BANGKOK – China’s government and Hong Kong’s wealthiest man, the much-admired Li Ka-shing, have been waging an acidic spat – one that increasingly looks like a bitter divorce being played out in tabloid newspapers. Indeed, Chinese media have lately been directing a relentless stream of vitriol at Li. His “crime”? Buying low in Europe and selling high in China – that is, acting like an investor.

The trigger for this wave of scorn was Li’s sell-off of some of his prime Shanghai properties, after relocating his corporate registry from Hong Kong to the Cayman Islands. This is a completely mundane and rational business decision, aimed at minimizing tax obligations. Indeed, some 70% of all Hong Kong-listed companies have a Caribbean registry, and even a number of major mainland companies, including the Internet giant Alibaba, are registered in offshore tax havens.

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But, in the Chinese media’s puerile narrative, the move exposes Li as “ungrateful” and “unpatriotic.” He is “abandoning” China – which, it is claimed, enabled him to rise from extreme poverty to become one of the world’s wealthiest men – when the country needs him most.
This absurd account neglects the fact that Li was already one of the world’s wealthiest people before he ever invested in China. Perhaps more important, it fails to recognize that Li’s Chinese land holdings still amount to more than 20 million square meters (215 million square feet) – nearly a quarter of the size of Manhattan – and that the number of retail outlets he owns in China has increased by 70% in two years.
But the facts are irrelevant. This is a matter of politics. As China attempts to tighten its grip on Hong Kong, Li is showing independence, and China’s new rulers – who, true to their communist roots, believe firmly in top-down control – do not like it one bit.

The ongoing squabble represents a significant shift in Li’s relationship with China’s government. A former adviser to Deng Xiaoping and confidante of former President Jiang Zemin (whose political influence is now waning), Li was among the first to invest in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. He long touted the motto, “I don’t do anything against China’s interest, and I don’t say anything that may hurt China’s reputation.”

That changed in 2012, when Leung Chun-ying was appointed as Hong Kong’s chief executive. China’s first choice for the position, Henry Tang, was forced to withdraw because of private indiscretions and a disgraceful bid to have his wife take the fall for a zoning violation.

Leung became China’s man in Hong Kong, responsible for doing the Chinese government’s bidding – including taking an uncompromising position against pro-democracy protests by students and intellectuals. Indeed, even as China’s agenda in Hong Kong has become increasingly tough – and thus unpopular locally – Leung has proved himself to be absolutely loyal to China’s rulers.

Li, however, stood by Tang. More problematic, he has occasionally dissented publicly from Leung’s various misguided policies. As any student of the People’s Republic knows, expressions of political disagreement, however mild, can be lethal. There is no “agree to disagree” in China; once the leader has spoken, there is only “obey.”

In Li’s case, the stakes are particularly high. Unlike most of Hong Kong’s tycoons, who are considered excessively focused on political expedience, Li is viewed as a person of strong conscience and thus worthy of considerable respect. He even enjoys the affectionate nickname “Superman.”

But now, China’s rulers, through Leung, are pushing potentially disastrous policies aimed, in Chinese Communist Party parlance, at “de-colonizing” Hong Kong. For example, officials recently declared that judicial independence and the separation of powers are “colonial” legacies that should be discarded, with China’s government and Hong Kong’s chief executive, not the local courts, calling all the shots. In this moment of transition, dissent from someone of Li’s standing could have precisely the kind of destabilizing impact that China’s leaders fear. So Li has to be “de-deified.”

China’s attacks have pushed Li, after almost three weeks of stony silence, to do something he had never done before: strike back. Not only did he point out that all of the accusations about his intentions to abandon China were false; he openly accused China of using tactics from the Cultural Revolution that left him “trembling with fear” and sent “shivers down the spine.”

Li concluded his statement with the message, delivered via three lines by two canonical Chinese poets from the ancient Tang and Song dynasties, that his home was where he felt safe. The subtext to any literate Chinese was clear: “China may be my ancestral country, but I am a free man, free to choose my home.”

