By Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi
Key Takeaways:
- The author asks why Thailand still “light-hedges” with bamboo diplomacy—flexible, ambiguous balancing—when clearer, more predictable policy might cost less in a tighter U.S.–China contest.
- The answer offered is memory, not only structure: avoiding colonization and escaping the worst of WWII defeat were later packaged as proof that survival comes from bending, not rigid alignment. That story, the piece says, was reconstructed late in the Cold War and now works as a script of what counts as prudent Thai statecraft.
- Chatichai’s “battlefield into marketplace” and Thaksin’s trade diplomacy are remembered as successes but never replaced the survival myth: they are tied to parties, not the nation. Cost of the script, in this view: partners hear mixed signals and Thailand leads less in ASEAN. Theory essay, not a government brief.
Introduction
Bamboo diplomacy—a diplomatic culture that prioritises flexibility and pragmatism—has long been the default language of Thai foreign policy. At its core is the belief that Thailand’s survival amid geopolitical tension and major security threats depends on its ability to read shifting power dynamics and adjust its foreign policy accordingly.[1] Yet as geopolitical competition intensifies, strategic ambiguity is increasingly becoming costly because prolonged geopolitical rivalry places a premium on foreign policies that are credible, predictable, and strategically coherent. This does not mean Thailand must explicitly align with one side over another. Rather, flexibility at the expense of strategic clarity risks making Thailand less strategically relevant and less credible in the eyes of its strategic partners. Such strategic passivity also limits Thailand’s ability to shape the regional agenda and exercise leadership within ASEAN. This raises an important puzzle: if the costs of strategic ambiguity are increasing, why does Thailand continue to pursue a strategy of light hedging rather than articulate a clearer and more coherent foreign policy?
This article theorises that Thailand’s continued reliance on light hedging is rooted in the idea of bamboo diplomacy, which encapsulates how Thailand remembers its past diplomatic successes. Within the Thai political imagination, national survival is remembered as having been secured not through rigid policy but through diplomatic agility, particularly in avoiding formal colonisation during the age of imperialism and mitigating the consequences of defeat after the Second World War. Over time, these episodes became important reference points that privilege flexibility as prudent statecraft, even when flexibility may no longer serve Thailand’s strategic interests.
The article begins with a theoretical framework that outlines how memories of past diplomatic successes become embedded as schemas and scripts that shape how policymakers interpret contemporary challenges and define appropriate foreign policy choices. It then turns to the Thai case, examining how the memories of two foundational episodes—Siam’s avoidance of colonisation and Thailand’s diplomatic conduct during the Second World War—have come to define what counts as prudent statecraft. It then considers competing reference points associated with the governments of Chatichai Choonhavan and Thaksin Shinawatra, asking why these alternative lessons of successful statecraft struggled to displace bamboo diplomacy as the dominant framework of Thai foreign policy. The article concludes by reflecting on how these memories may be constraining Thailand’s capacity for foreign policy adjustment under intensifying great-power competition.
Historical Success as Schema and Script
Foreign policy adjustment is not driven by structural incentives in any simple or automatic manner. Even when geopolitical competition intensifies or the distribution of power shifts, states do not respond mechanically to external pressure. External conditions must first be interpreted by policymakers. A long tradition in foreign policy analysis and political psychology shows that decision-makers do not confront the external environment as neutral observers. They are likely to rely on cognitive shortcuts, schemas, biases, beliefs, and emotions to make sense of complex realities.[2]
Historical success can provide one such interpretive schema. Past episodes widely regarded as successful become reference points for policymakers interpreting contemporary challenges and evaluating policy options. Unlike the traditional focus on learning from failure,[3] this article argues that success can have the opposite effect. When a strategy is perceived to have secured national survival or diplomatic achievement, policymakers may attribute favourable outcomes to the strategy itself rather than to contingent circumstances. As these narratives get repeated in elite discourse, they become institutionalised as schemas for interpreting new challenges.
As the schema becomes more deeply embedded, it may develop into a script—a prescription for how policymakers should respond to situation types. Whereas a schema shapes how policymakers interpret a particular situation, a script provides expectations regarding appropriate behaviour. Over time, strategies associated with successful historical experiences may come to be viewed not simply as effective responses, but as a natural or appropriate way of addressing recurring foreign policy challenges.
