Thailand’s new security triangle China-Japan-US
By Kavi Chongkittavorn
The Nation

 

BANGKOK: -- Thailand will soon announce officially the purchase of three Yuan Class S26T Chinese-made submarines worth Bt13.5 billion each after a year of negotiations and study. The procurement of such a mammoth amount of military hardware has both symbolic and strategic significance.

 

The Thai Navy’s long delayed decision could mean the US-Thai alliance no longer occupies the same stature in the overall scheme of security priorities in Thailand.

 

The new Thai-China strategic alliance is gaining strength by the day — a virtual alliance in the making. It has become a new barometer showing the Thai security apparatus’ preference towards China for broader security surveillance and protection, especially to address the force imbalance in the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand.

 

Thailand wants to boost protection of its vast maritime resources on both sides of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and to secure the sea-lanes of communication. In addition, the alliance would also serve as a deterrent as maritime security becomes the main focus. If need be, it could perform the so-called “denial accessibility” of the hostile elements.

 

Full story: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/kavi/30306729

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-02-20

"...Thailand wants to boost protection of its vast maritime resources on both sides of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and to secure the sea-lanes of communication..."

 

Quote

 symbolic and strategic significance

I understand the symbolic aspect: the navy can now poke Thailand's warm shallow waters with 3 phallic symbols. The strategic significance escapes me.

Sounds good...but it's eyewash. It's not a Thai-China strategic alliance; it's a new Thai-China business alliance. The submarine purchase has nothing to do with security. Rather it has everything to do with money. More specifically, the money China will make selling overpriced junk to Thailand and vast amounts of backhand money that will pour into the personal accounts of Thailand's rich and shameless.

3 hours ago, Hayduke said:

Sounds good...but it's eyewash. It's not a Thai-China strategic alliance; it's a new Thai-China business alliance. The submarine purchase has nothing to do with security. Rather it has everything to do with money. More specifically, the money China will make selling overpriced junk to Thailand and vast amounts of backhand money that will pour into the personal accounts of Thailand's rich and shameless.

The "Army Run" government will set up a "holding and inspection readiness" company to purchase the submarines for lets say 9 billion baht which in turn will sell them to Thailand for the 13.5 billion baht after the so called readiness and inventory  inspections are done.The Army now has about 4.5 billion baht profit to share among the Generals and Admirals (after the government leaders get theirs first) and everybody are happy and the importing car business is again booming.The bet is that the subs will get even less time at sea then the Navy's Aircraft Carrier.

8 minutes ago, sanukjim said:

The "Army Run" government will set up a "holding and inspection readiness" company to purchase the submarines for lets say 9 billion baht which in turn will sell them to Thailand for the 13.5 billion baht after the so called readiness and inventory  inspections are done.The Army now has about 4.5 billion baht profit to share among the Generals and Admirals (after the government leaders get theirs first) and everybody are happy and the importing car business is again booming.The bet is that the subs will get even less time at sea then the Navy's Aircraft Carrier.

"The bet is that the subs will get even less time at sea then the Navy's Aircraft Carrier".

 

You mean the aircraft carrier that doesn't have any planes!

 

Incidently and this is trivia, Thailands aircraft carrier is the smallest in the world apparently, I guess size doesn't matter - it also doubles up as the official royal yacht.

 

http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=RTN-Chakri-Naruebet-CVS911

Edited February 20, 20179 yr by chiang mai