Li, an avid reader of world history and literature, has apparently not taken to heart the lesson that so many Chinese have learned, through great personal tragedies, since 1949. The core values of China’s government are not informed by the humane civility of Tang or Song poets, but by the twisted dialectics of Marxism-Leninism and the amoral militaristic tradition of a party that still cherishes its often brutish and violent habits of governance.

As China’s leaders continue to push for more control over Hong Kong, spinal shivers are likely to become an increasingly common feature of life there.

BANGKOK – In today’s Bangkok – racked by power struggles and lawlessness – Mario Puzo would have found rich material for a sequel to his classic book The Godfather.

The protagonist of the modern-day crime drama would be Suthep Taugsuban – the deputy prime minister under Thailand’s former military-backed government – who has organized tens of thousands of people to “shut down” Bangkok. To this end, they have blocked major road junctions, occupied parts of the city’s commercial center, and raided government offices, forcing civil servants to work out of makeshift offices away from the mobs of demonstrators.

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Taugsuban’s ultimate goal is to depose Thailand’s “tyrant government,” led by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who won a landslide electoral victory in 2011 against Taugsuban’s former boss and current compatriot, ex-Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Already, Taugsuban and his followers have managed to compel Shinawatra to dissolve the parliament and relegate herself to a “caretaker” head of state, calling for new elections on February 2.

But Shinawatra’s attempt to defuse the situation by seeking a new mandate has actually raised tensions further, with Taugsuban and his supporters having rejected the elections, stating publicly that they would lose. The only acceptable solution, they contend, is for Shinawatra and other key ministers to resign.
Taugsuban denies that this amounts to a rejection of democracy. In his view, counting up citizens’ votes would not ensure a “correct” result; a better solution would be to replace the current government with 400 “uncorrupt, neutral” representatives, who would elect a new leader to be legitimized by royal appointment.
Reinforcing Taugsuban’s unwillingness to yield is the fact that the attorney general has issued an arrest warrant for him for “treasonous” acts during the current uprising. Moreover, both Taugsuban and Vejjajiva face murder indictments over a military crackdown on street protests in 2010.

Taugsuban has reportedly told the police and court to hold off on executing the warrant, because he has a revolution to run. The fact that they have heeded his request reflects Taugsuban’s seemingly unchecked power in the capital, where he enjoys the support of high-wage earners and large financial and industrial institutions.

Indeed, as the crowds grow larger, the police seem increasingly helpless. Likewise, while the military is officially neutral, it has made no effort to protect the government, effectively giving the protestors a free hand in reshaping Bangkok’s physical landscape. And the Election Commission – the official body responsible for supervising elections – is now calling for a postponement of the vote.

In short, the rule of law in Thailand increasingly resembles “Mafia” law, with a few powerful people bending the country to their will. Come to think of it, Bangkok’s twisted and surreal setting might have inspired Lewis Carroll, too.

BANGKOK – Thailand is once again being convulsed by extreme partisan politics, with the country’s polarization playing out on Bangkok’s streets. Several people have been killed, and many more have been injured. The sense that Thailand has been through all of this before would be mildly reassuring were it not for a nagging fear that this decent and prosperous society may be set to destroy its democracy.

Much of the violence has been led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister. He has inspired thousands of demonstrators, many from his power base in the country’s south, to storm and occupy government buildings with the aim of unseating Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Suthep says that this is the first step in rooting out “Thaksinism” from the country’s political life.

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On December 1, Suthep demanded – and received – a meeting with Yingluck in the presence of Thailand’s military chiefs, whom he had asked to “guarantee” his safety. During the meeting, Suthep gave Yingluck a two-day deadline to resign. With the police failing to control the mobs in the streets without the help of the military, Yingluck decided to resign and dissolve parliament, declaring that she would lead a caretaker government until a new election is held on February 2.

The date was endorsed by a “reform forum,” established to resolve the crisis and comprising Bangkok’s elite (including the military). Suthep and his followers were dissatisfied, and left the forum in protest, rejecting Yingluck even as an interim prime minister and demanding that the election be held after political reforms – the sort he would agree with – are implemented to eliminate all vestiges of the Thaksin clan from government.

