Commentary | Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Unlikely Allies: The Colonial Model of Military-Dominated Pseudo-Democracy in Myanmar and Thailand
The unfolding crises in Myanmar and Thailand expose an unlikely friendship between the two nations—a friendship that has proven vital in managing their domestic oppositions amid mounting international pressure.
The elites of Myanmar and Thailand are today standing firmly in unison despite their historical animosity. In 1767, Burma, former name of Myanmar, ransacked Ayuthia, the old kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam. Burma had since earned its place as Siam’s number-one enemy.
In many ways, the two kingdoms were perfect archrivals. They were comparable in size and population. Both were agriculture-based economies thriving on tropical lands oriented around the alluvial plains of a river valley system. Early economic development was marked by the expansion of rice cultivation and exports.
Both kingdoms’ traditional culture in terms of politics and administration was influenced by India, reflected in the Brahmanic strains in the concept and the role of the monarchy, and by the Theravada Buddhist order that dominated the two populaces. Full cultural homogeneity was however never attained in either society. Burma consisted of numerous ethnic groups, while Siam incorporated other ethnics through an assimilation policy.
But the arrival of colonization forced changes and left a lasting impact on the political trajectory of Myanmar and Thailand. Evidently, the Siamese response to colonialism was more effective than the Burmese. Siam saved itself from colonization by implementing appeasement and concession policies. Contrarily, Burma opted for resistance against the British. They fought three wars, resulting in the annihilation of monarchy and the colonization of Burma in 1885.
Although colonialism produced different consequences in Burma and Siam, it was exploited to serve a similar political purpose as the two countries emerged from the colonial era. Siam went through the 1932 revolution that ended its absolute monarchy. Burma regained its independence in 1948. In the period that followed, both countries adopted the colonial model to strengthen their own regime.
The colonial model defines the relationship between a minority of rulers and a majority of populace. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the people are made and implemented by the rulers in pursuit of the latters’ power interests. The rulers are convinced of their own supremacy and their ordained mandate to rule. Colonial domination undermines the capacity of political communities to exercise their self-determining agency in a particular way. The durability of colonial rule depended upon the ability to control, mostly by the means of force.
“Post-independence Burma and contemporary Thailand...functioned on this colonial model, which empowered state institutions for the sake of control.”
Post-independence Burma and contemporary Thailand, despite encountering a different set of problems, functioned on this colonial model, which empowered state institutions for the sake of control. Burma continued to be plagued by violence. Ethnic insurgencies, denied of self-determination rights promised by the British, provided a pretext for the rise of the Burmese army, known as tatmadaw, as the central political force of the country. The British might have left, but the Burmese fell back upon an authoritarian operative system similar to that of the colonial rule.
In Thailand, the new constitutional monarchy strove to rekindle its power in collaboration with the military. Once embracing modernity to escape colonization, the monarchy repeated history by endorsing the Cold War norm to escape the communist threat. The result witnessed the making of the monarchy-military alliance, supported by the United States, which controlled the fate of politics ever since.
Seemingly, the colonial legacy paved the way for the staying power of Myanmar’s army and the Thai monarchy-military network, reconnecting the two former enemies. The reconnection was evident in the latest putsches in Thailand and Myanmar. It served to offer much-needed legitimacy among the Thai and Myanmar leaders in assigning their respective pro-democracy forces a threat that must be eliminated.
The current relationship between Myanmar and Thailand has thus thrived on shared colonial narratives in which the militaries suppressed resistant constituencies to maintain order, either by law or force. This relationship is promoted through mutual recognition and lending best practices among them.
For example, after the 2014 coup in Thailand, Myanmar Supreme Commander Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the very man who staged his own coup in February 2021, paid a visit to Bangkok. As the first ASEAN dignitary to meet the Thai junta, Min praised the Thai army for “doing the right thing” in seizing power. He compared it to his country’s experience during the political turmoil in Yangon in 1988, when the tatmadaw fatally cracked down on pro-democracy protesters.
Min Aung Hlaing also met with the influential General Prem Tinsulanonda, former Thai prime minister and army chief, and then president of the Privy Council. He is the adopted son of Prem, the personalized connection that glued the two millitaries. To reciprocate Myanmar’s recognition of the Thai coup, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the coup leader and self-proclaimed premier, chose Myanmar as his first foreign country to visit to further consolidate the Myanmar-Thai alliance.
Uniting through such an alliance, Myanmar and Thailand learned from one another methods in perpetuating themselves politically. Myanmar’s false process of democratization, arguably, served as a model for Thailand’s 2019 election. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected de facto head of state in Myanmar in 2015 and again in 2020. But 25 percent of parliamentary seats were reserved for army delegates and she was constitutionally barred from the presidency, thus assuring military dominance of Myanmar politics.
Similarly, Thailand’s 2019 constitution was drafted by the military-appointed committees and designed not only to prevent powerful civilians from re-entering politics—in this case, proxies of the Shinawatras—but also to entrench the military’s political influence through its nominees in the 250-seat senate. Despite the nominal civilianization of rule, the Thai army has remained a fundamental element in the new government under Prayuth.
Shortly after the coup in Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing sent a letter to Prayuth, asking Thailand’s support for his country’s democracy. Regardless of this pretense, the real significance was cementing the Myanmar-Thai connection.
The mutual support between Myanmar and Thailand suggests that the colonial model opens up a possibility that millitaries can successfully stage coups and guide democracy. Like colonial rule, the durability of military-dominated pseudo-democracy relies on a combination of effective instruments, be they laws or forces. Both Myanmar and Thailand are demonstrating such durability through their newfound relations.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
To cite this essay, please use the suggested entry below:
Pavin Chachavalpongpun, “Unlikely Allies: The Colonial Model of Military-Dominated Pseudo-Democracy in Myanmar and Thailand,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, April 28, 2021; https://doi.org/10.52698/LBOB7895.