[In-depth] What forces are behind the Thai protests?
[Global Times reporter Huang Xiaona Gudi has heavy responsibilities] Thailand’s anti-government demonstrations that have lasted for nearly 100 days have intensified.
As of the evening of the 21st, the demonstrators in the capital Bangkok have taken to the streets for the eighth consecutive day, with demands that "the Prayut government should step down, amend the constitution, and reform the monarchy."
Western public opinion believes that since the Thai military launched a coup in 2014 and the Prayut government came to power, the largest wave of anti-government rallies has taken shape. Thailand has “extremely rare and unprecedented” criticism and reform requirements for the monarchy, and the younger generation will become "A catalyst for Thai democracy."
In the eyes of many scholars, the current political chaos in Thailand involves both long-term structural system and mechanism problems and external interference, but more importantly, the various parties behind the chaos are wrestling.
There have been 200 demonstrations this year
According to statistics from Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao, there have been 200 demonstrations across Thailand this year.
On February 21, the Constitutional Court of Thailand ruled that the source of funds from the New Future Party leader Tana Tong to the party was illegal, announced the dissolution of the New Future Party, and stipulated that the party’s 16 executive members should not be in politics for 10 years.
The party was founded in 2018 and the general election in March 2019 has become the New Future Party, the third largest party in the Thai National Assembly. It is quite popular among young people in Thailand.
After the party was ruled to disband, campus demonstrations increased, and later the impact of the epidemic subsided.
In July, as the Thai government gradually relaxed its anti-epidemic control measures, a group of protesters with students as the main force began activities again. At that time, it was mainly for the Prayut government to step down and amend the constitution.
After entering August, things changed.
On August 10, at the National Legislative Affairs University of Thailand, which has a history of democratic movements, some students put forward slogans such as "We do not want reform, we want revolution" during the assembly, and others questioned the power of the royal family, saying, "Why do we need this? A king".
The demonstrators subsequently put forward the three major demands of "government resignation, amendment of the constitution, and reform of the monarchy", and studied the movie "The Hunger Games", using three fingers raised as a symbol of "opposing totalitarian dictatorship."
In the following September and October, demonstrations and rallies spread across Thailand, centered on Bangkok, with more and more participants, and the number of demonstrations became more frequent. The group of demonstrations also spread from college students and high school students to more young people.
According to the US "Wall Street Journal", the "Free Youth Movement" is one of the main groups that initiated the protest.
To support the protests, a Thai fan group of the South Korean group Girls’ Generation has raised about 800,000 baht (1 baht equals 0.2 yuan) in two days.
Hong Kong media reported that among the demonstrators was the "red shirts" supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
According to the South China Morning Post, former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck also posted on social media a few days ago, recalling the protests against her government from 2013 to 2014.
According to a report from the Global Times in Bangkok, local demonstrations have gradually become normal. Students attend the rally every night, and a large number of Thai celebrities and opinion leaders have expressed their support for the demonstrations on social media.
As the demonstrations are usually peaceful, the participants mainly give speeches, shout slogans, sit quietly, and sometimes even sing and dance, so most Thais do not feel that their normal lives are greatly affected.
Some people and businesses who support students said: "Thailand needs to change."
In Bangkok, there are also royalist supporters who took to the streets with photos of the Thai royal family. They said, "You can ask for more democracy, but you can't touch the monarchy."
Speaking of the three-finger gesture, Bangkok activist Ritipan stated that it represents “the value of freedom, equality and fraternity” in Thailand. After Tanathon established the opposition party in 2018, the gesture has now been used to indicate "We are not the target of tyranny and abuse."
According to "Thailand Inquirer" reporter Erich Papat, the gesture can be traced back to the French Revolution-the era of freedom, equality, and fraternity-but most protesters now only know it is Gestures in The Hunger Games.
In the face of the wave of demonstrations, the King of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn, who has returned from Germany, said that “Thailand needs people who love the country and the monarchy” and did not directly respond to the protesters’ demands for restricting royal power and requesting Prayut to step down.
Thai Prime Minister Prayut stated that “the government is willing to listen and continue to solve problems in all areas”.
The Deputy Prime Minister Supatanapon emphasized that “political procedures are the best way to resolve the current turbulent situation. Everyone should work together to help the country get out of the economic crisis”.
On October 17, local time, people protested at a rally at La Phrao intersection in Bangkok.
On the same day, Thai demonstrators disregarded the government’s declaration of the implementation of the state of emergency law and held protest rallies in various locations in Bangkok.
Photo by Zhao Jingnan issued by China News Service
"Young people think differently from their parents"
According to Zhou Fangye, an expert on Southeast Asian issues at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Thailand’s current anti-government street movement is rooted in the continuous evolution and continuation of Thailand’s political power structure adjustment since 2006.
He told the Global Times that compared with the previous political waves of "anti-Thaksin," "anti-Shamah," "anti-Abhisit," and "anti-Yingla", this street movement showed some new changes: First, It is the fundamental contradiction of the anti-government street movement. On the basis of urban-rural differentiation, regional differentiation, and rich and poor differentiation, generational differentiation has been increased; secondly, the political demands of the anti-government street movement have further polarized, and they have begun to touch the politics of "monarchy" Red line.
Zhou Fangye believes that from the 2006 coup to the 2014 coup, Thailand has experienced multiple rounds of political conflicts commonly referred to as the "Red and Yellow War" in eight years.
