From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

18. Building Ties with Thailand, the Philipphines and
Brunei
My early impressions of the Thais were gathered from stopovers in Bangkok on
the way to and from London in the 1950s. Later, on visits accompanying the
Tunku in 1962–63, I was impressed by the quality of the men in charge of their
foreign policy. The Thai foreign ministry recruited their brightest and best,
educated in British, European and Latin American universities. It was their
glamour service, highly paid and much respected because of their foreign travels
at a time when travel was rare. Their domestic administrators did not match the
quality of their foreign service officers. They needed their best to fend off
encroachments by the British from Burma and by the French from Indochina.
Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country that has never been colonised.
I met Prime Minister Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn in Bangkok in
1966. He was a staunch supporter of US intervention in Vietnam, but by January
1973 he told me that he believed a total US withdrawal from Indochina was
inevitable in the long run. He wanted to see the region united by having the
Indochinese countries – North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and also
Burma, brought into Asean, but only after a genuine ceasefire by North Vietnam.
Thanom was not a complex man. He was loyal to his friends and allies. He
treated me as his friend and we exchanged views frankly and freely. He was
worried because of the support Thailand had given the Americans, including the
use of huge air bases from which the US Air Force had bombed North Vietnam
– Vietnamese enmity and retribution were not to be lightly dismissed. He
lamented the fact that the Americans were fighting with one hand tied behind
their backs; they attacked North Vietnam only by air and fought a defensive war
in South Vietnam, a no-win strategy. All they could hope for was not to lose.
The Thais were adjusting to new realities.
In October that year large demonstrations in Bangkok demanding a more
democratic constitution led to Thanom’s departure for the United States. He and

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his wife were thoroughly unhappy living in an apartment in Boston. They missed
the warm tropics, their friends and relatives, and most of all their spicy Thai
food.
In December 1974 Thanom flew back to Bangkok without notice. The Thai
government wanted to send him back to the United States, but he refused to
leave unless his ailing father accompanied him to a destination closer than
America. I agreed at the Thai government’s request to let Thanom take up
residence in Singapore, but made it a condition that he refrain from political
activities during his stay. I thought it a plus if Singapore could become a neutral
sanctuary like Switzerland in Europe.
When I had him, his wife, daughter and son-in-law, who had been with him
in Boston, to dinner, he recounted the woes of being an exile in the
unaccustomed cold of New England, the sense of isolation and neighbours who
complained of the pungent smells of Thai curries. In Singapore he received an
endless stream of relatives and friends and our lifestyle was not too alien. But
the Thai government kept a watchful eye for possible politicking by his Thai
visitors and him.
Thanom returned to Bangkok two years later in a monk’s robe, publicly
declaring that he wanted to enter a monastery, and was welcomed by some
members of the Thai royal family. Time had moved on, and Thanom never
regained power, but he did persuade the Thai government to return a good part
of his assets which had been frozen or confiscated. This was the Thai way, never
a brutal, total confrontation if a compromise was possible. Forgiving is an
essential part of Buddhism.
A general election had been held earlier, in 1975, when Kukrit Pramoj, a
traditional monarchist, became prime minister. He headed a coalition in which
his Social Action Party had only 18 of the 140 seats. Thailand needed him to
deal with the impending North Vietnamese victory over the South. I found him
shrewd and philosophical, with a keen if mischievous and malicious sense of
humour. He could be frivolous. Articulate, with expressive hands and face, he
did not strike me as a man with a serious political purpose. He had acted as the
prime minister in the Hollywood production “The Quiet American”. A divorcé,
he lived well in a large, attractive, old-style Thai teakwood house in central
Bangkok, where he entertained me to dinner alfresco.
As a formulator of policy, Kukrit worried me. I visited him in Bangkok on
17 April 1975, a week after the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and two
weeks before Saigon fell. He did not have much to say about Thailand’s

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position. Our ambassador, who had been brought up in Thailand and knew their
leaders and their culture, thought they were still groping for a new foreign
policy. I could not have visited them at a more tense moment. Kukrit said the US
bases should go within a year. He was no longer sure of the United States, and
their presence, being more of a “target” than a “deterrent”, compromised and
embarrassed Thailand. I said we should not write off the United States. The US
Congress would change its attitude as developments overtook them. Singapore’s
view was that the presence of the US Seventh Fleet made our relations with
China and the Soviet Union easier. Without it, the Russian influence would be
overpowering. When the Soviets wanted Singapore to allow them to store oil for
their fishing fleet on one of our outer islands, we had told them to buy from the
American oil companies in Singapore. If there were no Seventh Fleet, we would
not be able to give them such a reply.
Two weeks after Kukrit visited Beijing in early July, he came to Singapore.
He had received a North Vietnamese delegation in Bangkok. He said that the
“domino theory” had been realised in French Indochina, and that the North
Vietnamese wanted to be the ruler of all Indochina. I asked why Radio Hanoi
was so hostile towards Thailand when their government was extending the hand
of friendship. Their tactics, Kukrit said, were to coerce and frighten the Thais
into establishing diplomatic relations, and they wanted the world to see that
Thailand was frightened. He described his meeting with the leader of the North
Vietnamese delegation to Bangkok: he did not appear to be arrogant, said they
should let “bygones be bygones” and embraced him warmly when they met.
Kukrit said he “shivered in the embrace”. They were cold in their smiles and
there was a distinct drop in temperature when the five of them sat in a room. The
leader was relaxed but the rest merely sat stiffly. They pressed their claim for the
return of South Vietnamese aircraft that had been flown from Vietnam to
Thailand in the days before the fall of Saigon.
Kukrit’s view was that we (Asean) had to be strong and firm and play “big
brother to the Indochinese countries”. We could help them, every now and then,
in ways that would be sufficient to keep them just beyond the point of starvation.
We had to show our affluence, strength and solidarity, and occasionally ask them
to join in song and dance festivals. His view on the North Vietnamese had
become more robust after meeting them in Bangkok, but, more important, after
his visit to China. The Thais were quick and nimble when it came to protecting
their sovereignty.
He related to me what Zhou Enlai told him about me: “I am surprised at him

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(referring to me). He is of my own blood. Why is he afraid of China taking over
Singapore? His greater problem is to prevent the Chinese from returning to
Singapore.” I asked Kukrit to tell Zhou that I had no worry about the Chinese
returning to Singapore, or about the Chinese in Singapore wanting to return to
China, or about China taking over Singapore. Singapore was too small for China
and the problems it would create would not make it worthwhile. My concern was
over the messages of congratulations China sent to the Malayan Communist