ABSTRACT
In the past, Thailand has been able to adjust its domestic and foreign policies to meet emerging threats and opportunities. This was evident in its nineteenth-century modernization, its sympathy for national socialism in the years before World War II, its brief and intermittent adoption of parliamentary government following that war and its more recent response to regional and global economic changes in post-Cold War Asia. Thailand has successfully pursued foreign policies, both strategic and economic, that have brought its interests into line with prevailing international developments. Thailand's economic ties to ASEAN, however, are likely to grow considerably in the future, just as those among the East Asian newly industrializing countries accelerated beginning in the mid-1980s. Thailand retains a capacity to use its ties with countries both within the region and beyond it to retain its maneuvering room in its relations with China. Japan will become increasingly important to Thailand in this role.
