Kuala Lampur, Dec. 24 -- Michael Holister's article in Geopolitical Monitor - arguing that Thailand demonstrates how the West has "already lost South-east Asia" - is not merely overstated.

It is analytically careless, historically shallow, and strategically misleading.

Thailand has not been "lost" to China. Nor is it drifting inexorably into Beijing's orbit.

What Thailand demonstrates instead is something far more uncomfortable for Western commentators: South-east Asian states are neither ideologically captured nor civilisationally submissive. They are selective, pragmatic, and deeply conscious of dignity, agency, and reputation.

Various structural realities explain why Holister's thesis collapses under scrutiny.

First, China has alw...