was sent to the USA. There were also Thai troops fighting in Vietnam. And I read long ago that some Siamese troops were fighting in Europe during WW1, from memory they were attached to the French Indo-China colonial forces.

During World War 2 Thailand initially sided with the Germany/Japan, and sent a declaration of War to the USA.  Shortly after sending the declaration Thailand changed it's mind and decided to side with USA/UK et al.  I believe that the initiative for this change was the realization that it would not be a power sharing situation with Japan, but more of an occupation force.

[Geordieabroad]

Thailand will sit on the fence until it decides which side it would be most profitable to back.

A bit like WW2 when Thailand declared war on the allies but didn't get involved because they couldn't decide which side was winning till 1945, then it was too late

[Thalueng]

6 hours ago, Jerno said:

Will Thailand get involved...?  Of course not!  When there's been past armed conflicts and (many) wars, Thailand has never picked sides. Have never sent Military to aid any other country during wars.  Can't even admit or commit to the undeniable fact that Putin/Russia is a barbaric aggressor and totally wrong invading Ukraine.  

Not true. Thailand sent the biggest non-western troop contingent in the Korean war to help South Korea, which fostered a deep friendship between the 2 countries until today.

[NoshowJones]

2 hours ago, Plus Esse Quam Simultatur said:

Thailand won't involve in anything unless they can gain from it and by gaining I mean earn money. They will sit on the fence like vaulters 

Money is the only motivation for this unelected PM and his soldiers, that is why he is still in office after eight years.

[johncat1]

Thailand can be in charge of carrying the white flag, something they are used to.