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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawThai MFA's "'6 Countries One Destination' Policy" Benefits Vietnam?

Thai MFA's "'6 Countries One Destination' Policy" Benefits Vietnam?

Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the "6 countries, 1 Visa policy. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Visa-free travel across Southeast Asia has detail devils to resolve. Yeah, there has been this long kind of ongoing discussion about sort of a pan-ASEAN Visa. Now it has kind of been more narrowed down to sort of the mainland Southeast Asia - specifically Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam - sort of a single visa for all of those jurisdictions. 

As I've discussed in other videos, while I am optimistic about the "6 country, 1 Visa" sort of program, I am not so naïve as to think it's all just going to happen overnight. Look, you're talking about multiple Immigration apparatuses; you're talking about multiple Ministries of Foreign Affairs. There are all kinds of different priorities in all of these countries. Do I think it could happen? Yes. Do I think it could happen fast? Not particularly. Although that being said, I've been surprised before. Quoting directly from this article though: "Hoang The Han, director-general of Dai Vet International Tourism, said that Vietnam had the most to gain from the "6 countries, 1 destination" policy as the nationals of only 25 countries were currently allowed no-hassle entry. Thailand, by contrast, allows Visa-exempt and free entry for 93 countries including all those with large contingents of leisure-seeking tourists. Currently, 70 million visit the region annually, with Thailand and Malaysia taking more than half of the US$90 billion estimated revenue."

Yeah, first off, that's $45 billion okay. I'm not against cooperation, international cooperation, supra-national cooperation. That said, supra-national is the word you are going to hear a lot more. Supra-national is the kind of stuff when we talk about the World Economic Forum and all these sort of globalist groups that want to basically come in it looks to me like, destroy the nation state. Nobody likes nation states anymore it seems like. Nationalism is something that is poo pooed constantly. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here asking myself, why? What is Thailand going to benefit out of this at the end of the day? Clearly Vietnam's going to get a benefit because they are going to kind of piggyback onto Thailand and be able to pick up some ancillary tourists or whatever. Again, what is Thailand cui bono here? Where does the benefit accrue to Thailand by sort of spearheading this single ASEAN type visa? I really fail to see it, and honestly I'm starting to seriously question all of these politicians who go around the world to all of these forums and all of these things and come back and then tell us all we need to do things that really aren't in our interest, and all have to do with creating these supra-national bodies that are going to administer things like a pan sort of Southeast Asian visa. Again, how does Thailand directly benefit from this? Frankly, how does Thailand indirectly benefit? Thailand is already taking 50% of the overall pie with regard to this. By creating this visa, it's going to create more opportunities for people to go other places. Are they going to just use Thailand as a lily pad then just then jump out to someplace else? I'm not a total believer that this is a zero-sum game. Let me be clear. I do think there are ways in which this can be mutually beneficial, but just from where I'm standing right here at this moment and what I am reading about this, it looks like Thailand is giving up a lot more than she's getting at the end of the day when we are talking about this sort of "6 countries, 1 destination visa" plan.