Thailand Sidelines the US and Goes to Beijing – Geopolitical Implications for a Declining West
By Peter Koenig
It is a pleasant sight to see, how in Asia a (former?) military ally of the United States, Thailand, shifts away from Washington and goes to Beijing – literally.
On 14 November 2025, the Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn had embarked on a five-day historic state visit to Beijing. This is not a common event, as Thai monarchs do not often practice State visits. They usually stay home and let their Foreign Ministries maintain diplomatic relations with their partners.
This is the first Royal state visit to Beijing since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China some 50 years ago. As a logical conclusion, this is a strong signal to the Thai elite and people, as well as to the rest of the world, that Thailand is initiating a major geopolitical shift in her relations with Super Powers – from Washington to Beijing.
This diplomatic move of Thailand’s may be indicating more than meets the eye, namely a general tendency of South Asia – if not of the Global South – to strengthen its relations with China, in a peaceful cooperation, rather than the classical stick-and-carrot relation, dependent on the western sanction-prone dollar-economy, dominated by the US, and closely followed by Washington’s European vassals.
Such a move may have been exacerbated by President Trump’s dystopian tariff war, mainly against China, but by association with the rest of the world, including Thailand.
Today, the US is Thailand’s third largest trading partner. With roughly US$ 80 billion two-way trade in 2022.
Compare this with Thailand’s economic relationship with China, Thailand’s largest trading partner, characterized by strong and growing commercial relations and reciprocal investments. China is Thailand’s largest partner and major source of foreign investment. In 2023, bilateral trade reached approximately $126.3 billion.
King Vajiralongkorn’s decision to embrace China is of special importance, given his long personal ties to the West. He attended private schools in Egland and received military education from Australia’s Royal Military College. The king’s reorientation to the East, stands in contrast with that of his father’s, King Bhumibol Abdulyadej, whose seventy-year reign was defined by deep engagement with the US.
Thailand’s close relation with Beijing is underlined, by the king’s daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who studied in China and has visited the northern neighbor more than 50 times. In fact, she was honored with China’s Friendship Medal which is a sign of longstanding cultural and educational ties beneath the political surface.
See this for more details https://www.rt.com/news/628669-china-thailand-royal-visit/
The deployment of royally enhanced diplomacy between the two countries, signifies also a shift towards a new multipolar world order. This trend is likely expanding rapidly to other countries in Asia and the Global South in general, as the western empire and its vassals have outlived their hundreds, if not thousands, of years of exploitation of what they still today consider, the inferior world, rich in resources and what the west believes, dependent on the western credit and monetary system.
Those days are over. Fortunately, there is a new world order in sight, in which the geopolitical, economic and monetary future lays in the East, while the western self-styled Empire and associates is not only a phantom of the past, but will play a secondary and tertiary role, as far as worldwide geopolitical influence is concerned.
Western aggressions, militarily and economically, are soon a thing of the past, whether the mainstream propaganda will keep drumming the MAGA and Empire beat or not.
We see today also a last ditch-effort of the United States and her “associates” – one may add, “associates in crime” – attempting to create an Asian Pacific NATO to control not just China, but the entire Indo-China Sea Region.
To the propaganda-influenced masses, it may look like a winning proposition, but to those in the know about the Chinese military power which is next to none, other than Russia; and if combined with China’s close ally, Russia – a western aggression in the South China Sea, would be nothing less than a western attempt of suicide.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.