Former prime minister Anand Panyarachun said on Tuesday that Thai diplomacy and its international standing will return to its “rightful place” under Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow after decades of being lost.
“We are not a great power. We’re a small-sized power, middle-sized power. But we have to demonstrate our ability… to know how to balance powers,” the 93-year-old Anand told Sihasak and other guests during a 9 June panel at the Foreign Ministry marking the launch of a new biography of the former prime minister.
Wishing Sihasak well, Anand said he was thankful that Thailand now had a foreign minister “who can show the Thai flags proudly”. Sihasak served as Anand’s speechwriter when Anand first became prime minister following the 1991 coup led by Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon.
He added that for 20 years, Thailand was “erased from the diplomatic scene” due to political divisions, military coups, and more.
“We were nowhere to be seen. We disappeared from the screen. We used to be a country to be reckoned with… Our voices may be small, but I would like to see the resurrection of that.”
Drawing on his experience, the former premier and top diplomat said winning trust is crucial in successful diplomacy. “If the leaders from the other side say ‘you can’t be trusted’ then there are no negotiations.”
Acknowledging that the ministry had experienced a brain drain among its rank-and-file officials over the past two decades, Anand said he hoped the situation would improve.
“For the past 20 years, I was worried about the new recruits at the Foreign Ministry. There were recruits with good educations, but many of them encountered difficulties and decided to leave the ministry. I think we lost quite a few. I don’t profess to know what the situation is now.”
He advised young officials to “persevere” and learn on the job, regardless of whether they were educated at “Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, or Yale.”
“You have to relearn English because diplomatic language is different,” Anand said, recalling the six formative years he spent as secretary to then-foreign minister Thanat Khoman in the early 1960s. “I learned to write better.”
Sihasak, meanwhile, cut short an official visit to Vietnam to attend the panel, which was moderated by Pana Janviroj, executive director of the Institute for Strategic Policy.
“I had to be here,” said Sihasak, describing Anand as a man whom he “admired very much for all that he stands for.”
Sihasak humbly added that his generation of Thai diplomats cannot compare to that of Anand’s. He recalled how, back in 1991, he was asked by Anand to write a speech for a talk at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) and how he learned new terms like “good governance”. On another occasion, when Anand was his superior at the ministry, he remembered being told, “Next time, if you haven’t thought something through, don’t bring it to my attention.”
Witthaya Vejjajiva, a retired senior diplomat and author of the biography “Anand the Fearless: A Life of Courage, Character and Conviction” said Anand showed courage by accepting the post of prime minister after the 1991 coup despite having no political connections or interest in politics.
Witthaya said Anand eventually went on to serve as prime minister twice with sincerity, honesty, integrity, and trust.
Anand’s daughter, Nanda Krairiksh, a former director at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), said her late mother, M.R. Sodsri Panyarachun, was instrumental in her father’s success. She said her mother had endured loneliness while raising the family largely on her own in Ottawa, as Anand was serving concurrently in New York as Thailand’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
Nanda said her father could be “very direct, very blunt too”, as well as “strong and inflexible at times”. By contrast, her mother was soft-spoken and “didn’t really like conflict”.
“My mother was instrumental in much of my father’s success.”
To this, Anand acquiesced right after his daughter had spoken.
“No matter how successful I may have been or seem to be, there’s always a woman behind a successful man… When I get onto a job, I’m totally absorbed. The first one to suffer would be my wife. I think she suffered silently… but not for the lack of love from her husband. I have to thank her for that. She’s behind my every success in my career… If I had listened to her, I would be a wise man, but it’s too late for me now.”
No discussion of Anand, a former diplomat, would have been complete without a turn to foreign affairs. Anand acknowledged that he no longer followed world events as closely as he once had, but he offered a stark assessment of Donald Trump’s second presidency and its impact on the world.
“The consequence is disastrous. I am really concerned about how long Donald Trump will stay in power… to destroy the world order, to destroy everything built since the end of the Second World War.”
The panel marked the launch of “Anand the Fearless: A Life of Courage, Character and Conviction”, a biography by retired diplomat Witthaya Vejjajiva translated from the original Thai-language edition. Chronicling Anand’s decades in diplomacy and public service, the book revisits many of the themes he spoke about during the discussion — integrity, public duty and Thailand’s place in the world. It is the second English-language biography of Anand, following Dominic Faulder’s “Anand Panyarachun and the Making of Modern Thailand”, published in 2018.