In America’s Competition With China, Democracy Could Lose
On Sunday, Thai voters will decide whether they want to live in a real democracy or stick with the fake one that Thailand’s military-dominated government has crafted for them. The election has been rigged from the outset, creating absurdly unfair hurdles for the prodemocracy parties challenging the military-backed status quo.
Both the United States and China view Thailand as a major geopolitical prize in southeast Asia. Some in Washington worry that harshly criticizing its government—or a flawed election—would push Thailand further into China’s outstretched arms. As a result, the Biden administration faces a test: Will the White House insist on real Thai democracy no matter the geopolitical costs?
Thailand is no mere puppet in this geopolitical battle. For more than a decade, Bangkok has worked to extract the maximum economic and political benefits from each superpower, driven more by pragmatism than by ideology or values. From China, Thailand has garnered direct investment into its infrastructure and military while, from the United States, it gets security protection and a major trading partner (America imported $58 billion of goods from Thailand in 2022). The Thai political elite has long recognized the advantages of playing the Americans and the Chinese off of one another…
