December 14, 2025: The Thai-Cambodian row has dampened the ASEAN spirit, and what a time to maybe make it worse.
SEA Games should have done the opposite, in other words reminding the countries in this region that the grouping had come together not just for economic reasons. They are literally a family. Countries have natural differences and gaps, of course, but nobody is inferior or supreme.
Not when sports are concerned, though. The very thing that is supposed to make everyone truly realise the value of constructive rivalry or competition has turned out to often involve complaints, extreme bitterness, social media wars, charges of fraud and ugly attempts to do whatever it takes to win.
The unhealthy atmosphere is on a grand scale, not minimal. Topping the SEA Games medal table is a dead-serious business, and, every two years, the family members stop talking to one another at the dinner table for months straddling the regional sporting extravaganza.
Make no mistake, medals are necessary. Even kindergarten sporting contests provide medals or trophies. But even kids playing sports and their “fans” are less destructively serious than those involved in the competing apparatuses of SEA Games. And no medal table swings as much every two years.
So, this is by no means calling for an end to the regional event. This is to say that something must have been seriously wrong with how winning and losing is treated by the relevant sporting authorities and their respective public at SEA Games, how medal counts mean especially to the host nations, and how certain refereeing or game-introductory cultures affect outcomes that can be very divisive.
Deadlocked
December 13, 2025: A proposed ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia hinges on the toughest condition being fulfilled.
It requires either Bangkok or Phnom Penh to admit that it’s the aggressor and then apologise. Anything shorter than that and the fighting will most likely continue.
Thailand has made it clear the earlier landmine explosions that sparked all this were “intentional”. Cambodia has insisted the devices had been there for ages, long before the signing of the peace declaration in Kuala Lumpur weeks ago. America said it was an accident, the closest Donald Trump’s White House could say to “Cambodia did not mean it”.
Both Thailand and Cambodia are adamant, with the latter probably buoyed by Trump’s “accident” statement that he tweeted for the whole world to see hours ago. Neither side wants to be deemed a liar and violator of the Kuala Lumpur declaration. It would be a big loss of diplomatic face, a scar that will last a very long time if not forever.
One possible solution is all agreeing to disagree, leaving it vague, and then restoring ceasefire. It’s possible, but the bonfire would still smoulder. Everyone will be like watching an active volcano that becomes suspiciously dormant all of a sudden.
Anutin’s smart plea
December 12, 2025: The prime minister is practically telling the Thai public that they shall make his party bigger.
The virtual plea is in the official reason for the House dissolution. He said his minority government could not fully do what it wanted to do.
There could be another influence as well. The parliamentary and government processes of the proposed charter reform will be disrupted, playing into the hands of the conservatives, at least temporarily until more stable political alliances take shape.
Popularity-wise, Anutin Charnvirakul could become a strong prime ministerial contender post-election. Big southern flooding has curtailed his rise, but the co-payment scheme, the problem with Cambodia, the inclusion of perceived capable and hard-working people in his Cabinet would also be on voters’ minds when they go to the polls.
The People’s Party is calling on the Thai voters to give it the same thing, a bigger mandate. But unlike Anutin, it is not helped by the border dispute. Moreover, the mega floods hit a region where conservatives reign and the number of undecided voters is high, a remarkable phenomenon because when a government rating is low, the opposition’s should skyrocket.
Pheu Thai’s decline should benefit the People’s Party a lot, but Anutin’s Bhumjaithai would gain from the problems of other conservative parties as well.
The People’s Party could still emerge the biggest parliamentary camp after the next election, but a single-party rule, something it badly wants, is a tall order. Having to rely on partnership is a big disadvantage which Anutin can capitalise on.
Recently, Deputy People’s Party leader Sirikanya Tansakun, who has been named one of its three prime ministerial candidates, was spot on in telling voters that even if the party won the next election, the victory had to be clear-cut or it could end up in the opposition again.
While her demand for a bigger parliamentary number may not be realistic now, Anutin can be really optimistic.
