ABSTRACT
Studies of Chinese politics and foreign relations in Thailand have traveled a long and arduous road. The pioneer scholars in the 1960s were closely scrutinized by the government’s anti-communist security apparatus. However, since the normalization of Thailand–China relations in 1975 and the beginning of Chinese economic reforms in 1978, the studies have expanded as post-Mao China is no longer considered as a threat. This chapter will explore three generations of Thai scholarship, their major written works, their academic contributions, and also recent research trends, i.e. the roles of non-China scholars and private universities in doing research on China’s political and economic ascendancies with special reference to Thailand and ASEAN.