Beyond shaping how policymakers interpret international events, national schemas can be shared more broadly throughout society. Narratives of historical success, rather than failure, are reproduced through education, public discourse, and, sometimes, popular culture. This creates broader expectations about how the nation should behave in international politics. Consequently, policymakers face not only cognitive constraints but also social and political constraints. Policies that align with a nationally shared script may enjoy greater legitimacy and require less justification than policies that depart from it.
This does not mean that policy change is impossible. Major failures, shifting international conditions, or sustained political contestation may challenge existing schemas and encourage the search for alternative approaches. Nevertheless, because successful historical experiences are often treated as evidence of a strategy’s effectiveness, they may remain influential reference points even when the circumstances that produced them have changed.
This article does not claim to offer a definitive test of the theory set out above. Instead, it probes the plausibility of the theorised mechanisms with reference to Thailand’s foreign policy dynamics and, in doing so, provides one possible explanation for why bamboo diplomacy remains resilient despite the changing international environment. The next section draws on preliminary observations to illustrate that certain past diplomatic successes have come to prevail in Thailand’s foreign policy discourse.
Thailand’s Script of Survival
In Thailand’s case, episodes of successful adaptation to external pressure occupy a prominent place in elite and public understandings of foreign policy. Among these, the preservation of independence during the colonial era and Thailand’s ability to navigate periods of great-power rivalry are widely remembered as evidence of the value of flexibility and pragmatism. These historical memories underpin the discourse of bamboo diplomacy, which presents flexibility, adaptability, and strategic pragmatism as central features of Thailand’s diplomatic tradition.[4]
Bamboo diplomacy, however, did not exist as a coherent doctrine throughout history. As Jittipat Poonkham shows, the discourse was retrospectively constructed toward the end of the Cold War, when Thai elites sought to justify rapprochement with China after decades of close alignment with the United States.[5] In this process, scholars and policymakers linked the concept to earlier episodes of perceived diplomatic success. As the discourse became widely reproduced, its contingent political origins gradually faded from view, and bamboo diplomacy came to be understood as common sense.
Like other schemas, bamboo diplomacy does not provide a precise interpretation of the past. Instead, it reduces complex events to a general lesson about adaptation and survival. Consequently, the behaviours retrospectively associated with bamboo diplomacy vary considerably. Some accounts portray Thailand as balancing major powers against one another to preserve room for manoeuvre, while others emphasise accommodation with the dominant once uncertainty recedes.[6] What unites these interpretations is not a single policy prescription but the shared belief that prudent diplomacy requires flexibility in response to external change. Precisely because bamboo diplomacy is not tied to a fixed policy, it can legitimise a wide range of responses while casting premature commitment, rigid alignment, resistance to a rising power, or unilateral balancing as departures from Thailand’s diplomatic tradition.
The historical foundations of this schema rest primarily on two remembered episodes: Siam’s avoidance of colonisation and Thailand’s diplomatic conduct during the Second World War. Although the policies adopted in these cases differed considerably, both have subsequently been remembered as examples of successful adaptation to external pressure.
The colonial case is especially important because it established one of the foundational stories of Thai diplomatic success. In historical memory, Siam’s survival is often attributed to the prudence of its monarch in adjusting to the advance of British and French imperial power.[7] That survival was achieved through a combination of strategic concessions, limited trade liberalisation, and administrative, judicial, and diplomatic reforms that helped present Siam as a modern and governable state in Western eyes.[8] The episode has also been remembered as one in which Siamese leaders skilfully manoeuvred between Britain and France, enabling the country to emerge as a buffer state rather than fall under direct colonial rule.[9] In Thai memory, the colonial episode endures as evidence of diplomatic skill in navigating asymmetry and preserving autonomy through adaptation.
The Second World War reinforced this script in a different form. Thailand’s wartime conduct was far more controversial than its ability to avoid outright colonisation; after all, the government cooperated with Japan and formally declared war on Britain and the United States. Yet this episode, too, was later folded into a broader narrative of survival through manoeuvres. In retrospective Thai accounts, what is often emphasised is not the alliance with Japan itself, but the refusal of Seni Pramoj, the Thai ambassador in Washington, to deliver the declaration of war to the United States, the maintenance of indirect links with Western powers through the Free Thai movement, and Thailand’s ability to avoid being fully treated as a defeated enemy after the war. Whether this outcome owed more to American strategic interests in cultivating ties with a Southeast Asian state after 1945, or simply to luck,[10] is less important. What matters is the belief, embedded in Thailand’s diplomatic self-understanding, that the country should remain flexible and, when necessary, cooperate with all sides to preserve room for manoeuvre.