In fact, Suthep has called for a “people’s council,” comprised of 400 unbiased representatives. The council would replace the Senate after the upper house nominates a new leader to be appointed by the King, thus obviating the need for elections in the near future. Wassana Nanuam, the military-affairs correspondent of the English-language daily Bangkok Post, has described the move as a “silent” coup d’état: no tanks in the streets.

The Democrat Party, led by the former court-appointed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, has separately announced a boycott of the February 2 election on the grounds that the party could not reform the country even if it participated. The Democrat Party last won a parliamentary majority in 1992.

While the military chiefs’ inclinations have been with Bangkok’s elites, they are being careful to keep their options open. Their unsuccessful stint in power following the military coup in 2010 appears to have taught them that they should wait to see if their political allies can break Thaksin’s electoral stranglehold, which has lasted 12 years and five general elections, before deciding what to do next.

Bangkok’s elites maintain that the billionaire Thaksin and his allies have bought their electoral victories. But Freedom House, which tracks democracy and civil rights around the world, declared Yingluck’s landslide electoral victory in 2011 free and fair, a position supported by most Thailand experts.

Despite Thaksin’s corrupt image, a majority of mainly poorer Thais see him as their only alternative to the country’s out-of-touch urban elites. Indeed, Suthep’s insistence on delaying the election is an open admission that he and his allies cannot win a fair contest, and he has even gone so far as to suggest that, with the “right” leader, Thailand may not need elections at all in the future. Nor is it clear that any reforms would satisfy the anti-Thaksin camp, except for those designed to deny Thaksin’s followers a parliamentary majority.

That said, Thaksin and his sister bear some responsibility for their recent misfortunes. Guilty of excessive hubris, their ability to empathize with the peasants and the urban poor is matched only by their disregard for the urban middle class and its members’ demand for clean government and rule of law rather than populism.

Yingluck must also take some blame for her clumsy handling of the current crisis. What ignited the protests was her attempt to amend an amnesty bill, originally intended as a grudging act of reconciliation between the country’s opposing ��red” and “yellow” political camps. But, while the amnesty was to apply to lesser crimes committed from 2006 to 2011, Yingluck tried to extend it two years earlier and include capital crimes – a move rightly seen as a blatant attempt to absolve her brother and pave the way for his return to Thailand.

Thaksin’s supporters miscalculated in assuming that they could so easily abuse their parliamentary majority. Their effort to manipulate the amnesty, though not unconstitutional, was nonetheless arrogant and provocative. Anger erupted among Bangkok’s middle classes, prompting Suthep to unleash his mobs.
The story is far from over. If recent history is any guide, the February election (assuming it is held) will sweep Thaksin’s allies back to power. What follows will be fraught with risks of further instability, as poor rural Thais face off against wealthy urban elites, and polarization intensifies between the north, where most people live, and the southern power base of the Democrat Party and Suthep, the street mobs’ leader.

