Diplomacy, Bangkok style

W

hen some 40 Uyghur who had been in a Thai detention center for more than a decade were suddenly deported to China last February, many Thais joined international observers in saying that Beijing’s influence over Bangkok was becoming overwhelming.

The move, after all, was made despite calls by the United Nations and individual countries such as the United States for Thailand not to send back the Uyghur to China, where many believe they would only be subjected to repression and possible torture. International condemnation of the deportation was swift, with U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio ordering visa restrictions on Thai officials linked to the deportation, while the European Parliament voted to condemn the Thai government and called on the European Union to raise the issue in future EU-Thailand trade talks. 

Thai officials tried to downplay the incident and Beijing simply acknowledged the repatriation of “Chinese nationals.”  Thai officials later admitted that Beijing had formally requested the repatriation of the Uyghur.

That Bangkok chose to grant Beijing’s request over the objections of other countries, as well as of the U.N., has had many seeing China’s long shadow over Thailand’s affairs and yet another proof that Thailand is fast coming under China’s political orbit. The Uyghur deportation also reminded many of Thailand’s historical ties to its giant neighbor, albeit not necessarily in a predominantly negative light. Siam – Thailand’s old name – never became directly under the Sinosphere of influence like Korea and Vietnam, but it was exchanging gifts with China up until the twilight years of the Ching Dynasty and the end of Imperial China. 

Ties between China and Thailand practically disappeared during the Cold War, but were renewed in the 70s. Today the Middle Kingdom is flexing its muscle anew, at a time when China has now become Thailand’s biggest trading partner and its biggest source of foreign tourists. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has even said that she has “Chinese blood” in her to allay growing fears in China over tourist safety in Thailand. She wasn’t making an empty claim; the Shinawatra family indeed traces its roots to China, as do many other prominent clans in Thailand.

All these, among other things, have made the specter of Thailand turning into a vassal state of China gain credence. Yet it can also well be that the decision to deport the Uyghur was just another example of Thailand’s shrewd diplomacy, which in the past had even helped it be the only country in Southeast Asia to escape Western colonization.

A “swap mart” of people

For sure, though, some of its diplomatic tactics have also been seen as cruel, as they seem to include using people seeking refuge on its soil as bargaining chips. 

In a report released last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed how refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand have “faced surveillance, violence, abductions, enforced disappearances, and forced returns facilitated by the government of Thailand. At the same time, Thai authorities have engaged in acts of transnational repression against exiled Thai activists in Southeast Asia.”

HRW said that this is popularly known as the “swap mart” arrangement, in which countries engage in transnational repression with the help of the governments hosting their nationals seeking asylum.

Interestingly, the HRW report included cases involving Chinese dissidents who had fled to Thailand but ended up being either deported or forcibly disappeared. But it did not say what Thailand gained in return for deporting to China the likes of democracy activists Jiang Yefei (a Chinese political cartoonist living in exile in Thailand from 2008 to 2015) and Dong Guangping in 2015, or of about 100 Uyghur a year earlier. 

That batch of Uyghur, as well as the 40 who were recently deported, had been part of a bigger group who had fled China in 2014, when Beijing started a major crackdown on the Turkic-speaking ethnic minority in Xinjiang province. Numbering about 350 or so (the exact figure has never been confirmed), the Uyghur were apparently trying to travel to Turkey but were caught by Thai authorities near the Thai-Malaysian border.

Turkey was then still vigorously championing the rights of the Uyghur and had opened its doors to those fleeing Chinese repression. At the time, Thai officials said that Beijing was demanding that all of the Uyghur be repatriated to China. Bangkok eventually sent less than a third of the Uyghur back to China – for which it received scathing criticism from the international community, similar to what it experienced recently. But more than 170 Uyghur who were said to have been verified as Turkish citizens were sent to Turkey; the rest remained in a Thai detention center because their nationalities were supposedly still unverified.

“Thailand and Turkey are not rivals and we do not want to destroy trade and commerce with Turkey,” Reuters quoted then Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha as saying. “At the same time, we do not want to destroy the relationship between China and Thailand.” 

At least five of the Uyghur who remained in Thailand died later, including two minors. Five escaped the detention center in 2020, but were caught and have been in a Bangkok prison since.

Unanswered questions

Why Thailand chose to keep the remaining Uyghur in a detention center is unclear. A 2024 report by The New Humanitarian said that Thai authorities had actually sought assistance from the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for years but had been “rebuffed.” Yet Thailand had also apparently ignored offers by other countries to take the Uyghur because, Vice Foreign Minister Russ Jalichandra said in a recent statement quoted by BenarNews, these were “unrealistic” since accepting the proposals could render Thailand at risk of “retaliation from China,” which would “impact the livelihoods of many Thais.” 

After the latest Uyghur deportation, Thai authorities say that no Uyghur remain in detention. But activists dispute this, saying that aside from those in jail, three more Uyghur are still under Thai custody.  

Meanwhile, why Thailand suddenly deported the 40 or so men to China last February remains unexplained, save for Bangkok’s admission of Beijing’s request. Presumably, though, that request had been longstanding. Prime Minister Paetongtarn did say that the deportation was carried out only after Bangkok confirmed the Uyghur to be Chinese citizens and who had “entered the country illegally.” But then why did it take Thailand more than a decade to confirm their citizenship?

That would leave economic and security agreements as among the possible reasons for the sudden deportation of the Uyghur, which was carried out two weeks after the Thai prime minister made a four-day official visit to China.

Paetongtarn’s China trip was in part to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations. Among the matters discussed during the Thai prime minister’s visit were the setting up of a task force to tackle the activities of syndicates operating scam centers along the Thai border and tourist safety in Thailand. 

Paetongtarn also told Thai media that she updated China’s leaders on a high-speed railway linking Thailand to China via Laos – a Sino-Thai project that was supposed to have been completed in 2021 and whose delay some experts say is traceable to Bangkok’s reluctance to fully embrace and be part of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative. 

“People are not commodities”

In a press conference a day after the Uyghur deportation, Paetongtarn denied that Bangkok had deported the Uyghur as part of a trade deal.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “There is no trade exchange whatsoever connected to the repatriation of Uyghur. These matters are entirely separate. If we wanted to discuss trade, we would address trade specifically. This involves people, not merchandise. People are not commodities to be exchanged.”

It was also at this press conference that she said that “no third country ever contacted us offering to accept these individuals” – which would later be refuted by Vice Foreign Minister Russ.

Still, the prime minister had asserted as well, “If we weren’t certain of their safety, we wouldn’t have proceeded. If anything happened to them after their return, I couldn’t accept that either. We understand that we are all human beings, so we had to be absolutely certain before taking this action.”

In a 2021 report, HRW said that at least a million Turkic Muslims – most of them Uyghur – in Xinjiang had been arbitrarily detained through the years and “subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, cultural and political indoctrination, and forced labor.” 

In 2022, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) released its own report on Xinjiang in which it said that “allegations of patterns of torture, or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence.”

“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the OHCHR report also said.

Beijing has consistently denied all these, including during the uproar over Thailand’s recent deportation of the 40 Uyghur. But it agreed to host a Thai delegation — consisting of government officials led by Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai and selected journalists – to check on how the latest deportees were doing.

The delegation visited Xinjiang in mid-March. But it was able to meet only five of the deportees during its three-day visit. It also had to reassure the Thai public later that the meetings with the Uyghur were not staged. 

Pravit Rojanaphruk, a long-time advocate of press freedom, is a columnist and senior staff writer at Khaosod English.