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Thailand: Nationalism Rears Its Ugly Head Again – Analysis

By William J Jones On 9 December 2024, former yellow shirt street protest leader and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul issued a public threat to the Thai government led by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. The threat — annul the 2001 joint communique signed by then prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand and Hun Sen of Cambodia and withdraw from the 2001 Memorandum of Understanding. The Memorandum of Understanding in question laid the framework for negotiations between the two kingdoms regarding the Overlapping Claims Area in the Gulf of Thailand. Sondhi vowed to return in 15 days and begin staging street protests if his demands were not met. The central claim by Sondhi and other Thai nationalists is that the Memorandum of Understanding is illegal because the treaty infringes on Thai territorial sovereignty and hencemust be ratified by Parliament to be lawful. The government has repeatedly clarified that while the Memorandum of Understanding is indeed a treaty, it is only a framework for negotiation and does not require parliamentary approval. But the failure of the current Pheu Thai Party government in its public communications has allowed the spectre of dangerous Thai nationalism to resurface. Sondhi and his remarks about ‘selling out Thailand’ and a return of ‘Thaksin’s system’ are nothing new. Sondhi was behind the first yellow shirt street protests which rocked the kingdom and brought Thaksin down in a military coup in 2006. The impact of the yellow shirts peaked between 2009 and 2011 during the leadership of Abhisit Vejjajiva, when yellow-shirt nationalists helped spark a short border war between Cambodia and Thailand over the Preah Vihear Temple. Cambodian and Thai territory is a central feature once again amid the rise of Thai nationalism. Cambodians burned down the Thai embassy in 2003 after an alleged remark by a Thai actress that Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand. Thai nationalists were arrested after encroaching on the Cambodian border to put down territorial markers in 2011. To understand Thailand’s current political landscape, it is worth taking a step back to evaluate the damage that the yellow shirts and Thai nationalists caused the last time they took to the streets. The Preah Vihear Temple issue became an international one when Cambodia filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), objecting to Thai military occupation of the temple and its grounds in 1954. On 15 June 1962, the ICJ ruled that the temple was on the Cambodian side of the border and was the property of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Most importantly, the ICJ did not rule on the watershed itself, instead leaving the issue for the two countries to negotiate. The disputed territorial boundary surrounding the Preah Vihear Temple remained unresolved until the early 2010s when Thai nationalists pushed the issue to the fore. In 2008, the Thai government, then led by Thaksin’s proxy People’s Power Party, signed a joint communique with the Cambodian government agreeing to Cambodia’s listing of Preah Vihear Temple as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The joint communique caused the yellow shirt nationalists to hit the streets again, eventually ousting Thaksin’s brother-in-law, then-prime minister Somchai Wongsawat, in a bloodless coup. Domestic pressure caused Thailand to withdraw its support for Cambodia’s listing and shortly after, the Thai military occupied parts of the Preah Vihear Temple complex. These events led the Cambodian government to ask the ICJ in April 2011 for an interpretation of its original 1962 ruling. Cambodia asked the ICJ to determine the ‘vicinity of the Temple’ and rule on the disputed watershed, which would demarcate the border between the two countries. On 11 November 2013, the ICJ ruled that the ‘vicinity of the Temple’ began with the promontory to the north and that the temple was situated in Cambodian territory. The ICJ ordered Thailand to remove its military from Preah Vihear Temple. Nationalist tensions caused a short and deadly border war between the two Southeast Asian states in 2009. The volatility of the Preah Vihear Temple issue on both sides of the border caused Cambodia’s then prime minister Hun Sen to ban Thai citizens from visiting the Preah Vihear Temple. Thai villages along the border are still waiting for the border to be re-opened. The re-emergence of Sondhi Limthongkul and his threat to resume mass street protests bode ill for Thailand’s domestic politics and its foreign relations with Cambodia. It is unclear whether the conditions are right for a new round of yellow shirt street protests in Bangkok. The yellow shirt movement is far diminished from its previous robust form, having withered under the nine-year rule of General Prayut Chan-o-cha. But given the uncompromising position of yellow shirt nationalists, it is almost certain that any movement towards negotiation on the Cambodia–Thailand Overlapping Claims Area will encounter major resistance. On 22 August 2024, Thaksin gave a highly publicised three-hour speech where he outlined his vision for Thailand. This high-profile speech included a pledge to negotiate the Overlapping Claims Area and ‘unlock’ its lucrative oil and gas resources. This speech undoubtedly rankled Thaksin’s opponents. Today, the very persons that began Thailand’s two decades of deadly political destabilisation — Thaksin Shinawatra and Sondhi Limthongkul — are back at it again. Regardless of any outcome negotiated by a Thaksin-led government, anything less than full Thai sovereignty over the Overlapping Claims Area will not be good enough for Thai nationalists. They will seek to scuttle any negotiated compromise, no matter how fair or helpful to Thai interests. The current Pheu Thai government’s lack of communication is providing ammunition to its opponents. Only recently has Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa announced that a public forum would be held to gain input from civil society. But even this was at odds with previous statements made by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Due to their uncompromising stance, Thai nationalists have already caused Thailand to lose territory surrounding the Preah Vihear Temple, compromising Thai national interests in the name of their love of the country. The same people responsible for the previous debacle are standing in the way of Thailand–Cambodia relations once again. About the author: William J Jones is Assistant Professor at Mahidol University International College in Thailand. Source: This article was published at East Asia Forum