Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing visa sanctions against officials from Thailand. What are we talking about? I thought of making this video after reading recent article from Reuters, that is reuters.com, the article is titled: US hits Thai Officials with Visa sanctions over deportation of Uyghurs to China. Quoting directly: "US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday announced sanctions against officials from Thailand, a US ally" - that's kind of important to note - quoting further: "for their role in deporting at least 40 Uyghurs to China, where Washington says the members of the Muslim group will face persecution. The US is "committed to combating China's efforts to pressure governments to forcibly return leaders and other groups to China, where they are subject to torture and enforced disappearances," the State Department said in a statement. Quoting further from that article: "Thailand has defended the deportations saying that it acted in accordance with Laws and Human Rights obligations. Its Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Rubio's announcement." 

Hi everybody, we don't usually do this. I'm usually able to make these videos sort of all in one concise package but when we were going back through on final review, doing the review of what we were putting up, we noticed that Reuters actually seems to have amended their initial article from the quote that I gave you and that direct quote is no longer in, between the time that we did the video and the time that we went in to edit to put the quotes in the graphics, so you can see which quote I take from - we try to do that as much as possible - they seem to have changed it on their site so we're not able to get that exact one, but it was on the prior iteration. It has changed a little bit but it's important and I wanted to make this little excerpt - this sort of pause right here - to add some further clarification because I think it's worth noting. Quoting again directly from what appears to be the updated version of Reuters article: Quote: "Rubio, who was a staunch advocate for Uyghurs as a U.S. Senator has reiterated that Beijing's treatment of the group had amounted to "genocide and crimes against humanity," a designation the U.S. first made in the waning hours of President Donald Trump's first term in 2021." Okay, I think that's really important to point out. It doesn't actually change the final conclusion of this video actually.

To my mind, the final conclusion of this video - spoiler alert for this point in the video - does remain what it says in the thumbnail which is, "message received loud and clear". We're getting it out here. This is a bigger issue maybe than even I thought. Again my analysis that this was a "swan song" of somebody, perhaps in the apparatus, was clearly not correct. It looks like it actually is an initiative that's close to the heart of Mr. Rubio and look, when you're the Secretary of State who is a pretty big guy in the US Government, I mean that's a Constitutional Office, that's a Cabinet level office associated it's in terms of diplomacy especially that's number two to the POTUS himself, the big man, that's a big deal. So again, the clarification is noteworthy, again it is worth requoting: "staunch advocate for Uyghurs as a U.S. Senator has reiterated that Beijing's treatment of the group had amounted to "genocide and crimes against humanity", a designation the U.S. first made in the waning hours of President Trump's first term in 2021." Two things there. Again, this appears to be a personal initiative or a personal issue of Mr. Rubio's; that's noteworthy. And also, this appears to be the continuation of a theme that began right at the tail end of Mr. Trump's last term. Again, I think those are very important data points with regard to this whole thing, but I think it does not change the conclusion and which sort of remains okay we get it, message received loud and clear. Clearly, I wasn't myself getting the message as much as maybe I should. Maybe Thailand out here, we're in a different geopolitical position than the United States, we all didn't perhaps get this as much as we should, but point being, message received. We get it. The Uyghur issue is important, and I think that will definitely factor into future calculations from here in Thailand, and now on with the show. 

Look, maybe those who have viewed this channel recently, if you actually, I urge those who are watching this video, go in and read that article from Reuters, it's actually kind of interesting. There is somebody from a think tank back stateside who basically said I think in that article that Thailand needed to "lay low" on this one or something. Look, I don't necessarily think Thailand needs to lay low on anything.  Thailand exercised her prerogatives and did what she had to do in this case, or felt she had to do under the circumstances. That said, a couple of things going on here. One, this whole Uyghur thing, fair enough, I see the US's position okay, but again I go back to this quote in here. Thai government said, "it acted in accordance with laws in human rights obligations." I suspect the Thais did. That's one thing Thai bureaucracy is good at. They will go through the motions, that is one thing, the formalities will be met, and I'm a little hard pressed to say exactly why anybody deserves sanction under these circumstances because again it's a Thailand - China matter, one, so there's that. Just to provide some context here, let me be clear. I'm not saying it's outside the realm of possibility that there could be U.S. interest in a Thailand to China deportation, let me be clear here. There was a case, this was years back - it's got to be at least 10 years now - where and I actually had some friends and acquaintances that worked in the Embassy in sort of a support function fashion, and I remember at the time we had the case that was, it was sort of a big deal insofar as it was a deportation involving a child, let me get this right, I need to get the facts right. So it was an American child, but the American was a child by dint of the fact that the American's Chinese parents had been in the United States - I believe the father of the child was like a professor, he had been a visiting professor in the United States, the child happened to have been born in the United States, we have Birthright citizenship so therefore the child was an American at birth; then they moved back and the father ended up back in the PRC, back in mainland China, and Mom and the baby were down here in Thailand. And apparently the father had fallen under basically fallen into incarceration, detention, whatever. I don't know what the due process terms are in Communist China. I don't know any of that and I'm not going to learn, so I don't know what the legal posture was of that gentleman there. But the mother and the child were here in Thailand, and they were being effectively deported back, and this is important to note because I think it's worth pointing out the US's position here on this whole thing because yeah there's the due process side. I think the Thais are on to something there. They have a valid point; they have something to hang their hat - they don't need to hang their hat on anything. At the end of the day, the Thais chose to do this. Let me be clear. If there is any criticism I have toward the US in all of this, the underlying moral question of deporting these Uyghurs is one thing, and okay we're on the side of the angels there.

