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Thailand’s Perception and Strategy toward China’s BRI Expansion: Hedging with Cooperating

Abstract BRI is regarded as the New Silk Road of the 21st century, comprising Silk Road Economic Belt or “One Belt”. It is a land bridge, an economic corridor and Maritime Silk Road or “One Road” serving as maritime shipping route. If considering this path in terms of the impact on Thailand, it is obvious that both routes do not pass directly through Thailand, But their development have impacts on the economy and the security of Thailand, like a jigsaw that completes the communication network and those who may gain or lose benefits on these trade routes. Therefore, China is trying to drive mechanisms from multilateral cooperation in the form of state to state, negotiations at the official level, cooperation at operational level and coordination between the private sectors in order to have more involvement in trade, investment and transportation under BRI plan and its geo-politic and geo-economic strategies. This study aimed to investigate Thailand’s Perception and Strategy toward China’s BRI Expansion. The results revealed that although Thailand has already signed cooperation with China in various projects under the BRI framework, both in the development of transportation networks and preparation for driving the economy. Nevertheless, various projects and cooperation have not progressed much. Academics, civil servants and politicians in Thailand made negative comments against China’s BRI strategy and remarks of distrust of China connected with its past images, such as the lack of confidence in China's technology- mentioning its lack of safety. More importantly, they feared that China’s BRI was a plan to dominate Thailand.