Thailand’s Strategic Role in Advancing the Thailand-China Community with a Shared Future: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Regional Development
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Abstract
This article analyzes Thailand’s strategic role in advancing the Thailand-China Community with a Shared Future (CSFM), focusing on sustainable regional development within evolving bilateral relations. Through qualitative documentary analysis of bilateral agreements, policy frameworks, and cooperative projects, the study examines the development, concepts, and implementation of the CSFM strategy. Despite the growing body of scholarship on Thailand-China relations, existing literature has focused predominantly on bilateral economic and trade dimensions, with limited analytical attention to Thailand’s proactive agency in shaping and operationalizing the CSFM framework as an emerging middle power. This article addresses this gap by providing a systematic analysis of Thailand’s strategic positioning across multiple cooperation dimensions. The findings reveal that Thailand-China relations, rooted in strong historical and cultural foundations, have evolved into a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Thailand demonstrates a proactive role in aligning its national development strategy with China’s global initiatives, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative, through concrete cooperation in economics, trade, investment, infrastructure, security, and socio-cultural exchanges. However, significant challenges emerge, including concerns over Chinese influence from large-scale investments, maintaining balanced relations with major powers, and political system differences. Simultaneously, substantial opportunities exist in economic growth, infrastructure and technological advancement, regional connectivity, and promoting regional stability. The article recommends Thailand enhance transparency in cooperative projects, diversify risks, maintain strategic equilibrium, proactively promote national interests, and leverage its ASEAN role. Successfully managing these relationships is crucial for Thailand’s sustainable development and strengthening its leadership as an influential middle power regionally and internationally.
Highlights
• Analyzes the strategic evolution of Thailand-China relations from a Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership to a formal joint Community with a Shared Future.
• Examines the proactive integration of Thailand’s national development strategies with China’s multidimensional global initiatives, including BRI, GDI, GSI, and GCI.
• Identifies the Thailand-China high-speed rail project as a key catalyst for the development of the Thailand-Laos-China Economic Corridor.
• Evaluates critical challenges for Thailand, specifically regarding the management of Chinese economic influence and the maintenance of a diplomatic balance among major powers.
• Proposes a policy framework for Thailand to strengthen its regional leadership as an influential middle power through sustainable and transparent cooperation.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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