What does this mean to Thailand? Thailand has gleefully opened itself up to both as the united states and china vie for a thai alliance. In particular, if one of them ever turns hostile to Thailand, Bangkok could play one off against the other, thus revisiting bamboo diplomacy. Thaksin was a master of manipulating thailand’s bending-with-the-wind strategy. When the united states failed to defend the thaksin government against the UN’s criticism of his brutal war on drugs in 2003, which led to more than 2500 thais being killed, thaksin labeled Washington as a ‘useless friend’. He then flirted with china, attaching great importance to solidifying bilateral economic linkages to the point at which Bangkok often bent over backwards to avoid offending Beijing on a range of political issues. It can be argued that thaksin’s embrace of Chinese power was a strategic response to the united states’ ambivalent position toward his government. The dynamism imbued within the complex relations between Thailand and two Great powers has been seen more clearly and sensationally as the country has fallen deeper into it’s political crisis : the crisis in which china and the unites states have been contesting with each other to entrench further their positions inside Thailand.