His key advantage is his party does not even have to win the next election for him to head the government, while the People’s Party has no option but to win, and win big.
How can ASEAN go from here?
December 11, 2025: Invasion. Human shields. Cultural sites targeted. Cultural sites used as military bases. It goes on and on.
Those are words and terms being used by both Thailand and Cambodia, with the same nationalistic purposes that were meant differently, as death and injury tolls rise, international attention increases and the involvement of the United Nations and superpowers grow.
In the end, truth will be buried under the rubbles and neighbourly ties can disappear for generations. Thailand and Cambodia can become Israel and Palestine, so near and yet so far, with not just their governments, but also their peoples, hating each other’s guts.
One thing that should be spoken about more is how Thailand and Cambodia are jeopardising the future of ASEAN, whose founding principles require member states to refrain from using force against one another. Nobody knows for sure how ASEAN can go from here, now that its charter has been tumultuously defied before the whole world.
What Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim showed the other day just twisted the knife. He shared a photo of the Thai and Cambodian leaders after they signed the joint peace declaration in Kuala Lumpur, with him and US President Donald Trump as proud witnesses.
What had led to the signing was sad, but it could pass as an accident, of the kind that makes a loving couple confront or misunderstand each other. It’s what happened afterwards, and is still unfolding, that completely destroys the ASEAN spirit and is truly tragic.
How old should one be to use social media?
December 10, 2025: Ask everyone about Australia’s measures and opinions will split down the middle.
So, the point is not whether teenagers under 16 should be banned from the social media. Debate is getting nowhere, yet it is continuing even after Australia’s ban on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X, Snapchat, Kick, Twitch, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube and others among its young people has come into effect.
The point is Prayut Chan-o-cha could not have done it, and countries the West does not like would never be able to do it without a major western media firestorm. Such a ban would trigger massive demonising outcries.
This is why democracy is the best, they would say. We will never limit human rights like dictators do, and it does not matter how young people are or how small their communities look, the preachers would argue.
Now that it’s Australia, such words as “bold” or “world’s first” have prevailed over “authoritarian”, with the Australian government’s statement that it was “proud” of taking the lead in the “protection” of children from social media harms being highlighted everywhere.
The Australian government does not even call it a ban. It prefers to use “delay”, meaning children will get more time to grow up before being fully exposed to the social media.
Wait a minute. Are they saying children cannot think for themselves to separate right from wrong? Isn’t it political parenting that authoritarian regimes like to resort to or hide behind?
This is not saying the Australian government is going on the wrong track, with millions of children and teenagers about to lose access to their accounts as we speak. This is to say that, good or bad, the measure is not “democracy” as we know it, and that hypocrisy is not doing anyone any good.
‘Ukraine of Southeast Asia’
December 9, 2025: A factor fueling news about the Thai-Cambodian flare-up is US President Donald Trump.
Haters are mocking the “fragile” peace that he had facilitated weeks ago. Analysts are looking at how the latest clashes might affect Bangkok’s tariff negotiations with the United States and how the rest of the world, split into pro-Cambodia and pro-Thailand camps, is reacting to the renewed fighting. Strategic and logistic significance of this region is increasingly being studied.
The BBC has gone live on its homepage, meaning that, for today at least, the situation at the Thai eastern border is bigger news than the ongoing Russia-Ukraine development, with which Trump is getting heavily involved as well.
Other foreign news agencies have started to play up the tension, describing it as the most serious since the Kuala Lumpur declaration. Thailand’s Manager news website said it has noticed a remarkable change in world media opinions on the conflict.
The issue is catching more attention of the United Nations and international judges, but the fact that much of the world wants to see Trump failing is amplifying mainstream coverage and wildfire discussions on the social media. The volatile border has become, sort of, “Ukraine of Southeast Asia” although no outside assistance has been reported, no invasion has taken place, and Europe and America are not noisily arguing over it.
