[Tlc] Fwd: When allies drift apart

[Michael Montesano]

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ASIA HAND*
*When allies drift apart*
By Shawn W Crispin

BANGKOK - When a Thai court last year refused to turn over an Iranian
national United States authorities claimed was part of a missile parts
smuggling operation, it marked the first-ever failed extradition between the
two long-time strategic allies. The Thais ruled that because the suspect was
an active Iranian military official, he was exempt under their bilateral
extradition treaty with the US.

The two sides are now wrestling again over the extradition of Viktor Bout,
the alleged Russian arms dealer nabbed last year in a US Drug Enforcement
Agency sting operation in Bangkok. While the Americans claim Bout has
conspired to kill US citizens, the Thais have allowed the judicial review to
drag for months and initially appointed an inexperienced judge to preside
over the hearings. The Thai prosecutor meanwhile has failed to introduce
lines of questioning recommended by the US Embassy and Foreign Ministry
officials have told their US counterparts they must also consider bilateral
ties with Russia in handling the case.

Thailand's lack of cooperation on such key US security issues marks a
significant departure for the bilateral relationship, signaling to some that
Washington is slowly but surely losing influence over its long time
strategic ally. It was only five years ago that the US granted Thailand
major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization treaty status, a military
reward for Bangkok's cooperation in Washington's "war on terror" campaign,
including the capture outside of Bangkok of key al-Qaeda suspect Riduan
Isamuddin, better known as Hambali.

Thai and US officials now acknowledge the relationship has drifted, due to
diverging strategic interests and mounting trade tensions over intellectual
property protection issues and the failed negotiation of a bilateral
free-trade agreement (FTA) that Thai officials feel retrospectively was
being foisted on them. Thailand's new willingness to confront the US on core
strategic and trade issues heralds a potentially important shift from a
US-dominated unipolar era to a new China-inclusive bipolar regional balance
of power.

The US has lost substantial regional ground to China, which has leveraged
soft power initiatives and economic integration into hard power gains,
including unprecedented joint naval and later this year special forces
operations with Thailand. The US maintains substantial military,
intelligence and law enforcement ties with Thailand, including the annual
Cobra Gold joint military exercises, but some analysts now contend that's
led to an over-securitization of the relationship.

Meanwhile, US-Thai economic ties have hit a new nadir, stemming from a US
Trade Representative Office's decision in 2007 to put Thailand on its
"priority watch list" of the world's worst intellectual property offenders.
The downgrade was a reaction to the Thai government's use of so-called
compulsory licensing to produce and distribute cheaper generic versions of
drugs - including HIV/AIDS and cancer medicines - on which US pharmaceutical
companies hold patents. The tussle, both US and Thai officials acknowledge,
has undermined "trust" in bilateral economic ties.

Beyond business, it's also clear that Thailand fails to share the US's
threat perception of China's rapid regional rise. Thai foreign policy wonks
point to the fact that China acceded in 2003 to the Association of Southeast
Asian Nation's (ASEAN) treaty of amity and cooperation while the US five
years later still refuses to sign on. One Bangkok-based Chinese diplomat
says that any US attempt to contain China would be neither "realistic" nor
"pragmatic" because of its growing economic integration with the region, and
that any such move would have "no support" from Thailand or other regional
countries.

That assessment, however, is probably only half right. Bangkok's Institute
of Security and International Studies (ISIS) director Thitinan Pongsudhirak
sees a peninsular-versus-mainland dichotomy emerging in Southeast Asia, with
mainland states falling under Beijing's sway and island nations (including
coastal Vietnam) insecure about China's rise in the strategic league with
the US. With Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar now firmly in China's orbit,
Thailand, with feet in both camps, is thus key to Beijing's mainland
consolidation.

Emma Chanlett-Avery, a US Congressional Research Service specialist, views
US-Thai ties as a "legacy alliance" without a "sustaining strategic
dialogue". She says that the US defense establishment wonders whether
Thailand could be trusted as a treaty ally if a conflict with China ever
erupted. One telling test of that allegiance could come from a US request -
as part of the Pentagon's ongoing transformation and realignment initiatives
- to relocate strategic assets from Northeast Asia to Thai military
facilities, a potential proposal that China would no doubt resist.

*New best friend*
It is thus no doubt significant that new US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton chose to visit Indonesia and sidestep Thailand during her first trip
to Southeast Asia. Some in Bangkok see a Thai snub in Clinton's
travel<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/KB14Ae01.html#>schedule,
where the US's top diplomat visits the region and leaves just a
week before Thailand plays host to the ASEAN annual summit meeting - an
event past US secretaries have attended. While some commentators have
pointed to the symbolism of Clinton's Indonesia visit, in light of President
Barack Obama's time there as a youth, others view it as the first overture
towards forging a new strategic relationship with the island nation.

Military experts say securing new maritime bases outside of Northeast Asia
would give the US 7th Fleet significant new naval forward projection
capabilities vis-a-vis China, particularly for the US's ability in a
potential conflict to blockade the nearby Strait of Malacca, where its
estimated 70%-80% of China's imported fuel now flows. Indonesia, which has
competing maritime claims with China including in oil and gas rich areas, is
believed to view warily China's fast improving naval capabilities.

Still it's not clear that the US intends any time soon to downgrade its
strategic commitment to Thailand. US diplomats and Thai Foreign Ministry
officials speak to the need to "refresh" rather than radically overhaul the
relationship. But if Obama's gambit to recast US diplomacy towards countries
with (supposed) shared democratic values, then Indonesia's fast-emerging
democracy arguably better meets those criteria than Thailand's backslide to
military-influenced politics and a gathering crackdown on free expression,
in the name of upholding a monarchy.

Obama's announcement that he would shutter all the secret prisons the George
W Bush administration established in allied countries to detain and
interrogate captured terror suspects spoke directly to Thailand and its
complicity in the controversial policy. A US Embassy official in Bangkok
previously admitted such a facility once existed in Thailand, but that it
was closed down after The Washington Post exposed it and in later reporting
revealed the torture techniques used against terror suspects there.

The US's intimate ties to elite and influential retired Thai military
officials, long-time relationships often forged in the conflicts of the Cold
War era, has arguably compromised Washington's ability to genuinely promote
democracy and human rights in Thailand. Those foreign policy objectives were
under Bush subordinated to strategic concerns, which often cross-cut
democracy promotion initiatives - as the US's secret prison policy
demonstrated.

There is a nagging suspicion among some Thai observers that the US gave the
wink to the military coupmakers who in 2006 toppled Thaksin Shinawatra's
democratically elected and, perceived by some in Washington, a China-leaning
government. The Thai military has since become a prominent force in politics
and there are mounting concerns the top brass might suspend democracy
altogether to ensure a smooth royal succession after King Bhumibol Adulyadej
eventually passes from the scene.

Whether the US would be willing to downgrade its strategic commitment to
Thailand in such an eventuality would be an important test of Obama's
proclaimed democratic commitment. One US participant at a recent ISIS event
held in Thailand stressed the importance of US access to Thailand's U-Tapao
air base, the only facility in Southeast Asia capable of supporting
large-scale logistical operations, was "impossible to underestimate" to its
military interests.

The US has made liberal use of those Thai facilities to land and refuel
aircraft traveling across the Pacific on their way to military campaigns in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus some believe the patron-client dependency dynamic
that characterized US-Thai ties during the Cold War, when Washington
showered Bangkok with desperately needed military and economic assistance,
has shifted in the new bipolar regional order. Says one former Thai
ambassador: "The US is simply less important to us than it was in the past."
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