Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question, ‘when did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs become Immigration?’  Let me just jump in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: New 6-country Tourist Visa planned by the Foreign Ministry as well as Electronic Travel Authorization. Quoting directly: “Thailand is working on a new 6-country Tourist Visa plan covering Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Malaysia, plus a new Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) System. The “6 countries, 1 destination” Visa aims to boost but raises security concerns.”  

We discussed this in the past, this whole multi-country visa thing, and it kind of goes to the point of the whole video here. One) I'm fairly skeptical that's going to come off anytime soon. We're talking about multiple jurisdictions; they all have their own immigration apparatus and that's the point here. At the end of the day, it's Immigration that controls and administers Immigration law and Immigration procedure in these given countries. These Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and I can't speak to the other countries in Southeast Asia, but I like to do comparative between the United States and Thailand, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminds me a lot of the Department of State; Immigration here in Thailand under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior reminds me a lot of the Department of Homeland Security back in the United States. They are two very different things and what's becoming increasingly the source of consternation for me is the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs keeps talking about Immigration things as if they are going to be the ones administering it. They are not. Immigration is going to be the apparatus that is going to deal with border crossings into and out of Thailand and also deal with ongoing Immigration policy within Thailand. So when Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes these sort of grand statements like a “six for one visa” set up that again we talked about almost a year ago, and it was discussed even at the time that this is a daunting thing to the point of impossible in the immediately foreseeable future, but when they talk about this stuff, and then it is sort of doesn’t work the way that it might later, others get sort of blamed for lack of a better term or what is worse, Thailand generally gets blamed because again somebody that has a limited bailiwick is talking about something beyond that bailiwick. That said, quoting further: "Seen by many as one of the more decisive Cabinet Ministers,” well decisive to what end? I mean you can be decisive but decisive about something you don’t have administrative control over; is that decisiveness? I don’t even know what the word is for that. Quoting again: “Seen by many as one of the more decisive Cabinet Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs Maris Sangiampongsa on Thursday gave an overview of his Ministry's plan to assembled members of the press corps at the Ministry in Bangkok.”

Yeah, this is what people need to really understand, what's happening here. This is a PR blitz in the lead up into high season, and I am actually in favour of it as far as it goes. It is a good thing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is out there trying to hype up Thailand, trying to get interest into Thailand from travellers, from people looking to come over here. it is a good thing. But there are limits to it because the problem is they are talking about things that ultimately aren’t going to be administered by them. Quoting further: “The Minister confirmed the new Electronic Travel Authorization System.” Well, it is my understanding that this is basically going to end up being what Thailand Pass was during the “pandemic”. Quite honestly, why does Thailand need this? We have Immigration officers; we have biometrics now at Immigration checkpoints. We are ring-fencing Thailand, with an extra level, an extra obstacle for foreigners, specifically tourists, specifically tourists. It is my understanding this ETA is not going to impact those maintaining long term Non-Immigrant Visas here in Thailand. It is entirely going to be aimed at the tourism market. Is that a good idea? To put up an extra obstacle for tourists trying to come in to Thailand? Meanwhile, what is the benefit? They have talked about it. Well, we can kind of screen people coming in, make sure criminals aren’t coming in; we already have that. The APPS system and the PIBICS system are already up and going, I've done the video on that in the past. We have biometrics at the checkpoints; we know who is coming and going. Why do we need this extra level of digitized bureaucracy that could add an extra obstacle, an extra layer that may not preclude, but may dissuade tourists from coming to Thailand in the first place? Then meanwhile, again they're talking about this from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs standpoint which again that's why I liken it the so-called Certificate of Entry that we dealt with some time ago; later called the Thailand Pass which we did a video on - they were talking about “well we need to reinstitute that for Monkey Pox. To call Covid an exaggeration, the light from that exaggeration is never going to hit what the exaggeration level is of Monkeypox. I mean it's just to my mind kind of ridiculous.

That said, this whole ETA thing looks like the old Thailand Pass. What is the benefit to the country? I think what this is going to do is it's going to deter and put off possible further tourists down the road. That said, quoting further: “In particular, he announced plans for a new Visa regime that would allow access to Thailand and its five neighbouring countries, such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia. The Minister emphasized that the Ministry was working with the Government to boost the country’s economy.” Okay. How? By ring-fencing the country from more tourists? And by talking about a visa scheme that would require the assent of not one but five other countries’ Immigration apparatus. Meanwhile, our own Immigration apparatus here in Thailand is completely silent on all of these developments, which leads me to believe that Immigration is going to do what they are going to do, regardless of the PR blitz from Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Quoting further: “The Minister emphasized that the Ministry was working with the Government to boost the country’s economy. At the same time, he insisted that Thailand would remain a ‘neutral’ player in geopolitics.” Well yeah, I mean Thailand is going to be Thailand. It is not a matter of being neutral, it is a matter of being Thailand. Quoting further: “The latter commitment is increasingly being examined as tensions between China and the United States in the region have grown substantially.” No, not really. The region is the region. The Chinese and the United States are not in this region. Whatever their pressure is, get it off your back somewhere else; don’t do it down here. That is an easy one.

But that being said, again and to sort of come back to my point here, all of this talk is just that at this point. The notion of the “6-countries, 1 destination visa” they talked about this nearly a year ago. In fact, I've been talking about this in the context of the ASEAN Visa here. It's not pie in the sky, it’s not outside the realm of possibility but to have it be talked about as if we are going to start just rolling this out quite quickly, it creates unrealistic expectations in the minds of future travellers, for one. Then at the same time, while creating those unrealistic expectations, we are also creating something like the ETA (the Electronic Travel Authorization) which is going to create further obstacles. So while creating unrealistic expectations, we are raising the bar and making it more difficult to get into Thailand. Is that at the end of the day, good policy?