It’s still far from the Ukraine, Taiwan or Middle East flashpoints, but it’s also fair to say that nobody thought things would go this far this quickly, with hundreds of thousands of people evacuated on both sides, death and injury tolls creeping up, the possibility of long-term drone use and rocket attacks becoming scarily real, and the Thai-Cambodian conflict featuring on the homepages of the likes of the BBC and CNN.
Thais have bemoaned the prevalent and vague use of “air strikes” in world headlines that gave the impression that the launcher might have been the aggressor. A Thai social media influencer has gone as far as going live in English to strongly criticise CNN. The network, however, has said today that it could not verify who fired the first provocative shot.
Like several western media outlets, CNN has said one of Trump’s proclaimed achievements is now on the verge of collapsing entirely.
First casualty of war is truth
December 8, 2025: Thais and Cambodians are living in different universes regarding the question of who fired first.
They will most likely never know the truth and that is the strongest reason why wars, big or small, are the real evil. They deceive the neutrals. They cover up their own crimes. They play victims. They demonise the enemies. They glorify their own acts. They distract attention. They make innocent peoples hate each other. They abuse patriotism.
Last but not least, the winners can convincingly fabricate histories. If they succeed, they can mislead generations.
The latest flare-up at the Thai-Cambodian border does not escape the pattern, which is prevalent in the smallest up to the summit global military showdowns. Every aggressor wants to be seen as being victimised and peace-loving.
With the Kuala Lumpur peace declaration collapsing. Khmer Times has devoted its entire front page for reports insisting that Cambodia has been provoked, but has exercised full restraints, and that its villagers have suffered badly. To be fair, all Thai news websites are as nationalistic.
A country cannot be all bad, be it Thailand, or Cambodia, or Russia, or China. Bad news is wars paint wrong impressions, extremely intentionally. Worse news is those impressions are hard to delete.
Chadchart strolls in popularity poll
December 7, 2025: About 3.5 years in, the city governor’s only problem is there mustn’t be a big flood till the next election.
Even if that happens (and it is not at all impossible), Chadchart Sittipunt might still go into the next Bangkok gubernatorial election a very strong favourite if he wants another term, recent NIDA findings suggest.
Bangkokians surveyed by the pollsters gave him high marks on almost every aspect. Some 2,000 people in all districts of the capital was covered by the poll in late November up until December 2.
The results are music to his ears. Almost 32% said they were “very happy” with his performance. Another 46.5% were “fairly happy.” Only 14.7% were not satisfied and only 6.7% did not like him at all.
The surveyed Bangkok voters gave him strong points on every key aspect of city management _ building more green zones (some 75% love it), giving pedestrian areas more order (more than 77% gave him thumbs up), public cleanliness issues (Over 73% were pleased), public scenery improvement like views of streets and sois (73% liked what they see), safety in city life (71% think it’s great), support for sports (66% were either “very happy” or “fairly happy) and tourism promotion (67.5% compliment him).
The issue of corruption/transparency, which negatively affected the Bangkok administration during his early days in office, seems to be his weakest point. About 25% said they were “fairly” satisfied, compared with 23.5% who said he could do better and almost 23% who gave him absolute thumbs down.
Surveyed Bangkokians were also critical on policies for youngsters. More than 37% liked what he did but over 29% (not “quite satisfied” and “not satisfied at all) thought the opposite.
On the economy, which, to be fair, had to do with the government, not his office, the biggest group (over 53%) was the complainers.
He passed the test on traffic, but barely just. The public satisfaction was not as high as in the other categories in which he was perceived as doing well. More than 41% were “fairly happy” while 26.6% shook their heads and over 11% said no emphatically.
Now, flooding. The finding was a dream come true. More than 40% were “fairly” satisfied and almost 24% were totally happy. That was some 64% altogether.
That is a pleasant surprise when Chadchart is concerned, and he must talk to Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul when it comes to floods and politics, because things can change drastically in the blink of an eye.
Double Fifa shocks
December 6, 2025: A Fifa “peace prize”? They’ve got to be kidding. And guess who is the first recipient.
