40th anniversary: How Sino-Thai relations were sparked off 40 years ago

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40TH ANNIVERSARY
How Sino-Thai relations were sparked off 40 years ago
Supalak Ganjanakhundee,
Wiraj Sripong
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Early one morning in July 1971, United States Ambassador to Thailand Leonard Unger invited a group of Thais, including a young Foreign Ministry official called Tej Bunnaj, to a working breakfast with then-National Security Council chief Henry Kissinger. The topic of discussion was "how to end the Vietnam War".

At the meeting, Sulak Sivaraksa, also invited as an advisor, said: 'The key to resolving the Vietnam War is China'. Kissinger was dumbstruck, but said nothing... we later learned that he went on a secret trip to Beijing," Tej recalled.

The young civil servant was to become Thailand's ambassador to Beijing, permanent secretary to the Foreign Ministry and later the foreign minister.

Kissinger's mission led to the recognition of the People's Republic of China and formal ties between the United States and the communist regime of Beijing.

Though many people in Thailand played a role in the establishment of formal diplomatic ties between the Kingdom of Thailand and the People's Republic of China 40 years ago, Tej is perhaps the most quoted on the topic. He knows the issue well, has first-hand information and has been involved in many key policies concerning China, he said.

Though Thailand wanted to build informal ties with China since 1946, the foreign policy had to be adjusted according to international circumstances, Tej said. Beijing was just stronger and Thailand could not forego building relations for the sake of Taiwan.

In those days, most major powers in the world, namely the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France, recognised Beijing, leaving only the United States to have proper diplomatic ties with Taiwan, he said.

However, Thailand's decision to establish relations with China was not influenced by the US, Tej said. "I understand that some senior people in the government at that time mulled the policy shift for a long time before formal relations were established in 1975," he explained.

In July 1969, it was a critical moment for Thailand when then-president Richard Nixon declared the Guam doctrine signalling US retreat from Vietnam. That left Thailand, which was facing threats from the pro-China Communist Party of Thailand, to find its own way.

Between 1970 and 1971, Thailand tried to establish more contact with China via third parties such as Yugoslavia, Sweden and France, as well as through the Thai representative in New York. On January 13, 1971, then-foreign minister Thanat Khoman said in a speech via Columbia Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) in the US that Thailand wanted cordial relations with China.

But building ties with a communist country in the peak of anti-communist campaigns was not easy, especially as Beijing was providing strong support to the Communist Party of Thailand.

"We [the Thai foreign ministry] spent nearly three years trying to convince security officials to agree to build normal ties with the People's Republic of China," Tej recalled.

Senior ministry officials visited China at least 23 times to familiarise themselves with the new China. They managed to get China to promise it would not support the communist insurgents in Thailand and ask the Chinese people resident in Thailand to be good Thai citizens and shift their loyalty to Thailand.

Finally, formal diplomatic ties were established on July 1, 1975 by the Kukrit Pramoj government.

Diplomatic relations with China have been smooth since then, apart from a slight chill after the October 6, 1979 massacre of students in Thammasat University by ultra-rightist groups, Tej said.

Thailand and China became very close after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and got rid of the notorious Khmer Rouge regime in late 1978. At that time, China helped prevent Vietnam from expanding into Thai territory and even supported Thailand politically and militarily to build a coalition of three Khmer factions, led by Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk, to fight against the Vietnam-led government in Phnom Penh.

However, Beijing was disappointed when the Chatchai Choonhavan-led government shifted Thailand's policy to recognise the Phnom Penh government under Heng Samrin and Hun Sen until the 1991 Paris Peace Accord officially ended the Vietnam-Cambodia war.

Changing policies to meet new circumstances is no problem, Tej said. He was serving as Thailand's ambassador to Beijing at that time. "China was disappointed because we did not inform them of our policy change in advance," he explained.

Looking over Sino-Thai relations over the past 40 years, Tej said China really needed Thailand in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, however, the Thai leadership needs to seriously find out if China, which is fast becoming a major superpower, has Thailand in its radar.

It is good to maintain relations with China, but one should also be careful, the veteran politician suggested.

This is the first in a series of articles to mark the 40th anniversary of Thailand-China relations.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/How-Sino-Thai-relations-were-sparked-off-40-years--30263316.html


-- The Nation 2015-06-29

[Somtamnication]

And 40 years from now, when Thais are all speaking Mandarin, they will look back 80 years and curse the living daylights out of that Thai delegation.

[LomSak27]

The first in a series of articles, This should prove interesting what with Thailand known ability to reimagine and create history, IE, Ramkamhaeng Stele for instance. Interestingly while this ,may be the Thai version the US version does not mention this at all . Heh

Critical to Thailand establishing relations though was Chinese abandonment of her ethnic allies - Hmong in Thailand which were used by her and Vietnam as a counterweight to Hmong in Laos. This was also known as the Red Meo revolt. Once China and Vietnam abandoned support for it's allies relations could be started.

Those are the same guys up in Petchaboon who were hosting there anti communist Lao refuges about 10 years back. Some of you might recall that. Red Meo, CIA army seems they really did not get along with the lowlanders so if you could provide guns they would swear allegiance to whatever cause you were promoting.

That said lets see where these hagiographic articles put the man people really say did the meet and geeet - Zbigniew Brzezinskir. in 78

coffees up