If these historical episodes function as an interpretive schema, policymakers should be expected to justify flexibility not merely as an effective contemporary strategy but as a continuation of Thailand’s longstanding diplomatic tradition. Such justifications may take the form of explicit references to past diplomatic success or, more commonly, as appeals to Thailand’s historical experience, diplomatic tradition, or longstanding practice of preserving room for manoeuvre.
The post-2014 military government provides one opportunity to illustrate this expectation under new structural conditions. As China rose and Thailand faced increasing pressure to position itself more clearly between Beijing and Washington, the military government faced criticism and diplomatic pressure from the United States and other Western governments, even as China became an increasingly important political and economic partner. Moving closer to China, therefore, served an immediate strategic purpose: it helped the regime manage Western pressure and benefit from China’s growing economic influence.
Yet policymakers did not justify this shift solely in instrumental terms. Rather, they presented it as being consistent with Thailand’s longstanding diplomatic tradition of maintaining flexibility. For example, Thailand’s 2018-2037 National Strategy, adopted under the Prayut government, identifies the country’s ability to maintain balanced relations with all sides as one of its principal diplomatic strengths and argues that Thailand’s pragmatic approach to foreign policy has historically preserved its independence and sovereignty. Moreover, some analysts argue that Thailand’s closer ties with China may have contributed to the gradual restoration of U.S.-Thai military cooperation after 2015.[11] In this sense, Thailand’s China policy can be understood not simply as a strategic pivot but as a replay of an older script of survival, in which closer relations with one major power could also be used to manage another.
The existence of a dominant schema, however, does not preclude the presence of alternative reference points. If policymakers learn from remembered episodes of success, we should expect multiple lessons from the past to coexist and compete for influence. The next section examines these competing narratives and explores why bamboo diplomacy has remained the dominant interpretive framework in Thai foreign policy.
Competing Reference Points
Among the most notable are Chatichai Choonhavan’s policy of “turning Indochina from a battlefield into a marketplace” and Thaksin Shinawatra’s emphasis on trade diplomacy. Although they emerged under different circumstances, both are remembered as successful examples of using foreign policy proactively to reshape Thailand’s external environment through trade, investment, and regional connectivity. Unlike bamboo diplomacy, which emphasises survival through flexibility under geopolitical pressure, these approaches portray successful statecraft as actively creating opportunities rather than passively gauging external circumstances.
Chatichai’s policy is particularly significant because it represented a clear departure from the hard-security logic of the Cold War. Rather than treating Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia primarily through the lens of conflict and ideological threat, his government sought to recast the region as a space of economic opportunity. Trade, investment, and cross-border economic relations were placed above older patterns of confrontation. In this sense, Chatichai’s diplomacy can be remembered as a successful effort to redefine Thailand’s external environment through commercial engagement.
Thaksin’s foreign policy emerged under very different circumstances and reflected a somewhat different logic. Rather than responding to the end of the Cold War, it was shaped by Thailand’s efforts to accelerate economic recovery and enhance national competitiveness in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Economic diplomacy, trade expansion, and regional connectivity were viewed as means of strengthening Thailand’s position within an increasingly globalised economy. Diplomats were expected not only to represent the country politically, but also to promote Thai products, attract investment, and expand economic opportunities abroad.[12] At the regional level, Thailand spearheaded initiatives such as the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) and actively participated in others, including BIMSTEC and the Chiang Mai Initiative.
Despite their success, neither Chatichai’s nor Thaksin’s approach has acquired the same authority as the dominant narrative of bamboo diplomacy. This suggests that not all remembered episodes of foreign policy success become equally influential. Three possible factors appear particularly important in explaining this phenomenon.
First, bamboo diplomacy is tied to foundational narratives of national survival. The memory of avoiding colonisation and escaping the full consequence of wartime defeat carries special weight because it is linked to the preservation of sovereignty itself. In contrast, Chatichai’s and Thaksin’s policies are more easily understood as successful policy choices within specific historical periods than as defining moments in the survival of the Thai state. As a result, they may be less likely to be recalled as enduring lessons of prudent diplomacy.