US President Donald Trump has been named the first winner of the newly created Fifa peace prize. He topped it off by claiming “the world is a safer place now” as he received the award at the draw for the 2026 World Cup in Washington DC.
In a ceremony on Friday, Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president and one of Trump’s closest sporting allies, presented the honour with a glowing tribute, saying the president had been selected “in recognition of his exceptional and extraordinary actions to promote peace and unity around the world”.
Trump’s “Safer world” acceptance speech cannot be completed without a Trump-esque gloating. He claimed to have saved “millions and millions of lives” and that America was “the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
Haters must be thinking they are having a nightmare. Even admirers surely had not expected it. Neutrals’ jaws must have dropped to the floors.
It doesn’t matter “who dies”
December 5, 2025: All that matters is “who kills”.
America’s fatal strikes on “drug boats” making headlines at the moment are no different from Thaksin Shinawatra’s infamous extra-judicial killings in his war on drugs when he was prime minister. Human rights advocates around the globe were up in arms against him, and probably rightly so, and the moral question facing the Trump administration will be drowned out by the same “collateral damage” pretext political rulers like to use.
It will pass. And the ones truly responsible will never be punished.
In one September incident, a US strike destroyed a boat, killing everyone but two. The survivors clung onto a floating part of the vessel, but a second strike was consciously ordered, killing them under the “logic” that they could still be rescued and come back to harm the United States again with possible remains of the drug shipment that survived the first strike.
Since the September 2 strike, the US military has carried out more than 20 additional strikes on boats it has deemed to be manned by “narco-terrorists,” killing scores in a campaign that many legal experts have argued is likely unlawful, CNN said.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not give the order to "kill them all" during the controversial strike in the Caribbean, many American lawmakers have said. That does not really mean much, does it? Who deployed the soldiers there with clear-cut instructions to prevent drug shipments from entering the United States?
Like Thaksin’s war on drugs, if orders were “legitimate”, nothing could be done about it. The former prime minister did not carry out the extra-judicial killings himself. Yet they died because of his policy, didn’t they?
However, it doesn’t matter who dies. The question of who the killers are justifies right and wrong. If a coup leader condemned by democracy lovers orders the killing, the “war crime” could go to the international court. If an elected leader of a superpower does it, criticism will subside in no time.
Electoral factors more complicated than in 2023
December 4, 2024: It was so simple in the last election, which saw anti-coup voters up against the other side.
The next election, expected to take place early next year, will be far more complex. Pheu Thai and the People’s Party (formerly Move Forward) are no longer allies. Conservative parties are also going separate ways. To add to that, there are other influential factors like the Thai-Cambodian dispute, scamming racketeering scandals, southern flooding, and, of course, a proposed charter reform.
Each of the aforementioned factors benefits some and puts others in a disadvantage. For example, the People’s Party might not gain politically from the Thai-Cambodia conflict as much, but it has its nose in front on scamming. The Democrat Party, meanwhile, is not prospering ideologically but it is seeing its southern fan base rebooting thanks in no small part to the massive flooding.
Proposed charter amendment might help the popularity of the People’s Party and Pheu Thai, but both camps can’t see eye to eye like before, having to fight for the same electoral market in fact. And while the Thai-Cambodian standoff could politically help the conservatives, they are very splintered and have their own big problems.
And, last but not least, there is no longer Prayut Chan-o-cha, who clearly divided the pre-2023 political landscape, providing clear-cut campaign war cries.
All these make the next election and its aftermath so unpredictable.
Anutin’s cryptic message
December 3, 2025: It could mean anything, from a House dissolution to a court ruling affecting a party’s future.
“Fasten your seatbelt” is all Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said regarding what would happen next week.
He did add that, as far as he is concerned, his government would have to go within January 31 because of a gentleman's agreement with the People’s Party. That means that if his government is to function beyond that, it will have to assume just a caretaking status overseeing a snap election.
On the remaining possibility of Pheu Thai submitting a no-confidence motion, he issued a standard “Everything has its process” reply. However, the general government and media moods are that Pheu Thai would not risk it, since Anutin’s government will not last long anyway.