Although leaders and political demands have been adjusted frequently, the root cause is the structural contradiction between farmers and urban poor in the foreign government (that is, outside the capital Bangkok, especially the northern and northeastern regions), and the urban middle class in Bangkok; and On this basis, the upper-level power game between the innovative new capital group and the conservative "iron triangle" (that is, the royal family-royalists, military groups, Bangkok political and business groups) is further formed.
Therefore, before 2014, the street movement in Bangkok saw more of the faces of the poor and hard-pressed people.
In comparison, the Bangkok street movement in 2020 is more about college students and young people who have just entered society.
The political conflicts in Thailand prior to 2014 have caused many large-scale conflicts and even bloodshed, but they have never touched the "national body".
Both the "Red and Yellow" factions strive to claim to adhere to the leadership of the old King Rama IX. The occasional political statements made by the King also largely determined the political trend of the "Red and Yellow War".
Since 2016, Thailand’s politics has gradually polarized, starting from the “red-yellow war” between left and right, and further differentiated the extreme left and the extreme right, thus forming the Thaksin faction of the new capital group-the center-left camp represented by the Thai party , The Prayut faction-the center-right camp represented by the Bangkok Political and Commercial Group, the far-right royalist faction represented by the leader of the "red border" faction and the former army commander Apila, and the Tanathon faction of the new capital group-the new generation of students Of the extreme left.
From the far left, apart from the new generation of student leaders, the most critical political figure is the 42-year-old billionaire Tanathon.
Tanathon, who had left Congress, became more radical and publicly supported the ten-point request for reform of the "monarchy" proposed by the new generation of student leaders, including the abolition of Article 112 of the "Monarchy Law" (this article stipulates that "defamation, insult or threat" "The king, the legal heir or the regent" will be sentenced to 3 to 15 years in prison), reduce the royal budget according to the country’s economic situation, establish a system of checks and balances and supervise royal expenditures, abolish educational courses for the worship of the monarchy, and find The truth about the killing of civilians who criticize the monarchy and have connections with it, the king should not approve of military coups and open political views.
Supalak, a senior Thai media person and former editor-in-chief of the National Daily, believes that the king of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn, who succeeded in 2016, has lived overseas for a long time, but his expenses are borne by Thai taxpayers, which has caused some netizens to discuss.
He said: "Young people think about the monarchy very differently from their parents. They want a more transparent and closer to the real constitutional monarchy." Zhou Fangye also said that the new generation of Thailand born after the 1997 Asian financial crisis We have never experienced the era when Thailand was hailed as the "Four Tigers of Asia". They are more concerned about the existing system in solving the problems of the stable development and prosperity of the social economy.
Xu Liping, a researcher at the Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the Southeast Asian Studies Center, told the Global Times that the protests in Thailand took students as the main body of demonstrations, and reform of the constitutional monarchy was one of the main demands.
There are entanglements between power and interest behind the protest.
The royalists seek vested interests and preserve the existing power structure, while the demonstrators want to reform the existing power structure, even revolution.
Xu Liping emphasized that Southeast Asian countries expect the situation in Thailand to be stable and to maintain the smooth progress of ASEAN integration.
According to public opinion analysis, the Thai royal family needs to take the initiative to change to meet the needs of the people.
It is worth noting that during the congressional struggle, the Tanaton faction’s no-confidence debate initiated by the Prayut government in early 2020 on the grounds that “cooperating with China is detrimental to Thailand’s interests” was rejected by a high number of votes.
Some people in Thailand’s “Anti-Prayut” movement formed online and offline linkages with “Hong Kong Independence” and “Taiwan Independence” to build social platform activity groups such as the “Milk Tea Alliance” and tried to spread dissatisfaction into the field of Sino-Thailand cooperation.
Western factors behind the new-generation demonstrations
The European and American media are very concerned about the situation in Thailand.
The Washington Post said on the 20th that in the past 20 years, Thailand’s politics has been polarized. One is a rural-based populist movement, and the other is urban elites allied with the military and the royal family.
Populists have won democratic elections many times, but have been ousted by coups and suspicious court rulings.
The newspaper also stated that the United States is a strong military alliance of Thailand and that "the movement that supported democracy in the past may seek help from the United States."
According to a Reuters report in April 2019, when Tanathon was under review by the Thai judiciary, members of embassies and consulates from the United States and other Western countries stood for it; after the New Future Party was disbanded, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other United States Western NGOs have also made a high-profile voice to encourage the new generation to take to the streets to demonstrate.
"Only more than a year after King Wajiralongkorn was crowned, this unprecedented protest and demonstration broke out." Hong Kong's South China Morning Post stated that this protest and demonstration was driven to a certain extent by German media reports. After the media exposed the extravagant life of the Thai king in Germany, the German Foreign Minister stated that “political activities related to Thailand should not be carried out on German territory”.
These developments seem to encourage protests in Thailand.
The democratic protests led by young people called for the abolition of the Prayut-led government, the enactment of a new constitution and the restriction of the monarchy, whose sacred status is supported by the military.
The Thai Parliament has received various proposals to amend the constitution, but these proposals have been postponed by the royalist and military-led Senate.
"Protests are not new in Thailand. At the same time, since the transition to a constitutional monarchy in 1932, this Southeast Asian country has had about 20 coups." Bloomberg said that in the age of social media, the Thai military government is now very difficult to appeal to demonstrations. remain silent.
In an interview with the BBC, Prajak Kongirati, assistant professor of the Department of Political Affairs at the National University of Legislative Affairs in Thailand, said that “an ideological divide has now penetrated into all classes of Thai society.” The young people have had a showdown, and the political elites He is overconfident in his ability to rule. If he does not want to make any adjustments, he will pave the way for the political deadlock.