Thailand’s Economy Reaches Precipice, Students Demand New Government
Marching alongside thousands in the streets of Bangkok, in a matter of moments, a friendly crowd became frightened. Thita was in the middle as police officers began using water cannons on their fellow citizens.
“I really didn’t know what was happening,” she said. “Suddenly, we have to stand up and run.”
This was the first political march in several years for Thita, who withheld her last name for fear of arrest. As a child, she remembers marching alongside her parents. This time, Thita was acting on her own. In recent years, Thita had kept her politics a secret from her parents. Now she was marching for democracy.
In Thailand, students are protesting for democracy. In a political system historically sorted by wealth and geography, a stagnating economy beset by an ineffectual authoritarian government has led many students to put aside their divergent familial, class and geographic political allegiances. Economic models and demographic data both suggest that now is a pivotal juncture for Thailand’s economic future. As the moment progresses, the country’s future torchbearers do not have faith in their government.
Political protests are nothing new for Thailand. In the past, tensions have existed between urban populations, which tend to side with the royal family and rural populations, which lean towards populist politics. Political instability often follows changes in power. Notably, when the populist candidates Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck Shinawatra, both former Prime Ministers of Thailand, were elected in 2006 and 2014 respectively, both were removed a few years after by pro-royal military coups. Most recently, a pro-democracy party targeting Thai youth called Future Forward was banned by the Thai Constitutional Court after it outperformed expectations in the 2019 parliamentary election.
Although democratic protests have taken place in the past, the stakes for the current generation are much higher, according to Kanokrat Lertchoosakul, professor at Chulalongkorn University. “They have no choice. They have to fight against this unproductive, suppressive, ineffective, inefficient, Thai state in order to promote the capacity in surviving in their very challenging disruptive world, both in economic and also in political terms,” she said. Even students in traditionally pro-royal, conservative universities have been compelled to march.
Thita, 24, who studied at Chulalongkorn University is one of those students whose perspective of the Thai government began to change. Growing up in Bangkok, the daughter of two doctors, she was taught to look down on rural, populist, pro-democracy politics. However, upon entering university, and joining the workplace, in addition to having conversations with her friends and following social media, Thita began to question the government. “I don’t feel like we have too much hope,” she said.
The political turmoil arises as Thailand, which was successful in transitioning from low-income to middle-income status, has failed to transition into upper-income status, in other words, the Middle-income trap. In 2011, the country became an upper-middle-income country according to the World Bank after significant GDP growth during the 1980s and 1990s. However, in recent years growth has slowed to just 2.4 percent in 2019.
Growth in previous decades was led by labor-intensive industries and manufacturing, in particular the semiconductor industry. But Thailand urgently needs to transition from a manufacturing economy to a technologically innovative one, as it is already losing its comparative advantage in labor costs to neighboring countries like Vietnam, China and India, according to Koson Sapprasert, a former director of research at Bangkok University.
Thailand has failed to educate its population to be best suited for innovative companies according to Supprasert, and the window of opportunity is dwindling. Thailand currently faces a labor shortage and relies on four million migrant workers. The population is also expected to decline from 70 million to 46 million from 2030 to 2100, according to the United Nations. As neighboring countries develop, immigrant labor will no longer flow to Thailand, wiping out local industries that today enjoy a shrinking comparative advantage, according to Supprasert.
Concurrently, population ageing will lead to a higher debt to GDP ratio as social programs like universal healthcare’s cost increases. Schools and universities may also struggle to remain open, with tighter budgets and fewer students. This is alarming to Patarapong Intarakumnerd, professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, because creating an innovative economy requires education and there is already a lack of innovative firms. “With a labor shortage, at this moment, getting jobs is not that difficult. But getting a quality job is different,” he said, meaning much harder.
After university, Thita entered an economy with little opportunity. She noticed her friends struggle to find work, while inequality, corruption and a low quality of life remained rampant. “There are jobs, but they are going to be very low paying and they will take advantage of you as well,” she said. “It’s very hard to find jobs if you want to get paid fairly.”
Pimnara, a 20-year-old student at Thammasat University, also questions the economy and blames the government for its mismanagement. “We’re concerned about jobs so much. The market doesn’t have an ability to pay wages,” she said. Pimnara also questions government policies affecting educational inequality between rural and urban Thailand. In rural Thailand, 47 percent of 15 year old’s are illiterate, according to the World Bank. “Living under control of the junta government is not fair for us,” she said. “I have experienced volunteering for children who do not have full access to the education. I always wonder why they can’t study like us.”
Because Thailand’s government is heavily bureaucratic and often unaccountable, policy meant to encourage development is often ineffective and unequal, according to Thanapan Laiprakobsup, associate professor at Chulalongkorn University. “If there is no constitutional reform, no political reforms soon, it will be difficult for Thailand to initiate new policies for development, for industrial deepening and technological advance in the long run,” said Laiprakobsup.
Pimnara has lost faith in her government. “There’s no way that the government can improve the country and make it become a high-income country. Of course, we need a democracy to make those changes.”