An earlier-than-expected snap election will unlikely help Pheu Thai, and Anutin always threatened that he would dissolve the House of Representatives even before the end of the agreed timeline with the People’s Party if he smells a censure plan.
Anutin’s “Fasten your seatbelt” remark was a reply to a reporter who asked if there would be a “political accident” next week. He did not say it out of the blue.
Cambodian poll reveals how difficult true peace is
December 2, 2025: When governments fight but ordinary people are not in it, peace efforts are easy.
But when the citizens of warring countries really hate each other, it’s absolutely the other way round.
In a poll conducted last week by Khmer Times amid ongoing tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, an overwhelming 94% of 4,328 respondents supported a boycott of all things Thai, the Cambodian media outlet has announced. The support for boycott was always expected, but the overwhelming number of supporters is more worrisome than Hun Sen and his prime minister son verbally attacking Thailand.
Cambodians rely a lot on Thai goods, both in big industries or normal households, especially those at the border. For them to support a large-scale boycott in unison confirms that the anti-Thai sentiment has extended far beyond the political realm to cover an almost entire nation.
Why do peace plans look more realistic for, say, Ukraine and Gaza? It’s because large numbers of Israeli and Ukrainian people do not agree with their governments. A lot of Russians do not care about national security talks by Vladimir Putin, either.
It’s different when it comes to Thailand and Cambodia, with hateful rhetoric coming prevalently from the man on the street. All politicians wanting the tension to remain high have to do is fan the flame.
Said Khmer Times: “The response to the poll signifies not just a reaction to the detention of (Cambodian) soldiers but also highlights broader issues of national pride and self-determination. Many Cambodians view the boycott as a necessary measure to express their collective discontent with Thai actions, which they perceive as aggressive and manipulative.”
There is still the SEA Games to go.
Thailand’s oldest party has nose in front in South
December 1, 2025: Weeks ago, the Democrats were going into a coma. But a miracle may still happen.
A Hail Mary in October, a decision to bring back Abhisit Vejjajiva, can still prove a very good gamble if the latest NIDA survey is any indication.
The poll does not suggest a grand comeback, but it shows a vast improvement when the same pollsters’ findings just over a year ago were taken into account.
That one confirmed that Thailand’s oldest political party was hitting rock bottom, with leadership turmoil continuing and brain drains showing no signs of stopping. The NIDA poll last year surveyed southern backers of the Democrats, asking them what to do in the next election.
A staggering 41.3% said they would no longer vote for it. Another 41% said they were not so sure this time. Only slightly over 17% would still vote for the Democrats no matter what.
Probably Abhisit’s “stubbornness” and his hard-to-read ideological stand had partly to do with the party’s decline. Yet if the party somehow exceeded low expectations early next year, it will add to a lengthening list of major political ironies Thailand has been experiencing.
Southerners electorally up for grabs
November 30, 2025: Once upon a time there was no need to predict election results in southern Thailand.
The region, under the Democrat Party’s iron grip a decade or so ago, is now a political lottery. That’s what the most recent NIDA poll has found.
The mega floods may have been a big factor, whose lifespan remains to be seen. The survey of 2,000 people covering 14 provinces has found that as many as 32.25% of them favoured no particular prime ministerial candidate. That’s the biggest group, followed by the Democrat Party’s Abhisit Vejjajiva (25.65%), Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul of the Bhumjaithai Party (15.40%) and Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut of the People’s Party (12.85%).
As we can see, even if Anutin and Natthaphong were combined, the support for both men who are favourites for the top job after the next election would still be less than the number of people who say they still don’t like anyone.
When asked about parties they support, the hard-to-please group slid to second, but was almost as big as the group backing the Democrat Party. It was 28.60% against 28.45%, virtually inseparable.
The People’s Party came third (17.80%) and the Bhumjaithai Party (11.65%).
The race is wide open.
Daily updates of, and opinions on, local and global events.