BANGKOK – The two-month siege of downtown Bangkok by the so-called “Red Shirts” has ended in bloodshed. More than 60 people, including two foreign reporters and a few soldiers, died in the Thai army’s suppression of the urban rebellion.
The Thai government had no choice but to use force after negotiations with the protestors broke down. Both sides deeply mistrusted the other, even though the government’s five-point “road map” for a peaceful resolution implicitly acknowledged the existence of serious socioeconomic problems and included an early general election this November – a concession to the protestors, who argue that the government lacks legitimacy because it was never elected.
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Much of Thailand is now under an all-night curfew, imposed after radical Red Shirts set fire to more than 35 landmark buildings in Bangkok. The militants’ targets included branches of Bangkok Bank, the country’s largest and a pillar of the establishment; Siam Square, owned by the Palace; and a deluxe shopping mall owned by one of the richest Thai Chinese families.
That anarchic fury reflected the disappointment of radicals at their leaders for prematurely surrendering to the authorities rather than fighting to their last breath. Those who did not surrender wanted to show their defiance. The fires were also a volcanic outburst of class hatred by the disenfranchised, rural and urban, against the Bangkok-based wealthy ruling class.
That class is an interlocking network of millionaire generals, big-business owners and their marriage-linked clans, and the Palace, an institution protected by lèse majesté laws that carry severe penalties.
The ruling elite, whose public face at present is the attractive, mild-mannered, Oxford-educated prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, is pinning all the troubles on one man, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, exiled abroad and a fugitive from Thai justice. In this narrative, Thaksin masterminded the siege by hiring a small group of rogue army officers, and by paying the poor to go to Bangkok to start a civil war.
It is entirely plausible that Thaksin did help finance the protest. It is also likely that some radical hot heads wanted to overthrow the government by mob action. But to insist that protesters, old and young, fathers and mothers, numbering as many as 150,000, were willing to risk their lives sitting under a scorching Tropical sun for two months only for money strains credulity. That the elite believes this story is one indication of just how condescending and out-of-touch its members are.
Many in the elite have even turned their ire at foreign news media for allegedly distorting the truth by overplaying the protesters’ grievances. CNN and BBC have been attacked for their alleged bias in showing the “human side” of the protesters and giving insufficient time to the uglier aspects. Both outlets ran live broadcasts throughout the protest, showing all the drama that the cameras could capture.
While official “spin control” is in full throttle, a growing number of thoughtful analysts are voicing concern that facile caricatures do not serve Thailand’s interests. After all, the sense of disenfranchisement among voters in the country’s populous north and northeast, as well as among the urban poor, is real. It is not something manufactured by Thaksin. Nor are the peasants so ignorant to be easily conned by a crafty politician promising much delivering little or none.
This patronizing view conveniently ignores the fact that in the last four elections, Thaksin and his allies won by lopsided margins. Thaksin’s rural development policies were clearly welcomed by people who, for the first time, felt connected to the leaders they had elected.
So the ruling elite engineered a coup to secure the power they had failed to win at the ballot box. They then made use of the “Constitutional Court” to ban Thaksin’s party, the largest in the country. But, even as it made Thaksin’s party illegal, the Constitutional Court failed to unearth any evidence of widespread violations. Instead, it ruled on a minor side issue that many claim was based on a retrospective law.
Thailand’s Old Boys Club – generals-turned-politicians, political parties backed by tycoons with an eye on fat government contracts, and that unnameable hereditary institution whose only agenda is to maintain its longevity – has misgoverned the country for the past half-century. Under its stewardship, one of Asia’s more promising economies has instead become a borderline failed state, enervated by 17 coups since World War II.
Few who now hold the reins of power in Bangkok could honestly throw the first stones. Yet they do.
A peaceful resolution of deep-rooted problems requires wise political leadership, as well as recognition that past injustices cannot be redressed all at once. The art of politics is about skillful compromises, with no side getting exactly what it considers fair and just. But the country’s underclasses must see long-overdue and concrete changes in the right direction – that is, furthering what Thaksin tried to do. In fact, Thaksin may well have to be included in any national reconciliation.
Change is easier promised than accomplished. Unless the ruling elite embrace an honest and earnest effort at national and class reconciliation and soon, Thailand could well descend into a civil war along class lines that would make the turmoil of the past two months in Bangkok seem like a brawl in a bar.

BANGKOK – Thailand’s political and social fabric is fraying. Indeed, the country’s future looks as shaky as it has never been.

In other prosperous democracies, the middle class provides the glue that holds society together. In Thailand, by contrast, the bourgeoisie, centered in Bangkok, is barely emerging as a social and political force.

Instead, for a half-century, an unspoken social contract among four broad groups has held Thailand together: the “Palace” – a euphemism used here to avoid violating draconian lèse majesté laws; big business, the custodian of economic growth; the military, which ensures, first and foremost, the sanctity of the Palace and the moral values it represents; and the common people, mostly rural and urban poor, who accept the rule of the other three estates.

