How China is replacing US as Thailand’s main defence partner and arms supplier
- US-Thai relations went downhill following the 2014 military coup in 2014, in line with US laws that restrict defence ties until democracy is restored
- China filled the void, expanding military exercises and signing 10 major arms deals including Thailand’s largest defence purchase ever
Chinese arms: cheaper than US, no strings attached. Thailand is sold
“Ultimately the reset in Thai-US relations means that Thailand finds itself at the centre of a geostrategic tug of war between the US and China in Southeast Asia,” said Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs in Chiang Mai, who has written extensively on security sector reform and democracy.
“Unlike the determination made in Beijing or Moscow, our major defence sales are managed by a process of policies that are clear and transparent and with approvals that are public,” said Jillian Bonnardeaux, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Bangkok. She added that weapons and assistance programmes from competitors “rarely deliver at advertised capability and instead leave the buyer in debt with systems that are not operational.”
Thailand said in August it will receive 70 Stryker armoured vehicles by year-end under the US Foreign Military Sales programme, and that it plans to purchase 50 more. The following month, the Thai army said it’s buying eight AH-6i light attack reconnaissance helicopters in a US$138 million deal.
Thailand finds itself at the centre of a geostrategic tug of war between the US and China in Southeast Asia
Competition between the US and China also has extended to military exercises in recent years. Thailand continues to host the US-backed “Cobra Gold” exercise, the largest military drill in Asia, which this year featured 29 participating countries including 4,500 US personnel and several dozen from China.
At the same time, Thailand has participated in more combined military exercises with China than any other Southeast Asian country, according to Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. What began as landmine clearance and humanitarian assistance drills back in 2005 have more recently expanded to air and maritime exercises, he wrote in May.
Is Thailand pivoting away from the US with Chinese arms deals?
“It’s about creating balance – we can’t choose sides, we have to be friendly to everyone,” Raksak Rojphimphun, the director general of policy and planning at the Thai Defence Ministry, said on the sidelines of a regional gathering of defence ministers in Bangkok last month. “We’re a small country. We can’t choose our friends.”
According to SIPRI data, China’s conventional arms sales surged from US$644 million in 2008 to US$1.04 billion in 2018. Still, the overall value of its trade pales in comparison to the US, whose exports averaged over US$9 billion annually during the last 10 years. In 2018 alone, the US exported US$10.5 billion worth of weapons to foreign militaries.
For Thailand, where annual defence spending is budgeted at about US$7.7 billion, China may provide a cheaper alternative than the US for certain weapons. Now the world’s fifth largest arms supplier, China has largely sold to its neighbours, with Asia accounting for 75 per cent of all sales, with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar among their biggest customers.
Southeast Asia is a growing market for defence where countries have more money to spend and feel a need to react to their neighbours, said Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher in SIPRI’s arms and military expenditure programme.
Reduced US engagement in Asia “helped push other players more toward China”, Wezeman said. “The US just became a visibly less and less reliable partner.”
