Tej bunnag biography of martin

Tej bunnag biography of martin: Thai diplomacy: in conversation

He is now Director-General of the Thai Red Cross, a landing pad for high-ranking officials after retirement. The careers of the ablest seem never to end. The questions are not confrontational. He concedes that an occasional problem with Thai diplomats is that they can be economical with the facts at the wrong time. The art and craft, not to say craftiness, of diplomacy is on display everywhere.

The Republic of China made a fuss over its two seats and walked out. The Siamese delegation grabbed a spare chair and squeezed in a third delegate, thus achieving results without making a fuss. Thai diplomacy had another success in at a meeting in Bandung, which led to the Non-Aligned Movement and where Prince Wan Waithayakon —the urbane, unflappable, scholar-official and foreign minister from towas elected Rapporteur and Chair of the committee drafting the Bandung Declaration.

Tej is not in favour of containment as a policy. Britain and France had policed borders, and when the war ended, lengths of the borders were undefined.

Tej bunnag biography of martin: Dr. Tej Bunnag, the former Foreign

Boundary markers, between Thailand and Cambodia, for example, had been lost or looted; Tej is nonplussed to find a boundary marker in the home of a Bangkok expat. Demarcating boundaries scientifically is a slow but necessary process. He is appreciative of this early exposure to regional diplomacy. The reader is not privy to alternative views in the ministry where other officials might be pro-China, pro-American, pro-EU, or even inward-looking and reserved about proactive engagement with the outside world.

He says opportunities are sometimes meant to be missed. Thailand finally established diplomatic relations inand by the s Thailand was the biggest direct investor in China. Today China is its biggest trading partner. It has taken a while, but it is nothing new. All of us in East Asia are accustomed to China as the centre of our world…. We are used to this.

These statements are not surprising. Until Siam sent tribute missions to the Middle Kingdom, sometimes yearly, and the Bangkok kings conferred noble titles on Chinese merchant-mandarins.

Tej bunnag biography of martin: (). Personal archive and

The new capital grew as a Chinese city. The aristocracy, including the royal family, has Chinese blood, and many business and elite families today are Sino-Thai. A unipolar world is dangerous for a country with limited interests, and balance is the key to the Thailand-USA relationship. Towards the end of the book he returns to the theme of limited interests and proposes that Thailand, while it is an upper middle income country, should use its diplomacy to punch higher and aspire to be an upper middle power.

As a nation, Thailand is not as interested in the rest of the world as it should be and needs to be more internationalist, Tej says. Apart from Prince Wan, his personal hero, he praises the work of foreign ministers who rose above this inward-looking tendency and who thought about the world, world problems and world issues. Examples are Thanat Khoman in the s, Chatichai Choonavan inthe late Surin Pitsuwan from toand Surakiart Sathirathai from to Tej tells his stories with relish and speaks about the inconvenience and discomfort that come with international travel.

Porters are on strike, requiring him to make several trips across a busy road, dodging traffic to haul his luggage and a heavy box of MFA documents into an unfamiliar airport. In Nairobi, where he arrives exhausted at dawn, his host urges him to freshen up so they can drive to the Kenya National Park to see giraffes, tigers, and a hippopotamus.

In Dar es Salaam he stays in a hotel with no glass in the windows and no air-conditioning. A lively and nuanced discussion with Tej Bunnag, one of Thailand's most distinguished diplomats. Published in English and available online in pdf, the book contains unvarnished insights into Thai diplomacy and plenty of messaging for the ears of diplomats in powers great and small, near and far.

Anuson Chinvanno, ed. Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, Arte e Storia delle Madonie. Studi in memoria di Nico Marino. III, Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up.

Asian DiplomacyRanaKishan S. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Jittipat Poonkham.