Thailand’s national mythology is that it is a happy Buddhist country, a “land of smiles” bound together by compassion and harmony under the benevolent grace and blessings of the Palace and the generosity of big business. The less fortunate classes are docile, content to accept their subservient roles and satisfied with the social welfare, no matter how skimpy, provided by their betters.

BANGKOK – Thailand’s political and social fabric is fraying. Indeed, the country’s future looks as shaky as it has never been.
In other prosperous democracies, the middle class provides the glue that holds society together. In Thailand, by contrast, the bourgeoisie, centered in Bangkok, is barely emerging as a social and political force.
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Instead, for a half-century, an unspoken social contract among four broad groups has held Thailand together: the “Palace” – a euphemism used here to avoid violating draconian lèse majesté laws; big business, the custodian of economic growth; the military, which ensures, first and foremost, the sanctity of the Palace and the moral values it represents; and the common people, mostly rural and urban poor, who accept the rule of the other three estates.
Thailand’s national mythology is that it is a happy Buddhist country, a “land of smiles” bound together by compassion and harmony under the benevolent grace and blessings of the Palace and the generosity of big business. The less fortunate classes are docile, content to accept their subservient roles and satisfied with the social welfare, no matter how skimpy, provided by their betters.
The poor and the military hold the Palace in genuine reverence. Palace staff and people in the countryside kneel before the monarchy not merely as a matter of protocol, but out of genuine love and respect.
Forbes magazine ranked the Thai monarchy in 2009 as the richest of all the world’s royals, putting its net worth at $30 billion – a figure that locals consider too low. That royal wealth necessarily entails substantial investments in and with Thai big business in all sectors of the economy. Thailand’s blue-chip firms gain much from direct involvement with the Palace and from social proximity to it. One Hong Kong scion whose wife is from an elite Thai family estimates that perhaps 20 families control most of Thai business.
The Thai military is constitutionally subordinate to civilian leadership, but in reality it owes its allegiance to the Palace. In the current crisis, army generals have told the public that they are reluctant to use force, a position that was not theirs to take.
How long this inactivity will last is anyone’s guess. Mobs wearing red shirts to symbolize their loyalty to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra are now camped out in two major commercial areas, paralyzing a large part of the local economy. They demand that the government dissolve the current legislature immediately, and that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva resign because he was never elected and is viewed as a front man for the traditional anti-Thaksin monied groups.
Many believe that the current crisis will pass, and that Thailand will revert to its historical harmony among the four groups. But this view ignores the country’s new political dynamics.
First and foremost, Thailand’s lower classes have decided that docility is a thing of the past. They are angry and frustrated by the status quo. Save for the handouts they got under Thaksin, they benefited little from the economic growth of the past three decades. The vast gap between the urban rich and the rest has grown worse over the years, with no discernible “trickle-down” effect.
Even in the prime commercial districts and chic neighborhoods of Bangkok, the nation’s richest city, a short walk reveals miles of cracked pavements, piles of uncollected garbage, and rats scurrying freely. Such wrenching sights are typically accompanied by the pungent odor of a sewage system that is more a problem than a solution, especially during the rainy season.
The sight of run-down physical infrastructure, punctuated by super-modern shopping malls with global consumer brand names well beyond the purchasing power of most citizens, is not what you would expect in an economy once described as a potential Asian Dragon. The wealthy dwell in air-conditioned houses, travel in chauffeur-driven cars, and shop in luxury malls, apparently oblivious to how the rest of the country lives. Poor rural families see too many of their children become prostitutes in order to survive.
The poor view the coup against Thaksin of 2006, and the later disbanding of his party, as revenge by the traditional elites who wanted the old ways back, and who would get what they wanted by force since they could no longer get it through the ballot box. It is a view that is not entirely wrong.
In late 2008, anti-Thaksin mobs wearing yellow shirts and led by prominent business figures occupied Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport with impunity, seeking to annul the result of a general election in which pro-Thaksin forces gained power, despite Thaksin’s exile overseas. Yellow is the color of Thai royalty, and the Palace was believed to be sympathetic to the mobs.
Now Thaksin loyalists – the “red shirts” – are doing much the same, demanding change through mob behavior. They believe that they, too, are entitled to act with impunity. The red shirts are not blind to Thaksin’s excessive corruption. But they see him as a rare Thai politician who actually bothered to connect with them. Moreover, as prime minister, Thaksin made a point of delivering much-needed services to the underclasses: subsidized medical care and micro-loans to name just two.
But the unspoken issue behind Thailand’s unrest is that, with the country’s 82-year-old king ailing, the Palace’s moral force has come into question. Indeed, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Pirmoya, breaking taboos that have governed the country for years, recently spoke about the need to re-examine the country’s lèse majesté laws so that public discourse could intelligently address the role of the Palace in Thailand’s future.
What Thaksin did for the poor required only political self-interest. Yet even that elementary wisdom has never occurred to traditional ruling elites too set in their myopic and arrogant ways. Until it does, Thailand’s otherwise promising future will be increasingly remote.

