On track for success
China’s high-speed rail experience helps put Thailand on route to progress as country speeds up its modernization drive, Yang Han reports in Hong Kong.
‘If you want to be rich, you have to build roads.” This was the Chinese proverb that Surasit Thanadtang, director of the Thai-Chinese Strategic Research Center at the National Research Council of Thailand, used to deploy when engaging with other experts during the drafting of the ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint in 2008.
“At that time, we had the ASEAN connectivity plan, so I thought why don’t we think about other strategic choices, not just those from Britain or the West,” says Surasit, who believed that learning from China’s railway technology could be a credible alternative for the region.
The Master Plan of ASEAN Connectivity was subsequently adopted by the regional bloc’s leaders in Hanoi in 2010.
Founded in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, groups Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In 2012, as the superintendent of the National Defense College of Thailand, Surasit further introduced his idea by holding a seminar to discuss why Thailand should adopt China’s high-speed rail technology. The seminar was attended by NRCT experts, government officials, and local and foreign media.
“There were many opposing ideas because (those people had) never been to China,” says Surasit, noting that most people in Thailand were still holding a traditional perception about China and were not aware of the country’s rapid development.
In particular, Surasit says there was a member from the Western media who challenged him at the seminar, arguing that he does not trust China’s technology and that it will never be as competitive as that of the West.
However, with his deep understanding of China, Surasit responded confidently that the adoption of Chinese rail technology will take Thailand to a new level. “Time will prove that,” he told the audience.
Surasit’s confidence was based on his own experience of watching the changes in China’s railway system and how it has contributed to the country’s economic development.
Noting that the infrastructure in China has developed in leaps and bounds, Surasit says he is impressed that China has realized its achievements largely on its own, rather than relying on assistance from any other country.
“What the Communist Party of China has been doing to revive China is very different from the West,” says Surasit, referring to the CPC which has guided the nation’s development over the last seven decades.
As 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, China has shown what it means to rise peacefully through reform and opening-up and a path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, he says.
“The CPC has shown all elements of good governance, such as transparency, rule of law, accountability and responsibility,” says Surasit, adding that even ordinary people in the community can participate in the public policy-making process.
Surasit visited China for the first time in 1996. “The (railway) technology was at an initial stage at that time, but I saw the vision of the engineers and it was surprising,” says Surasit, who was impressed by how the younger generation of Chinese took to the new technology.
China launched its first highspeed rail line in 2008 and the technology has become proof of the nation’s independent innovation, with the country now home to the world’s biggest high speed rail network.
The total length of high-speed rail lines in China stood at 37,900 kilometers as of the end of 2020, up 2,900 km from 2019 and almost double the 2015 level, according to the China State Railway Group.
Just as Surasit hoped, after the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, China and Thailand signed a memorandum of understanding on railway cooperation in 2014.
On Dec 21, 2017, China and Thailand jointly inaugurated the construction of Thailand’s first high-speed rail line, which would run from the capital city Bangkok to the Nakhon Ratchasima province in the nation’s northeast.
The 253-kilometer railway has a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour. China is responsible for design of the railway, supervision of construction and manufacturing of trains and signal systems, among other things.
The venture was described by Premier Li Keqiang as a flagship project in jointly realizing the BRI in the spirit of “wide consultation, joint construction and shared benefits”.
There will also be an additional line connecting Nakhon Ratchasima to the Thai border at Nong Khai province, which will link Thai railways with the Laos network and China.
Surasit joined the NRCT after retiring from the army in 2017. His research is focused on bilateral relations between China and Thailand and cooperation under the BRI.
On Sept 4, 2017, the two countries signed a preliminary agreement for cooperation on the BRI.
Established in 1959, the NRCT is the only official think tank in Thailand and reports directly to the Thai prime minister. It serves as the main national agency responsible for guiding the development of the country and public policy through research.
Even though he is a China expert and speaks the language, Surasit says he only started becoming interested in China in the 1980s when he received a “little red book” containing quotes of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
“At that time, the book was prohibited in Thailand,” says Surasit, who had started to learn Chinese. “That was my first time (to read about China) and it was very different from the Western point of view.”
