Anti-Thaksin, anti-Singapore, the
swell grows By Marwaan
Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Singaporeans living
in Thailand or visiting as tourists may have
reason to feel nervous at the manner in which
their affluent city-state is portrayed in the
increasingly bitter political debate that has
engulfed Bangkok.
Three anti-government
demonstrations in February, which attracted
thousands of largely middle-class Thais, offered
glimpses of this hostile sentiment towards
Southeast Asia's
richest country - although to
date there have been no reports of attacks against
Singaporean nationals.
"Welcome to
Thailand: The Second Branch of Singapore," read
one of the less provocative banners held by the
demonstrators at one public rally. During these
rallies, all a speaker has to do is castigate
Singapore as a nation trying to buy its way into
Thailand and the crowds roar in agreement.
Singapore as the scapegoat has its
antecedents in a deal, made public late January,
between Shin Corp, a telecommunications
conglomerate founded by Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra and Temasek, the investment arm of the
Singapore government.
Shin Corp was sold
to Temasek by the Shinawatra family, which ran the
company after Thaksin shifted from being
billionaire tycoon to running the government, in a
deal which fetched family shareholders US$1.85
billion in cash. Typical of Thai stock market
transactions, no taxes were paid on the
transaction.
Almost immediately, a bout of
Singapore-bashing began to manifest itself in
sections of the Thai-language media. "Our country
has become a colony of Singapore," wrote a
columnist in the January 25 edition of Kom Chad
Luek, one of Thailand's leading local language
dailies.
There even was a hint of
anti-Chinese racism in the editorial. ''We should
be aware of the danger from the black-haired and
small-eyed foreigners. "We won't have anything
left over the next few years because those
black-haired and small-eyed foreigners came to be
involved in every single policy in Thailand."
The warning that rising hostility against
Thaksin could also be directed towards Singapore
manifested itself in February during protests by a
group of activists in front of the Singapore
Embassy in Bangkok, calling on Temasek to cancel
the deal.
Thailand's English-language
newspapers have drawn attention to "xenophobia"
and the "anti-foreigner" sentiment in articles
reflecting the mood of a city angry at the
Shinawatra family. Shin Corp owned key sectors of
Thailand's economy, most notably
telecommunications, which critics have indicated
should remain in Thai hands for national security
reasons. This week, the leader of Thailand's
opposition Democrat Party, Abhisit Vejjajiva, told
journalists at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of
Thailand that there were important national
security issues that raised concerns about the
deal. He added, though, that "most Thais do not
want us, as a nation, to slip into that kind of
nationalism".
"If Temasek cooperates [in
making known the conditions of the Shin Corp
sale], I don't see why there would be a reason for
resentment to be directed at Singaporeans," he
said. So far, though, Temasek has withheld details
about the US$1.85 billion deal.
The Shin
Corp deal is only one of the many issues that have
angered the government's critics, which have
recently found expression through a series of
massive rallies. The Thaksin administration is
also being charged with corruption and financial
irregularities, intimidating the media and
undermining independent institutions set up to
check the power of the government.
A
grouping of anti-Thaksin people have formed the
People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) , which on
Sunday called for a large-scale display of civil
disobedience in the campaign to unseat the
premier. They have set up camp in a park near
Government House, which will be the target of
ongoing rallies and demonstrations.
Anti-Thaksin campaign leader Sondhi
Limthongkul said the protesters would not budge
until Thaksin resigned. Thaksin has called
elections for April, two years ahead of schedule,
but the opposition parties have decided to boycott
them.
The PAD, which organized a massive
rally on Sunday, has stopped short of endorsing or
opposing a petition for a royally-appointed prime
minister, lodged by people related to the royal
family, senators, academics and other prominent
figures.
Tied to Singapore
Singapore is currently Thailand's
second-largest investor after Japan. In 2004, its
investments were estimated at $600 million. The
portfolio includes banks, blue-chip property
development and shares in the hospital and hotel
sectors - many purchased in the wake of Thailand's
1997 financial collapse. The largest stockbroker
in Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission
is a Singaporean entity, Kim Eng Securities.
Foreigner-bashing is not new to Thailand.
In the wake of the 1997 financial crisis, there
was plenty of anti-foreigner finger-pointing by
the Thai middle class that lasted up to 1999, when
the Thai economy started to recover.
Foreigners - largely Westerners - were
faulted for creating the conditions that led to
the Thai economy's collapse, including Western
currency traders and hedge funds speculating
against the Thai baht.
In the early 1970s,
the target was the Japanese. In the vanguard were
university students enraged at Thailand's trade
deficit with Japan and the latter's dominance of
the local economy. The students called for a
boycott of Japanese goods, a Japanese-owned gym
was attacked and, most dramatically, hundreds of
students surrounded the hotel where the then
Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka was staying,
and chanted anti-Japanese slogans. Today Japan is
the largest investor in Thailand, with over 1,100
different Japanese companies operating here.
Ironically, Thaksin earlier leveraged that
anti-foreign sentiment to his political advantage
when he set up his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai)
party in 1998 and rode a nationalistic wave to
electoral victory in January 2001, the beginning
of his first term in office.
On taking
office, Thaksin implemented new limits on the
number of foreign consultants state entities were
allowed to hire and revised the terms of
engagement with Japanese contractors working on
the new airport that required 80% of the building
materials they used be sourced in Thailand.
"Thaksin is now at the receiving end of
this Thai nationalist streak after selling Shin
Corp," said David Streckfuss, a US academic
specializing in Thai political culture. "The
Singaporeans are the unfortunate targets of this
feeling that foreigners cannot protect and
represent the interest of Thais."
(Inter
Press Service with additional reporting by Asia
Times Online)
