Thai Foreign Policy Under Review: Good Relations, Limited Leverage

Scholars at Chulalongkorn University argue that Thailand has preserved its relationships with every major power but has not converted them into bargaining power. For companies operating here, that gap is the operative fact.

On 3 September 2026, the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS Thailand) convened a forum at the Prajadhipok-Rambhai Barni Building, Chulalongkorn University, titled Reassessing Thai Foreign Policy, together with the Nelson Mandela Center for Conflict Resolution, Prevention of Violence and Human Security, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (Thailand), and the Department of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science.

The framing question of the first panel was unusually blunt for an academic setting: is Thailand bending with the wind, bending ahead of it, or simply falling over. Across both sessions a common assessment emerged. Thailand has retained working relationships with the United States, China, the European Union and Japan, and has avoided being forced into alignment. What it has not done is turn those relationships into economic capacity, technological access or negotiating weight.

That distinction, between having good relations and being able to use them, ran through the entire day.

Searching under the lamppost

The keynote was delivered by Emeritus Professor Surachart Bamrungsuk, who also serves as an adviser to the Chief of Defence Forces and heads the Security Studies Project. His central image was of a man who loses something at night and searches under the street lamp because that is where the light is, not because that is where the object fell.

Applied to policy, the point was that Thai decision-makers gravitate towards familiar options because they are legible and comfortable, rather than towards the actual problem.

His diagnosis was procedural rather than directed at any single decision. Thailand has process, he argued, but not a process of thinking, and the result is direction without direction. The familiar vocabulary of neutrality, non-alignment, bending with the wind and following global trends is repeated without a shared understanding of what any of it means in practice, or of how other states read Thailand's position. Balance of power, in his reading, is not something a small state can perform in the way a great power can.

His recommendation followed from that. Thailand should accept its status as a small power and build a deliberate hedging posture, rather than setting non-alignment as the objective in itself. In a system moving towards multipolarity, the decision space for smaller states narrows, and Thailand may eventually be pushed into choices it has not prepared for. The task, therefore, is to work out where to invest politically, economically and in security terms, and how much risk the country can absorb without becoming the ground on which others compete.

He closed on the neighbourhood. Thailand cannot raise its regional standing while its relations with immediate neighbours remain unresolved. His observation that a country which once spoke of turning battlefields into marketplaces is now doing the reverse was among the sharper remarks of the morning. He argued against allowing nationalist sentiment to set policy, and for reducing friction with Cambodia in order to hold capacity in reserve for uncertainty in Myanmar and for the cross-border criminal and scam networks operating along the frontier.

Good relations are not the same as leverage ‍

Assistant Professor Pongphisoot Busbarat, Director of ISIS Thailand, examined the current government's handling of the two relationships that matter most, and reached the forum's most quotable conclusion by a different route.

His assessment was that Thailand has managed both Washington and Beijing without being forced to choose. But the conduct of the relationships has been largely reactive, and the returns are difficult to identify when measured against economic, technological and security bargaining power.

‍On the United States, the security relationship remains the foundation, sustained through Cobra Gold and extending into cyber and transnational crime cooperation. Alliance status has not translated into commercial advantage. Washington has continued to apply economic and tariff pressure, and Pongphisoot cited the previous year's Thai-Cambodian conflict, where United States tariff measures were used to press Thailand towards negotiation, as an illustration of how narrow Thailand's room for manoeuvre has become. On the investment side, he placed Thailand below Vietnam and Malaysia in Washington's assessment of strategic importance in semiconductors, artificial intelligence and security-adjacent technology. ‍

On China, the political picture is livelier. High-level visits, intergovernmental mechanisms and investment interest across artificial intelligence, cloud, data centres, semiconductors and electric vehicles have all expanded. His question was whether proximity has produced leverage on the issues where Thailand's own interests are directly engaged, and here he was doubtful: Cambodia, Myanmar, the Mekong, and cross-border problems including mining-related contamination of river systems.

His framing of Chinese investment deserves attention from anyone building an investment case in Thailand. Volume is not the measure. The question is whether the capital brings technology transfer, and whether it raises the capability of Thai suppliers and the domestic industrial base. If companies and capital arrive without the production base and knowledge base moving with them, Thailand has not obtained a strategic return from the relationship.

