Abstract
In the history of Thai diplomacy, Thai leaders always sought to maintain, as far as possible, the following basic foreign policy objectives: the defence of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the minimisation of external interference with the domestic system. In order to achieve these aims, a preferred tactic in the past was to seek accommodation with the predominant power in the region. Thai leaders were very consistent in their adherence to these basic objectives, with the preservation of political sovereignty being valued above all else. The history of Thailand’s relations with its neighbours and the Western powers attested to the paramount importance of this objective.
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Notes
David A. Wilson, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, in Wayne Wilcox, Leo E. Rose, and Gavin Boyd (eds.), Asia in the International System (Cambridge, Mass., Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1972), p. 186.
Joseph Frankel, International Relations in a Changing World (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 85.
K. J. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis (New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983), p. 124.
Joseph Frankel, Contemporary International Theory and the Behaviour of States (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 78. Frankel also identifies a third level, the ‘polemical level’, and notes that the logic of his classification is imperfect as the third category overlaps with the first two. Moreover, the categories suggested are ‘ideal types’ (p. 78).
David A. Wilson, Political Tradition and Political Change in Thailand, in Clark D. Neher (ed.), Modern Thai Politics: From Village to Nation (Cambridge, Mass., Schenkman Publishing Co., 1979), p. 282.
John L. S. Girling, Thailand: Society and Politics (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 119.
Fred W. Riggs, Thailand: The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity (Honolulu, East-West Center Press, 1966), p. 197.
See Vichitr Vadhakarn, Sayam kap suwannaphum, Chapters 1& 2, pp. 13–81; also Thailand’s Case (Bangkok, Thai Commercial Press, 1941), Chapter V, pp. 121–137.
Charles E. Morrison and Astri Suhrke, Strategy of Survival: The Foreign Policy Dilemmas of Smaller Asian States (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1978), p. 112.
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© 1992 Anuson Chinvanno
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Chinvanno, A. (1992). Complex Interaction of Factors: Thailand’s Policy towards the People’s Republic of China. In: Thailand’s Policies towards China, 1949–54. St Antony’s / Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12430-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12430-5_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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