Architecture of Trust

Had he come to Switzerland as Thailand’s prime minister, he would have liked to learn for his country from the things Switzerland excels at, such as how it links research and industry in the life sciences, Pita Limjaroenrat said last week to a full-house audience in the University of Zurich’s main lecture hall.

Limjaroenrat and his political party won the 2023 parliamentary elections in Thailand by a substantial margin, but members of the country’s parliament – including many senators appointed by the military – refused to vote him in as prime minister. The Constitutional Court of Thailand later banned him from participating in politics for ten years.

Limjaroenrat thus came to Zurich not as a prime minister, but as an advocate for political and economic change in Southeast Asia. What he has to say about the state of democracy in the region is shaped by his personal experience. “Democracy is backsliding,” he said in response to a question from the audience. In many countries of Southeast Asia, he noted, democracy is still regarded as a family affair. Sons or daughters of former rulers hold power and govern as “proxy leaders” on behalf or in the interest of their parents, he explained.

Limjaroenrat nevertheless did not evince pessimism. On the contrary, he said “Southeast Asia is the new center of gravity, it’s catching up with Shanghai and Tokyo” in an indirect retort to historian Adam Tooze’s assessment of the region in last year’s State of Asia address. Tooze’s speech had focused mainly on the political and economic instability and comparative poverty of Southeast Asian countries.

The Southeast Asia region comprises eleven countries: Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. They are united in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The ASEAN member states combined formed the world’s fifth-largest economy in 2024, behind the USA, China, the EU and India.

Thailand is the fourth-largest ASEAN member state in terms of population and is the region’s second-largest economy by gross domestic product (GDP).

In Limjaroenrat’s judgment, the worldwide “great convergence” of living standards, values, and interests is happening not only between East and West, but also between North and South. He predicts that the economic output of Southeast Asia will equal that of China, Japan and South Korea by 2040.

In conversation with UZH professor Ralph Ossa, who until recently was the chief economist of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Limjaroenrat backed up his prediction with data on economic growth in Southeast Asia and on the region’s demographic structure. He also pointed out that the countries of Southeast Asia are well positioned to implement solutions for global challenges such as combating climate change, improving financial system sustainability and safeguarding digital security. “We have that scale, we have that demographic, we have that digitalization that allows solutions to be implemented,” Limjaroenrat explained. The question, he said, is how the countries of Southeast Asia can succeed in transforming themselves from a factory for the world to a laboratory for solutions of that kind.

In global politics as well, Limjaroenrat sees opportunities for Southeast Asian nations to help shape a new political order. The world, he said, is in upheaval: the old order is dissolving, while the new chapter has yet to be written. In this post-hegemonic vacuum, as he called it, midsize countries could form a flexible network among themselves, thus creating the supporting connective tissue of a new international system.

Neutrality plays an important role in this process: “A lot of Asian leaders mistake neutrality as a position. But it’s a capability,” Limjaroenrat emphasized. “The capability to have resilience when you are being asked to choose sides.” If a country has a sufficiently diversified economy with a strong domestic market and alliances with other nations, it doesn’t have to worry as much about trade or export dependencies, he explained.

Instead of a multilateralism based on a centralized, top-down supranational order, Limjaroenrat envisions the rise of minilateralism: small, flexible partnerships among several states that cooperate to solve a specific problem.

To illustrate his vision, he drew a quick sketch with a ballpoint pen on the back of his speech notes: small and midsize countries no longer align themselves with the poles, but instead establish a network of multifarious collaborations between them to solve specific problems.

“The middle powers have the chance to turn great power fatigue into regional initiatives that are relevant and matter to the people,” Limjaroenrat said. “That is the power that comes from Asia: connection over confrontation.”

In his introduction of Pita Limjaroenrat to the audience, UZH President Michael Schaepman said that what impressed him most about the guest was his positive and peaceful attitude. “I am a bridge, not a bomb,” Schaepman quoted him as having said in a radio interview. Limjaroenrat therefore included peace in the region as the third central theme besides politics and economic development in his analysis.

On this topic as well, Limjaroenrat considers cooperation in Asia – in the form of effective, institutionalized communication, clear rules, and common platforms – a prerequisite to securing peace in the region. “Asia is not at war, nor is it at peace,” according to his analysis. Limjaroenrat named several hot spots – such as the Strait of Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, the Himalayan border region and the situation in Myanmar – where conflicts could ignite or have already erupted. “Asia's next chapter on peace is about designing for peace and not hoping for peace,” he said.