With regard to the use of the sanction power, perhaps it's time to rethink that, that's all I'm going to say, okay. Under all current circumstances, especially everything we've seen the last five years, that's all I'm going to say. Now that said, back to this story. So again, the father was detained in China; the mother is being pressured through sort of deportation proceedings and effectively the Chinese can sort of trigger a deportation by cancelling a passport effectively, so understand it's not like “oh the Thais caught somebody doing something and this is why they are being deported.” No, the Chinese could just have cancelled this person's passport and the next time they interacted with the Thai Immigration System, Thai Immigration System says, "hey your passport is defunct. We have got to send you home." This happens. We see this in the same context here in Thailand when for example - I've seen this in cases before - a guy will go into American Citizen Services, he'll have child support payments back in the United States that are in arrears, they'll go over a certain threshold and the Embassy will just refuse to issue that person a new passport. They'll say we will issue you a travel letter to go home. Again, sex offenders have these same issues; there are a lot of restrictions on their passports. As we've discussed in prior videos years back, IRS and State Department, there was policy promulgated through Congress wherein if it's deemed that you owed the IRS $50,000 or more, they can notify the Department of State and Department of State can terminate your passport; they can just basically pull it. And again, they can issue you a travel letter to go home back to the US but that's it, and again the Chinese can do similar things. So understand, when we are talking about a deportation here, it may not necessarily be because somebody did anything wrong here. That said, back to the story. 

Mom and daughter are here. Now daughter was born in the States. She is an American. The Americans intervened on that and at the time, it might be noteworthy - history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes - learn to know the distinctions between different parts of the song when things are rhyming, okay. The point I'm trying to make here is there was an American citizen involved in that case and the US intervened and not only that, they did it very quietly. It was actually in the papers, I mentioned it I think at the time on my blog, this is how far it goes back, my written blog, and I think I even mentioned it on Facebook and the silence was deafening, okay. It was clear that everybody just preferred that remained discreet. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour as they say. 

That being said, back to the situation at hand. At the end of the day, the Americans forestalled that deportation. They said, "hey China you can't take these people. One of them is an American citizen, the parent of an American citizen, we are just not going to allow that to happen", and under those circumstances it was good, and Uncle Sam did a good job on that. In this case, again I have some issues where I fail to see exactly where there is the American interest here, directly. I can understand some of the moral argument thing. Again, I'm not exactly advocating for there to be any kind of hyperbolic retribution of reprisal or anything of that nature, in fact far from it. My hope is the Thais will see this for what it is, and further to that, what I think this is perhaps - and I could be wrong - there's somebody sort of in the State Department apparatus if you will, or maybe I should say the meme itself of these Uyghurs, has sort of propagated through the State Department and maybe some of the apparatus in the United States, this is considered a major issue. My personal opinion is while it is an issue, it's definitely a moral one, again in terms of diplomacy, public policy and law, it's tangential where it directly impacts American interests so that one always kind of gives me pause because I say, "well if it doesn't directly impact the American national interest, what are you doing?" I do get the moral argument. What I'm thinking is maybe this is a kind of swan song if you will for this whole idea, this whole Uyghur issue if you will. I'm not saying it's over. I'm saying a swan song in a sense that hey something was done on this; there are consequences for just failing to, or I shouldn't say failing, but for just completely disregarding perhaps American prerogatives regarding these Uyghur deportees, okay. That message has been sent: it's been heard loud and clear. I expect it will factor in to future decision-making. So insofar as it goes, mission accomplished, message heard. It will be factored in in the future when making future decisions I expect. Should anybody get into any sort of back and forth on all of this on any level, I don't think so. I don't think there is any point to that. I don't think that there's any good to be had for Thailand or the USA on it.

That being said, again I think it's worth and I say this as an American more than anything, in a general sense more than anything as well, we really need to rethink this sanctioning thing. I can see under limited and certain circumstances where sanctions can be very necessary and useful and may bring about a desired conclusion, but I think it's safe to say objectively they have been overused especially again in the last five years. So that said, I think this just is what it is. It's sort of like this has been kind of an ongoing thing. Again, I think it's making a bigger deal out of something than maybe it should be made out of under the circumstances. That said, I can see each side's argument on the thing at the end of the day. And does the US at least have sort of a point albeit somewhat ethereal one, where we don't, it's not a good idea to have the Chinese out bullying other countries to send people back to China? Yeah. At the same time though you have got to think of other countries. We have got a big Chinese community here that Thailand doesn't particularly want and the US doesn't love the idea of Thailand sending them back to China, should that be the overarching factor in Thailand's ultimate decision regarding deportation? I mean my personal opinion is I don't think it should be. Again, factor in maybe but, and Thailand, much like the United States, again the entire Uyghur narrative rings a little hollow to me especially in light of the fact that we ourselves in the United States are deporting people. Rightly so. The point I'm trying to make is I don't think the apparatus here in Thailand viewed this the way the apparatus in the United States viewed this situation. I think it was viewed primarily as just an Immigration deportation proceeding. That said, it clearly has larger implications for the Americans. Okay message heard, loud and clear.