BANGKOK – Last week, a Taiwanese court sentenced Chen Shui-bien, Taiwan’s president from 2000 until 2008, to life imprisonment for corruption.
Chen had been caught stealing millions of dollars of public funds. He did not act alone. His wife (who also received a life sentence), children, and other relatives all helped to hide the stolen loot in overseas accounts. Taiwan’s former first family turned out to be a den of common thieves.
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Chen and his ruling Democratic Progressive Party camouflaged their personal and parochial financial interests behind the patriotic mask of ensuring the survival of a democratic Chinese society in an independent Taiwan. For years, Chen was perceived as a brave David fighting the communist Goliath, and attracted many admirers around the world (including me at one point).
Presenting himself and his Party as champions of democracy, Chen sought to create the impression among Taiwan’s voters that their freedom would perish in the hands of the Kuomintang (KMT) or any party other than his own. But in fact, it was the late President Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who instituted the unprecedented democratic reforms that paved the way for the eventual electoral triumph of Chen’s formerly banned DPP.
Chen’s personal wealth grew conspicuously shortly after he assumed office, but no one could produce hard evidence of his corruption back then. His political supporters initially brushed aside the mushrooming rumors of his self-enrichment as opposition KMT propaganda.
But, one by one, most of the DPP’s founding fathers all left the party, accusing Chen of corruption and autocratic behavior even within his own party – which Chen dismissed as sour grapes from people who wanted their share of the political spoils.
In fact, Chen was always more concerned with consolidating his own power than with defending Taiwan. His most controversial political moves were aimed at his domestic opponents, not the Chinese government on the mainland. He led a vicious campaign to portray all Taiwanese with mainland Chinese roots, even if born and bred in Taiwan, as untrustworthy carpetbaggers – wai shen ren , or “not native people” – as if they were aliens from a different culture.
This official effort to portray native “Taiwanese” as a separate ethnic group, with scant relation to Chinese culture, was extended to language, as Chen favored using the Fujian dialect in lieu of the Mandarin spoken by 1.3 billion Chinese and taught all over the world. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education sought to expunge all references to China in school textbooks.
So insistent was Chen’s campaign that it reminded some people of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a time when Chinese were divided into “us” and “them.” Indeed, under Chen’s policy, Taiwan nearly became a rigidly divided society, where “local” and “not native” Chinese lived as potential enemies.
Taiwan ’s sole aboriginal parliamentarian once provided the logical rebuttal to Chen and the DPP, delivering a speech to a packed Congress entirely in his native tongue, which nobody else in the chamber could understand. The message was obvious: his was the only group with a legitimate claim to being native Taiwanese.
In the end, Chen’s effort was as futile as it was foolish. The Chinese culture embodied in the daily lives of 23 million Taiwanese of whatever political beliefs was not so easily eliminated by decree. Moreover, the attempt to do so angered the overwhelming majority of Taiwanese, who finally understood the stupidity of Chen’s policy, particularly how it led to economic stagnation at a time when mainland China was booming.
Indeed, Taiwanese capital and know-how built much of China’s hi-tech industries, and well over a half-million Taiwanese live and work near Shanghai in a virtual replica of Hsin Chu, Taiwan’s Silicon Valley. But in Chen’s Taiwan, domestic squabbles took precedence over economic development. Chen invariably blamed the KMT for blocking sensible economic plans, but even some of his moneyed supporters knew better.
When it was finally proved that power had turned Chen into a common criminal, the KMT was voted back into power. But, while Chen’s legacy of lies and corruption has ended, the reborn KMT under President Ma Ying-jeou has much to do to convince a cynical public that Chen’s ways, reminiscent of KMT’s own darker past, have not become embedded in the system.
Chen’s jail sentence should also serve to remind the DPP that it must become a party for all Taiwanese, “local” or not if it is to have any chance at a revival. Taiwan’s people know that they cannot prosper as a democracy if ethnic divisiveness is allowed to hold sway.

