Thread: When China is King, What Happens to Thailand?

With all this talk about US going down the fiscal dunny, whilst China, the sleeping giant, awakens, how do posters think Thailand will fare?

I'll go out on a limb and say I reckon in 20 years time, the average Thai will be wealthier than the average American. Perhaps the Thais will be holidaying in California, hiring hot white whores by the hour.

Or will Thailand just remain as is, a kind of playground for the rest of the world, rife with corruption and social disparity?

We're talking long term here, like 20+ years from now. How do TD posters think the world will pan out, and Thailand in particular?

I wouldn't write off the West just yet. And I dispute the 'when' China is king. IMHO it hasn't got the human capital to get there. Uni education won't help, it doesn't instill the required traits. Numbers mean very little by itself, outside of cheap labour. In fact, it becomes a negative.

You have to look a bit deeper than current financial status to try and figure where the world is heading in this respect.

I have seen nothing in the financial rise of Asia that convinces me they can lead for any length of time. Seriously.

Good/hard times come and go. What is important is the ability to adapt, create and rise to the top. Money doesn't lead, it follows. Asia didn't make money with creativity and leadership, it made it copying with cheap labour. Outside of the Japanese, the cultures will not allow it to create and lead. A critical Achilles heel that cannot be changed in less than quite a number of generations.

The West got fat and lazy in the good times. Let's see what happens when they get lean and hungry again.

It is an interesting topic. The great majority of people look at China's financial rise and gigantic population and summarily surmise it will be a great power.

Power cannot be won by money alone. Eventually the money will follow the power, and it doesn't lie in numbers and cheap labour....


China is at a crossroads now. It has to switch from it's cheap crap to quality, innovation and leadership, and it hasn't got the people and culture to do it, unlike Japan.

What is more likely to follow is an almighty big bang, driven by domestic socio-political issues.



Though it's not the basis of my opinion, I do think that anyone that thinks you can marry Communism and Capitalism successfully has just gotta be a farkin moron.....

And they tell me China's got the people to do the job. What a joke. Even it's leaders are morons.

Originally Posted by 9999

Education seems to lead the way if you look through history. Brain power.

Successful modern education can only be built on a culture that accommodate it's ideas. Then it unleashes creativity, ideas etc. With the balls and adventurous spirit that takes it into real leadership.

Back to the Achilles heel of Asia (and Africa). Cultures take generations to change.

Else education is merely technical, producing better workers.

And worse, educated morons.

Originally Posted by 9999

I'll go out on a limb and say I reckon in 20 years time, the average Thai will be wealthier than the average American.

I'll go out on a limb and say I reckon in 20 years time, that the idiots of PAD & UDD are still being manipulated by their lying and scheming leaders.

The average Thai will still be relatively poor & uneducated, while the elite leaders on both sides of politics continue to use them as cannon fodder.

As with every economy I expect China will rise, fall, and rise again. At times when the economy is lean Chinese businessmen will look to make money out of the nearby economies of Vietnam and Thailand where they already have a presence.

What this means, and here I agree with TizMe, is that there will never be a shortage of factory work for the Thai proletariate. Within the next decade Thailand may well be renamed "ShinLand" with you-know-who heading the Shin dynasty.

The billion have-nots in China will wise up sooner or later- they aren't far from an economic reckoning driven by social issues.

If the US ecomomy goes down the tubes, China will go with it- do you really think they could just shrug off the loss of their biggest (by far) customer? Not a chance.

Originally Posted by FlyFree

I have seen nothing in the financial rise of Asia that convinces me they can lead for any length of time. Seriously.

I've seen several things actually.

For a start, thru most of recorded history China was easily the worlds largest economy, eg in Marco Polo's day China had a GDP about three times the whole of Europe. We Euro's (which includes the US) understandably tend to look at world history thru' the prism of our 'golden era'- because it is so recent, and of course because it is also self serving.

Then there are contemporary academic achievements- just look at the composition of top students these days in US universities, especially for 'hard' disciplines such as science, maths & medicine. Overwhelmingly Asian- Chinese, Jap, Indian, Korean.

Then there's debt- the rate of deterioration of the Wests financial position vs Asia in the last 30 years has been astonishing. Add to that manufacturing output, trade, & living standards trends too. It's a pretty compelling picture, in a remarkably short space of time.

As far as innovation goes, it's a curve really from labour intensive, low capital 'copy' manufacturing, to higher value added items, to innovation- but there is no rationale to suggest that Asians are any less innovative than we unless, again, you pick a window of 2 or 3 centuries, consisting of the 'golden age' of the west. Prior to this window, Caucasians were actually laggards in innovation, research and technology. Such things as navigation, architecture, writing & paper, irrigation, gunpowder, the calendar etc were not invented by us. Recently, I note that China leads the world in solar technology and research, and 'inner space' (deep sea) exploration.