His interest in China was further stoked in the following decade. In early 1990s, when studying in Germany, Surasit found that all his friends, whether from Europe or the United States, were reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a Chinese general who lived in the 6th century BC.
The Art of War is regarded as one of the oldest and most famous studies of strategy applicable to military planning, social navigation and business.
“After study and learning, I realize that oriental wisdom had been so close,” says Surasit, who eventually applied to study at National Defense University of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Since his first visit, Surasit has been to China many times. He says the biggest change he sees in China is the improvement in people’s quality of living.
“When I was first in China in the 1990s, the per capita income was about half of that of Thailand,” says Surasit. “Now the quality of life and the per capita income are higher than (that of ) Thailand.”
The adjusted net national per capita income in China was only about $671 in 1997, when the number reached $1,983 in Thailand, according to data from the World Bank. In 2019, the number in China was almost $8,400, while for Thailand, it was $6,069.
Surasit says the CPC leadership has put theories into practice to achieve national development. “(The reason) why the political system under the CPC works in China is because the leadership made it step by step to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics,” he says.
In The Art of War, dao, tian, di, jiang and fa, which stands for the moral law, heaven, earth, the commander and method and discipline, are described as the five key factors that govern the art of war. As Surasit sees it, these are also very important principles for ruling a country and the political system under the CPC’s leadership has demonstrated all the elements required for success.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has created unanticipated and unprecedented challenges to leaderships around the world, Surasit says the CPC’s response domestically has demonstrated the Party’s decisive and strategic leadership in controlling and preventing the spread of the highly transmissible and lifethreatening virus.
This was shown not only by the central government, but also by the local provincial and city governments, he says, noting that coordinated action is essential for rolling out proper anti-pandemic measures, together with the participation of the general public.
At the international level, Surasit says China has provided a lot of humanitarian assistance to other countries, which is helpful to ease the COVID-19 situation globally.
For example, Thailand received the first batch of 200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine it ordered from China’s Sinovac Biotech on Feb 24. The country started its vaccination roll-out on Feb 28, with the first shot of Sinovac’s vaccine going to Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.
The second and third batches were delivered on March 20 and April 10.
On April 24, in a phone conversathe tion with Don Pramudwinai, Thai foreign minister who is also a deputy prime minister, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China is ready to strengthen vaccine cooperation with Thailand and help the Southeast Asian country to win the battle against COVID-19.
The CPC’s pandemic response even reached other parts of the globe, Surasit notes, describing the effort as a “good contribution to the world”.
Surasit says the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind, which was proposed in 2013 by Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, is a big concept. “Because this concept is (about) the struggle between contribution and competition of mankind,” he says.
“If you talk about Confucianism, we have to minimize the competition through contribution so that we can (create) many good things for each other,” he says.
Expecting China to continue progressing under the CPC’s leadership, Surasit says he hopes the cooperation between Thailand and China can reach a new level by focusing more on areas such as education, especially incubating talent for the digital era.
A case in point is that besides the construction of the high-speed rail, China and Thailand also jointly launched vocational training programs and set up institutes to incubate local technicians.
“Many people of the younger generation want to study new technologies such as data science and artificial intelligence. It is very important for the world, and China has proved that it is taking the lead (in technological innovation),” he says.
Surasit says that he also hopes more sister city programs can be formed among a greater number of Thai and Chinese cities, so that people in Thailand can have a wider understanding of the people and culture of different parts of China.
Each year, the NRCT holds a Chinese-Thai Strategic Research Seminar in partnership with Huaqiao University in Quanzhou city, East China’s Fujian province. The event will witness its 10th edition this year.
Despite physical barriers created by the pandemic, Surasit says academic exchanges among researchers in Thailand and China have not been suspended, as they continue to communicate online.
Besides Huaqiao University, Surasit says he is preparing to conduct joint research programs with more Chinese institutions this year, such as the University of International Business and Economics and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.