Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not a Consular Strategic Conference would be useful in the circumstances of sort of the current dialogue between US and Thailand. What am I talking about here? I thought of making this video after reading a 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: "U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday announced sanctions against officials from Thailand, a US ally for their role in deporting at least 40 Uyghurs to China, where Washington says the members of the Muslim group will face persecution." 

Yeah, I did a rather long video on this whole thing; I'm sort of ambivalent about the whole thing overall. I probably shouldn't be, there are people at issue here and you can't just purely live in the world of theory and law and policy. But the issue of sort of Thailand deporting people, again that's Thailand's prerogative to deport people. It's a sticky wicket, and it's the reason for this video. But I made another video on that. I urge those who are watching this, check that one out.

That said let's just leave it at it's kind of a sticky wicket, all of this and frankly, we've seen some big transitions coming from the U.S. It might be time for maybe the U.S. to sort of borrow a phrase from the film The Sopranos, or the TV series The Sopranos. It might be time for the U.S. and Thailand to maybe have a little sit down. And what do I mean by that? And I mean that genuinely, okay. I thought of that when I was reading this article. It made me think of another article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: S Korea says it regrets spurning Thai visitors. Quoting directly: "The measures include the voluntary departure program that allows illegal workers to present themselves to South Korean Authorities before being sent back to Thailand without being blacklisted. Another measure is the Employment Permit System quota that allows 4,800 Thai labourers to work there legally every year. Both countries agreed to hold a Consular Strategic Conference to work on the problem further. Meanwhile, Labour Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn sent a notification to the Department of Tourism and the Thai Travel Agents Association to discourage agencies from enabling Thais to work illegally in South Korea." So there's a little more detail on that. I wanted there to be some meat on the bone to understand what we're talking about. There was a bit of a dispute going back, I don't know it's been within the last year, 14 months, between Thailand and South Korea regarding some of the people that were travelling out of Thailand into South Korea to apparently work illegally, and basically they had a conference. The sort of Consular level officers of both countries had a conference and discussed immigration matters, immigration policy etc. and they came to some conclusions, and they made some arrangements moving forward. 

I don't think this would be a terrible idea for the U.S. and Thailand to perhaps have a sit down like this and not just to talk about this Uyghur thing. If anything I'm kind of hoping the Uyghur thing will be used as a pretext if you will, to have the conference so that they can talk about a broad swath of stuff having to do with visas, immigration, documentation, certification etc. and then immigration policy. They can do more serious stuff like this Uyghur stuff sort of off in the background, but there are other things like Consular stuff, visas, again visa policy too, Immigration policy, reciprocity pertaining to Thailand having a visa system whereby Americans can just sort of walk in, but it's very difficult for example for Thais to get a Tourist Visa could be something to discuss. Again things like the Uyghur situation. 

Long story short, it looks to me like South Korea and Thailand greatly benefited from one of these Consular Strategic Conferences. Perhaps it wouldn't be a terrible idea for the United States and Thailand to hold one as well.