His recommendation to government was specific: define indicators and a workplan, be able to answer what Thailand wants, what it can deliver and where it actually holds leverage, and communicate that position with more confidence. Alongside that, avoid excessive attachment to any single major power and invest in ASEAN as a means of raising the region's collective bargaining position.

Europe is more than a trade agreement ‍

Associate Professor Natthanan Kunnamas, who directs the Centre for European Studies at Chulalongkorn, traced the recovery of Thailand-EU relations from 2019, following the suspension of high-level contact after 2014 which had also stalled both the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement. The PCA is now concluded and FTA negotiations are well advanced.

Her argument was that the FTA should not be understood primarily as a tariff instrument. Its more consequential effect is regulatory: it obliges Thailand to raise rules and standards across a range of areas, and those are substantially the same standards Thailand must meet on the path towards OECD membership. The two tracks are, in practical terms, one adjustment programme.

She was careful about the measure of progress. Counting closed chapters is a poor proxy for outcome, because the chapters that remain open are those with direct domestic consequences: pharmaceutical patents and access to medicines, plant varieties, agriculture and government procurement. Her caution was that the desire to conclude should not become the pressure that settles those chapters badly for smallholders, consumers or patients.

Transparency was her second concern. Government reporting has been largely quantitative. Stakeholders can see how many chapters have closed but not enough of what has been agreed to assess where benefits and costs will land. Her recommendation was a fuller impact assessment before conclusion, covering effects by industry, employment, medicine costs, public procurement, and the adjustment costs that business and society will carry in meeting new standards.

Beyond the FTA, she pointed to the wider PCA framework as underused: green technology, research and development, higher education, cyber security, and aviation and space technology.

She also named the risks of moving closer to Europe, which are not trivial. European economic performance, energy security, technological competitiveness and the growth of right-wing politics all bear on the value of the relationship. She flagged one exposure with direct commercial relevance: if EU measures relating to Russia extend to third-country companies still transacting with Russian counterparties, Thai-registered entities could be caught. ‍

Japan has changed the question

Assistant Professor Teewin Suputtikun, Head of the Department of International Relations, described the bilateral relationship as drifting apart, and located the cause in a mismatch of expectations. Thailand still reads Japan primarily as an economic partner. Japan increasingly reads its partners through security and strategy alongside commercial interest.

The organising concept is economic security. Tokyo no longer asks only where to trade and invest, but whether dependence on a given country creates risk or hands that country leverage over Japan. The consequence is diversification of production, investment and security cooperation across a wider set of partners. He cited Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's visit to Vietnam, where a free and open Indo-Pacific was presented together with economic security, as an indication that Japan now assesses Southeast Asian partners on strategic weight and not on trade volume alone.

That reframes the question for Thailand. Long-standing status as a Japanese production base may no longer be sufficient to hold Japanese attention if other countries can answer both the economic and the security question. He described the assumption that Japanese investment will simply stay as a form of complacency.

What Thailand should learn from Japan, in his view, is a sense of crisis. Japan has recognised that the Asian security environment is deteriorating and has prepared accordingly across military, economic and diplomatic fronts. Thailand has tended to assume that the approaches which carried it through previous crises will carry it through this one.

‍He set out three concepts. Strategic ambiguity, to preserve working relationships with both Washington and Beijing without leaning too far towards either. Strategic indispensability, to make Thailand valuable rather than assuming geography guarantees relevance. Strategic clarity, requiring Thailand to state what its core interests are and where it stands on regional peace and order. His closing caution was that Thailand should avoid becoming the region's weakest point, because yielding to every application of pressure invites more of it.

One China, and the cost of saying more than necessary

‍Asked about Thailand's recent expression of support for the One China principle, both speakers treated it as a case study rather than an isolated statement.

Teewin's reading was that the episode demonstrates the value of preserving room to manoeuvre. Thailand has real interests in Taiwan, including a substantial Thai workforce, economic ties and technology. Leaning further towards Beijing in declaratory terms narrows the space in which those interests can be maintained, and Taipei is capable of responding, as it did.

Pongphisoot drew the distinction that carries the analytical weight: Beijing's One China principle is not the same instrument as the One China policy each country uses to define its own relations with China and Taiwan. Thailand's recognition of the People's Republic and absence of formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan has never precluded trade, investment, technology, education, travel and people-to-people ties, and it does not now. His view was that Thailand should be clear with Beijing about the scope of its own policy rather than adding language that moves it closer to Beijing's formulation, because every increment of that language reduces the space Thailand has to work with.

