Opinion: Why More Thais Are Becoming Anxious About the Rise of China
What a xenophobic, or more accurately a ‘sinophobic’, week for Thailand, particularly Thai netizens. First, was the loud cries of condemnation against a large billboard solely in Chinese language found...
View ArticleOpinion: Thailand’s Politics of Absurdity: The Move Forward Party Case
Three more days and we will know on August 7 whether Move Forward Party, the party with 14 million votes behind them, would be dissolved by the Constitutional Court, and their leaders, including the...
View ArticleA Dark Day for Thailand After Court Dissolved Move Forward Party
In the end, the Constitutional Court today acted out of fear, citing eventual concerns that the monarchy institution will be eventually abolished if the main opposition Move Forward was allowed to...
View ArticleOpinion: Dissolution of Move Forward Party, Pita, and Fear of US Manipulation
Listening to Wednesday’s ruling made by the Constitutional Court as they ordered the dissolution of the main opposition Move Forward Party and ban party executive board members, including the...
View ArticleIs Thailand’s New PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra Or Her Father, Thaksin Shinawatra?
Finally, Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been voted by members of parliament as Thailand’s 31st Prime Minister and became the youngest prime minister in Thai history at the age of 37. Her chief...
View ArticleOpinion: From Move Forward Party to People’s Party – A Reversed Political...
First, they won the May 2014 general election, but then the Move Forward Party under the leadership of Pita Limjaroenrat failed to form a government. A little over a year later, on August 7, 2024, the...
View ArticleIs Thailand Finally Leaving Its Two-Decade Long Political Conflicts Behind?
In bringing in its longtime nemesis the Democrat Party to the fold as a coalition partner of the new government, PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Thursday calls for people to look into the future and put...
View ArticleLike Her (and Her Dad, Thaksin) or Not, We Need to Give Paetongtarn...
L ess than 24 hours after the new Paetongtarn Shinawatra was sworn into office in front of the King, anti-government protesters decided to demonstrate in Bangkok yesterday. They vow to take to the...
View ArticleChiang Rai, Flash Flood, and the Province as an Internal Colony of Bangkok
S eeing the devastating flash flood in Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district unfold over the past week, one wonders if something could have been done to significantly mitigate the death and damages. This...
View ArticleFrom Trump to Thailand: How to Villainize Your Political Opponent
Watching Donald Trump framing his Presidential Election battle against Kamala Harris, one can’t help but notice at least two similarities with Thai politics worth elaborating. First, Trump makes Kamala...
View ArticleShould Thais Be Elated by 10,000 Baht Cash Handouts?
S ome of the 14.5 million poor people who hold state welfare cardholders and the physically handicapped were elated this week as they withdrew their 10,000 baht cash handout from a nearby ATM, thanks...
View ArticleRoad Accidents and Deaths in Thailand: A Road to Nowhere
A lmost a week after the tragedy, the nation is still mourning the loss of 23 people, 20 of them young students, in the school bus fire in Pathum Thani province on October 1, and trying to understand...
View ArticleA Letter to Concerned Thais from a Burmese Refugee
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and related countries’ meeting in Vientiane, Laos, which just concluded this week, had Myanmar as one of the important topics. Thailand...
View ArticleThe Growing Toxicity of Thai-Cambodia Netizen Relations
The decision by Thai-owned Miss Grand International Competition to suddenly move the site of its contest from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to Bangkok, Thailand, with MGI big boss Mr Nawat Itsaragrisil citing...
View ArticleMake Last Bid Effort to Ensure Justice for Tak Bai Victims
In less than five days from now, or by Friday October 25, the statute limitations for the seven people wanted for their involvement in the Tak Bai massacre, which led to the deaths of 85...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the U.S. Presidential Election Results Impact Thailand
BANGKOK — In collaboration with the American Studies Association in Thailand and the Faculty of Political Science at Thammasat College, the Matichon Group hosted a seminar entitled “US Election 2024:...
View ArticleNo “Miracle” for Tak Bai Massacre Case
In the end, by the end of Friday, October 25, the forlorn hope for “a miracle” expressed by Justice Minister Thawee Sodsong that some of the 14 people wanted in relation to the 2004 Tak Bai massacre,...
View ArticleThailand Made More Inclusive Move But We Can Do More
Thailand took the right step earlier this week when the Cabinet of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra approved new criteria to accelerate the process of granting Thai citizenship and legal status to...
View ArticleTrump Restoration is Not All Bad for The World
Reading The New York Times’ Weekend international edition two days before the US Presidential Election one can feel the sense of acute anxiety, despair even, among its top writers. On the frontpage of...
View ArticleThai Road Safety Pessimism
Talking to one of Thailand’s leading veteran campaigners for road safety during a lunch earlier this month made me feel more pessimistic, to be honest. Tairjing Siriphanich, secretary general of Don’t...
View Article