Thailand chases Chinese money, but at what cost?

From environmental damage to technology transfer, the junta’s overdrive to tap Chinese investment raises a lot of questions as the men in uniform try to breathe life into a slackening economy in order to legitimise their rule

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Dadodin Patavatto a Buddhist monk, leads a silent march to the prime minister's office in Bangkok to demonstrate against a proposed coal power plant in southern Thailand. The plans for an 800-megawatt coal power plant have sparked an outcry in the typically tranquil Krabi province, famed for its white sand and picturesque limestone cliffs. Photo: AP

Published: 8:30am, 23 Jul 2017Updated: 7:27pm, 24 Jan 2019

Somnuk Krodsua still remembers the layer of black dust that used to cover his garden every morning two decades ago. His house, located in the Thai southern province of Krabi, sat only a couple of kilometres from a coal plant that produced energy day and night.

“There was a lot of pollution. Often we couldn’t see more than 20 metres ahead because there was a thick smoke,” said the lawyer. The plant closed 20 years ago, but when Somnuck heard in 2014 that the government was planning a new coal facility, bigger than the old one, he decided he would try to stop it.

Krabi’s 870-megawatt coal-fired plant is one of the first big development projects linked to China investment that the current Thai military junta is pushing to reverse years of slow economic growth. “The Thai economy hasn’t performed as [the military] wanted,” said Pavida Pananond, an associate professor of international business at Thammasat University. “We are the slowest growing economy in Southeast Asia.”

The Thai economy grew by only 0.8 per cent in 2014, 2.8 per cent in 2015 and 3.2 per cent in 2016. In the years to come, the economy will keep the same pace, according to the World Bank’s forecast, and will only grow around 3.3 per cent from 2017 to 2019, a much weaker growth than most of its Southeast Asian neighbours. For instance, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have expanded above 6.5 per cent over the past three years, and Malaysia, a country with a higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita than Thailand, grew between 4.2 per cent and 6 per cent.

Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej makes an appearance at a hospital in Bangkok in 2009. The king died in October 2016. Photo: AFP

But scholars and activists have raised concerns about the projects that are being approved to keep the engine ticking, often invoking the controversial Section 44, a constitutional provision that allows the military to pass any measure “for the sake of the reforms in any field” and overriding some of the main laws protecting the rights of communities and the environment. “Since the junta came in power, there has not been any protection for the environment. Almost every step they are taking is for GDP [growth]”, said Somnuck Jongmeewasin, an academic and a member of Community Rights and Natural Resources Sub-Commission, under the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand.

For the junta, though, it is a matter of survival in a sensitive period for Thailand following the death of the venerated King Bhumibol Adulyadej. “The military needs a boost in the economy in order to justify their existence”, said Kan Yuengyong, executive director at Siam Intelligence Unit, a think tank specialising in Thai politics. The army staged a coup in May 2014 after months of political unrest under the promise of launching a programme of reforms to overcome the political divide in which Thailand has been immersed since the ousting of the then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006.

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