Starting with the “turning the battlefield into marketplaces” initiative in 1988 Thailand’s foreign policy has sought changes particularly in mainland Southeast Asia’s political economy. Thailand has relentlessly led in opening up the former socialist countries and drawing them into mainstream Southeast Asia with various initiatives, ideas, and styles. Moreover, its aspirations for regional leadership have quite sometimes manifested in the projection beyond ASEAN as seen in BIMSTEC and ACD. These leadership attempts, in fact, suggest that Thailand regards itself as being able to lead by its own terms and may reluctantly accept the notion of primus inter pares, generally refered to Indonesia . This may help explain some criticisms that ASEAN is not recorded as Thailand’s top priority in foreign policy especially since the Asian Financial Crisis.