"Thailand's future is up for grabs," proclaimed the eminent Thai scholar Thitinan Pongsudhirak, just before the Constitutional Court ruled, in effect, that the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and its two smaller coalition partners are "illegal" and, hence, must disband, due to election fraud. Party leaders, including prime minister Somchai Wongsawat, are barred from politics for five years.

With that, Thailand's popularly elected government fell. Parliament must now reconstitute itself without the three parties loyal to Mr Somchai.

History is repeating itself in Thailand's current crisis, for the PPP under Mr Somchai was the same Thai Rak Thai party formed by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a figure much hated by the Bangkok-based elite. The PPP was created because Thai Rak Thai was outlawed at the time of Thaksin's removal.

What is perverse is that every recent poll in Thailand shows that Thaksin remains wildly popular with the vast majority of Thais, most of whom live outside Bangkok. So, despite the ousting of two Thaksin proxies in a row by the court and the elite, Thais are likely to return yet another Thaksin loyalist if they are allowed to vote in an unrigged election.

The current crisis has been brewing for some time, but the breaking point came when anti-government protesters occupied Bangkok's main airport. They marched under the banner of the People's Alliance for Democracy, but the truth is that they resorted to undemocratic means to topple a democratically elected government.

This parade of toppled and ousted governments has led Pavin Chachavalpongpun, another eminent Thai scholar, to call his country a "failed state". That description may not yet be true, but the shadow of state failure is certainly growing.

Thaksin's unforgivable sin was his violation of Thailand's unwritten rules about how the country's ruling elites are to behave: that the winner in any power play must not shut out his opponents.

But Thaksin, a self-made billionaire, allowed his greed and huge electoral successes to get the better of him. After his two landslide victories, he thought he could have it all.

His supposedly legal "tax planning", which allowed him to pay zero capital gains tax on the billion-dollar sale of his flagship telecom company, Shin Corporation, in 2006, offended the rising urban professional classes.

But Thaksin had, by then, won over Thailand's rural population through popular policies including handouts. That rural base rewarded him by returning him to power, ignoring his personal corruption.

Thaksin's detractors call his rural strategy (which his proxy successors have followed) cynical vote buying. But Thaksin's rural base wonders why the anti-Thaksin groups and his predecessors in power never tried to do much for them. Such vote buying to win hearts and minds is, after all, a fair game for any party to indulge in.

The going "wage" for the "rent-a-crowds" at the heart of the crisis was 300 baht (HK$65) a day per person, plus food, transport and a clean yellow T-shirt - yellow being the royal colour. These protests have run, on and off, for nearly 200 days. It is widely known that the anti-Thaksin business elites provided the money.

Thailand's universally loved and respected king has not taken a public stand on the occupation of the airports nor on any other recent public demonstrations. Some analysts say anti-government leaders have hijacked the royal colour to pretend that they have his support.

Nevertheless it is widely believed that Thaksin committed l鋊e-majest?by attempting to undermine the moral authority of the crown, a cornerstone of the kingdom, perhaps replacing it with a republic.

Until the anti-Thaksin elite can convince the rest of the country that they are serious about winning the hearts and minds of the poor, Thailand will teeter between banana republic and failed state.

Sin-ming Shaw is a former visiting fellow at Oxford University. Copyright: Project Syndicate