The discussions on the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China have been overflowing, perhaps even becoming redundant in recent times. Benjamin Zawacki's Thailand: Shifting Ground between the US and a Rising China, however, offers a new perspective on this intricate relationship. Zawacki places the Sino-American relationship in the context of the respective powers’ defense of their sphere of influence in Thailand. Complicating this narrative is Thailand's recent political crisis. Zawacki makes a bold statement: the United States has been losing in this game of competition against a rising China.
Thailand is the oldest ally of the United States in Asia. Bilateral relations were progressively strengthened during the Cold War when the United States helped sustain a series of despotic regimes in Thailand. These regimes were a product of long years of political domination of the so-called “network monarchy,” of which, as Zawacki writes, the United States became...