Just as Thailand was once pretty much a vassal state for the US in it's crusade against Communism, housing it's machines of war and associated intrastructure (such as purpose built brothels and airports), so it is likely that Thailand will become a de facto vassal state of China imo. Ethnic Chinese already control the vast majority of the national wealth anyway, plus they are right next door. It would probably be in their interest to keep Siam as a separate 'buffer' state though, well heres hoping.

The relative decline of the West is well established now, but that is not tantamount to absolute decline. Like many a waning dominant culture before, we still possess an inordinately large military superiority, which will gradually fade. Our standards of living remain enviable on a world comparison- although the gap is narrowing, and there is a real question if they are sustainable. And we're not exactly small either- the EU and Nth America are by far the worlds largest economic clusters. Germany is the worlds largest exporter, not China.

In a world were Socialism has embraced Capitalist principles and vice versa, we are not exactly in a clash of cultures, political systems, or civilisations anymore. International relations are based more on commerce than conquest these days. The world, overall, is becoming more secular, societies more open. It is the West, overwhelmingly, that can claim the credit for this (not arguing that our expansionism was altruistic incidentally).

It's becoming a hackneyed phrase, but we are in an emerging multipolar world order.
The trends are in favour of our systems of governance and secularism, not against them.
Our concern in the West should be the preservation and sustainability of our living standards, rather than recycling the miasma of 19th & 20th century Imperialist fantasies, or inventing new enemies to replace the old.

Back on topic, sure Thailand will increasingly kowtow to China, it has to. Thailand, to give it due credit, knows the art of the kowtow quite well. The "greater Asian co-prosperity sphere" Japs were allowed free passage with nary a shot fired, Thailand hosted (for money) the anti Communist crusading Yanks, and played off the Frogs and the Poms in the Colonial era- whilst maintaining independence. I suppose they'll be playing off the chinks and the yanks in coming years, but there is little question who's sphere of influence we really fall under this century.

Originally Posted by sabang

there is no rationale to suggest that Asians are any less innovative than we unless, again, you pick a window of 2 or 3 centuries, consisting of the 'golden age' of the west. Prior to this window, Caucasians were actually laggards in innovation, research and technology.

Indeed. Chinese innovation and economy started about 4,000 years ago and grew to dominate all of Asia about 1,000 years ago. During it's dominance, virtually every ruler in Asia paid tribute to various Chinese emperors. This dominance was unchallenged until European nations entered upon the scene about 400 years ago. Over the last 400 years China's dominance declined and hit rock bottom in the late 1800s, culminating in disaster under Mao's rule.

Suppose if one was to keep score in determining the leader in years as world's number 1 power it would be China - 2,000, West - 400.

Originally Posted by 9999

how do posters think Thailand will fare?

It will again be paying tribute/homage to China as it did for most of it's history.

Originally Posted by 9999

We're talking long term here, like 20+ years from now.

Not really long term at all. Since the mid 70s China's influence within the region has grown rapidly and continues to increase along with their rapid economic growth. Hard to say how long it will be before China's dominance in Asia far surpasses that of the west but somewhere between 20 and 50 years would be my estimate. IMO China's economic model is superior to most western countries already but reforms to it's political system are essential as China's middle class grows and demands more individual rights.

Predictably the issue appears to be a contest about who's number uno. If China becomes the worlds number 1 economy in the world, I don't see this as some sort of disaster for the US, Euros or anyone else. It is of economic benefit for all to have a strong Chinese economy able to purchase goods and services from other countries.

Originally Posted by FlyFree

Though it's not the basis of my opinion, I do think that anyone that thinks you can marry Communism and Capitalism successfully . . .

I'm having trouble remembering where I read it, but the question "What does it mean when a Chinese general gets a loan from a government-owned bank to buy a government-owned company?" comes to mind every time I hear about the inevitability of China's ascendance. The US, and to a certain extent Europe (except Germany), created a house of cards economy based on housing and real estate, and when that came tumbling down so did jobs and consumer confidence (what happened in Japan during the bubble was similar, with a J-twist). In the case of the US, there remains a bedrock of agricultural capability, and combined with Canada an enormous amount of natural resources, not to mention a still-good educational infrastructure (at the upper levels), relatively stable political system (sorely tested at the moment) and an absurdly bloated but undeniably powerful military. The potential for recovery remains in the US, but is certainly not guaranteed. Not so sure about Europe, but in any case if what in the West and Japan was a house of cards, China looks looks like a house of cards built on sand. If, or maybe when, China falls, it will fall hard. I think the Party tacitly recognizes this through its paranoia- it's the iron grip or chaos.