The commercial dimension is explicit. Taiwan is central to the semiconductor industry that Thailand is actively trying to attract. Constraining the relationship further than necessary reduces Thailand's own economic and technological options. He added that Thailand can hold a One China policy, maintain non-diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and oppose any change to Taiwan's status by force, without treating those as mutually exclusive.

The regional file and the 2028 chairmanship

The second panel, moderated by Sorasich Swangsilp with Bhanubhatra Jittiang, Puangthong Pawakapan and Kasira Cheeppensook, took up Thailand's regional position under a similarly direct title: is Thailand heading towards leadership within ASEAN, or is it an obstacle to it.

The regional agenda they described is crowded. The conflict in Myanmar, cross-border environmental problems, scam networks, limits on cooperation between member states, and the unresolved dispute with Cambodia all sit on the same table. The shared conclusion across the panel was that ASEAN's instruments, mechanisms and charter require review if the organisation is to handle conflicts of this kind, including between Myanmar's central government and ethnic groups, and between Thailand and Cambodia.

On Myanmar specifically, Bhanubhatra argued for a more flexible and multi-stakeholder approach. Engagement with Naypyidaw remains necessary, but he made the case for channels with actors who control territory and shape events along the border, coordinated with ASEAN, China, India and other neighbours, and kept connected to the wider ASEAN framework rather than run purely bilaterally. He called for calibration on two axes, vertical between ASEAN, Naypyidaw and other stakeholders, and horizontal in the selection of tools and levels of engagement, with benchmarks to establish what outcomes are expected and how they will be monitored. He identified Shan State as the area to watch, given the concentration of armed groups, cross-border trade, mining, narcotics, scam operations and expanding Chinese influence, and argued for direct channels there rather than dependence on Beijing as intermediary.

Kasira addressed ASEAN's own coordination problem under the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 and its people-centred ambition. Mechanisms already exist on social protection, ageing and environmental protection, including regional commitments on the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The difficulty is connecting those commitments to functioning monitoring and reporting. The problems arriving are increasingly cross-cutting: environmental degradation produces displacement, and conflict produces refugee flows with political, environmental and social dimensions at once.

Puangthong's contribution addressed the domestic side of the equation, arguing that Thailand's difficulty in sustaining a coherent external position is inseparable from the instability of its domestic politics, and that an elected government is not by itself sufficient. What is required is an administration with genuine knowledge of international affairs, a settled reading of the national interest, and the capacity to hold long-term economic and security priorities in place across changes of government.

Underneath all of this sits a date. Thailand chairs ASEAN in 2028, and the panel's question was how the country intends to use that year, and what capacity it will need to have built by then.

From flexibility to purpose

The cumulative argument of the day was that bamboo diplomacy retains value only up to a point. Flexibility has kept Thailand out of rigid alignment and preserved relationships across competing blocs. Flexibility without defined objectives, however, is indistinguishable from drift.

The question is therefore not whether Thailand should lean towards Washington, Beijing, Brussels or Tokyo. It is what Thailand wants from each relationship, and what national capability is required to obtain it. Thailand may still be able to avoid choosing a camp. Avoiding a choice is not itself a strategy.

The assessment carries beyond government. Where a state cannot convert its relationships into leverage, commercial and regulatory questions are settled domestically, on administrative and political grounds, rather than resolved between capitals. That is already the working reality for most international companies operating in Thailand, and nothing said at Chulalongkorn suggested it is about to change.

One further observation follows from Natthanan's session and is worth separating out. If the European agreement and the OECD accession process require substantially the same standards, then companies facing new obligations are looking at a single adjustment programme carrying two labels, rather than two separate exercises running on different timetables.

— Sarawut (Kung) Thiramanit, Associate Consultant

mcg-asia.com | Bangkok

Sarawut is an Associate Consultant at Maverick Consulting Group, where he works on policy research, regulatory monitoring and stakeholder analysis for clients operating in Thailand and the wider region.

He attended the forum at Chulalongkorn University on 3 September 2026.

Maverick Consulting Group is a public affairs, government relations and business diplomacy consultancy based in Bangkok, working across Thailand, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The firm advises organisations on policy and regulatory questions where the decision sits with government.