Second, contemporary geopolitical rivalry more readily activates memories associated with bamboo diplomacy than those associated with economic diplomacy. When a situation is understood as one of heightened great-power rivalry, vulnerability, or external pressure, it is more likely to activate memories of earlier episodes in which Thailand sought to preserve sovereignty and room for manoeuvre among stronger powers.
Third, bamboo diplomacy has become more deeply institutionalised than its alternative. Memories associated with Thailand’s survival during the colonial period and the Second World War are tied to foundational concerns of sovereignty and state survival. As a result, they have been reproduced through school textbooks and official narratives. Over time, these memories have become detached from particular political actors and acquired a legitimacy that transcends partisan divisions. If anything, they are often associated with the monarchy, which is widely represented as a symbol of the nation itself. In contrast, Chatichai’s marketplace diplomacy and Thaksin’s trade-oriented foreign policy remain closely associated with specific leaders and political camps. Consequently, their lessons remain more contingent and politically contested.
Thaksin’s economic diplomacy also faced resistance within the foreign policy establishment. His foreign policy style gave the head of government a more direct and active role in setting Thailand’s external agenda, thereby reducing the traditional autonomy of the diplomatic bureaucracy. At the same time, the emphasis on trade promotion was viewed by some diplomats as diminishing the diplomat’s prestigious status.[13] Consequently, despite its visibility, Thaksin’s approach never became institutionalised as part of Thailand’s dominant foreign policy imagination.
Conclusion
Why has Thailand found it so difficult to move beyond a pattern of light hedging and ambiguous foreign policy positioning? This article argues that Thailand’s foreign policy is shaped not only by present structural pressures but also by how the country remembers its past diplomatic successes. Historical episodes such as the avoidance of colonisation and the mitigation of wartime defeat have become reference points for prudent statecraft. Over time, these episodes have been remembered not for their specific historical contingencies but for the broader lesson attached to them: Thailand survives through flexibility, adjustment, and the preservation of room for manoeuvre. Because these memories have become embedded within the discourse of bamboo diplomacy, they continue to shape what policymakers and the public regard as appropriate foreign policy.
A more systematic analysis of elite discourse across time would provide a stronger test of the proposed mechanism. If the argument holds, future research should find recurring references to bamboo diplomacy and earlier experiences of navigating external pressures not only in public speeches, but also in less public settings such as internal policy discussions, ministry workshops, diplomatic training programmes, and seminars within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Evidence of such references would suggest that these memories indeed function as cognitive resources through which policymakers make sense of Thailand’s place in a changing international environment.
The broader implication is that remembered diplomatic successes can become a source of constraint on articulating a clearer strategic direction. Remaining flexible and “bending with the wind” may allow Thailand to preserve room for manoeuvre, but it can also generate ambiguous signals to major powers and other partners with whom Thailand seeks to maintain friendly relations. As geopolitical competition intensifies, Thailand may therefore continue to reassure and accommodate competing powers rather than articulate a more explicit set of strategic priorities. In practice, this may produce conspicuous efforts to court China while simultaneously reassuring other partners that Thailand has not abandoned its traditional relationships.
Such behaviour may preserve diplomatic flexibility in the short term. Over time, however, the absence of a clearer and more coherent strategic direction risks diminishing Thailand’s relevance in an increasingly competitive regional order. By emphasising good relations with all sides without articulating a clearer account of what Thailand seeks to achieve or what regional role it wishes to play, Thai foreign policy risks becoming more reactive than purposeful, overlooking its ability to shape its external environment to suit its long-term interests. Partners may consequently become less certain about Thailand’s priorities, the positions it is willing to support, and the commitment it is prepared to make. This potentially reduces Thailand’s credibility and value as a long-term strategic partner. The central paradox, therefore, is that a diplomatic repertoire remembered as a source of Thailand’s historical success and autonomy may now inhibit its ability to exercise that autonomy proactively. Under conditions of intensifying geopolitical competition, the very script that is remembered as Thailand’s surviving method can make it harder for the country to define and pursue a distinctive strategic role.
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
- About the author: Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi, is Lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University. She is also an associate fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
- Source: This article was published by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
