This “unreliability,” as Westerners are likely to call it, does not reflect
naivet6. One evidence of this is that in the average business deal it is the foreigner-
not the Thai-who loses his money, And on a national scale, Thailand
by a combination of good luck and clever diplomacy, managed to retain her
political independence when all the small countries around her succumbed to
European colonial control. The good fortune was the Franco-British rivalry
in Southeast Asia which made of Thailand a “buffer” state between British
Burma and French Indochina. But of itself this could not have saved the
independence of the nation. What saved it was the diplomatic skill of the Thai
-a kind of delay and doubletalk which doubtless irritated more than one
foreign diplomat, but which succeeded in preventing them from ever joining
forces to carve up the country. In this regard Thailand has been more successful
than any African country or than such a “buffer” state as Poland.
In her diplomacy Thailand succeeds in exploiting her cultural differences
from the West. While never so adamant in her resistance to some Western
demand as to force a showdown fight and sure defeat, what the Thai governmental
official does is first to smile and if this is not sufficient to disarm the
unwelcome stranger he also says, smilingly, “Yes, I’ll see.” In the weeks,
months, or years of “seeing” how the foreigner’s wish can be implemented,
some new factor usually enters the picture either to make the foreigner change
his mind or to give the Thai government some opportunity backed by outside
strength to give a negative reply,
To tell a lie successfully, to dupe someone else, is praiseworthy in Thai
culture-a tradition that, no doubt, has not been without utility to the nation