3 Sept: Diplomacy Under Siege: The 2014 Coup and Thailand’s Foreign Relations

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the seminars by A/P Pavin Chachavalpongpun, “Coup, King, Crisis” and “Diplomacy Under Siege”, have been postponed until further notice. Thank you for your understanding, and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

The Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia

Diplomacy Under Siege: The 2014 Coup and Thailand’s Foreign Relations

Seminar by Assoc. Prof. Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia, AY2015/2016

Chaired by Dr. Terence Lee
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

Thursday, 3 September 2015, 10AM
AS7 06-42, Research Division Seminar Room
The Shaw Foundation Building, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
National University of Singapore

Thailand’s coup of May 2014 has not only generated significant impacts on domestic politics, but also on the country’s foreign policy. Facing international sanctions, mostly imposed by Western governments, the military government of Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha has attempted to diversify Thai foreign policy options in order to quench the intensity of outside pressure. For Thailand, in the post-coup period, there has been a strengthening of relations with neighbouring countries, ranging from Myanmar and Cambodia to China and Japan. And meanwhile, Thailand’s ties with Western nations, in particular the United States, which called for the Thai junta to return power to the Thai people, have continued to chill. The visit of the US Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel R. Russel, to Thailand in January 2015, emerged as a diplomatic hiccup that pushed Thailand further into the warm embrace of China. The speaker will discuss the current state of Thai foreign policy in relation to the domestic political crisis in Thailand.

Email nusstanfordsea@nus.edu.sg to RSVP.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is Associate Professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. Earning his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, Pavin is the author of two books: “A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations” and “Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin and His Foreign Policy”. Read more about Dr Chachavalpongpun here.

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