蒂蒂南·蓬素迪拉克是朱拉隆功大学政治学院的比较与国际政治学教授，也是伦敦政治经济学院东南亚研究中心的非长驻副研究员。
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a professor of comparative and international politics at Chulalongkorn University's faculty of political science and a non-resident associate with the Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics.
在最近主办国际货币基金组织和世界银行年度会议时，泰国向汇聚曼谷的数千名财政部长、央行行长、国际官僚和投资者展现了其最好的一面。但这个稳定、开放和对投资者友好的经济橱窗，却掩盖了一个黑暗而悲惨的现实。
Hosting the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank recently, Thailand put on its best face for thousands of finance ministers, central bankers, international bureaucrats and investors who converged on Bangkok. But the showcase of a stable, open and investor-friendly economy belies a dark and sad reality.
经历了两次军事政变打断的二十年后，泰国已经变成了一个披着民主外衣的专制政体。在这里，保皇派保守建制派胁迫、拉拢并控制了国家的精英阶层，导致政治腐败和经济停滞根深蒂固且遥遥无期。讽刺的是，这种轨迹可以无限期地持续下去，因为泰国在国内表现不佳的同时，依然深受全球游客的喜爱。
After two decades punctuated by two military coups, Thailand has become an autocracy in democratic disguise, where a royalist-conservative establishment has coerced, co-opted and captured the country's elites, leaving political decay and economic stagnation entrenched with no end in sight. The irony is that this trajectory can carry on indefinitely because Thailand remains popular with global visitors even while it fares poorly at home. Getting to this point has taken shrewd political engineering.
走到这一步经历了精明的政治操弄。在2006年政变及其2014年5月的续集之后，由军方、司法界和官僚机构最高层组成的保皇派建制派，在投票箱前无法战胜他信·西那瓦的政党或改革派的前进运动。因此，它转而扭曲和调整规则。宪法在2007年和2017年被两次重写，赢得选举的政党被解散，总理被罢免，政党领袖一次次被禁令和解散长达十年。
After the 2006 putsch and its sequel in May 2014, the royalist establishment, comprising the military, judiciary and uppermost sections of the bureaucracy, could not beat Thaksin Shinawatra's parties or the reformist Move Forward movement at the ballot box. So it twisted and tweaked the rules instead. Constitutions were twice rewritten in 2007 and 2017, election-winning parties dissolved, prime ministers removed, and party leaders banned for a decade at a time. The Constitutional Court, Election Commission and anti-corruption commission, meant to be impartial referees, have been made custodians of the old order.
本应作为公正裁判的宪法法院、选举委员会和反腐败委员会，已被沦为旧秩序的守护者。换句话说，每当获胜者威胁到建制派的特权时，选举就失去了意义。
In other words, elections have not counted whenever the winners threatened establishment prerogatives. As reform-oriented political parties and elected representatives are kept weak and off balance, the Senate is where this establishment engineering project comes together because the upper chamber oversees appointments to the referee agencies.
随着改革派政党和民选代表被架空、处于劣势，参议院成了这一建制派工程项目的落脚点，因为上议院负责监督对“裁判机构”人选的任命。这支200人的参议院是2024年通过一个错综复杂的间接程序产生的，已被举报人和公民社会监督组织揭露为由泰国建国党主导的网络系统性操纵的结果，该党随后在总理阿努廷·查恩维拉库的带领下赢得了去年2月的大选。
Chosen in 2024 through a convoluted indirect process, the 200-member Senate has been exposed by whistleblowers and civil society watchdogs as systematically rigged by a network led by the Bhumjaithai Party, which went on to win the election last February under Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul. Despite overwhelming evidence and witness testimonies, the Election Commission, four of whose seven members were endorsed by these same senators involved in the rigging, has indicted only a handful, leaving Bhumjaithai untouched.
尽管证据确凿、证人证词在握，选举委员会——其七名成员中有四名是由这些同样参与舞弊的参议员背书的——仅起诉了寥寥数人，对泰国建国党则未予追究。建制派花了20年时间清除其不喜欢的民选政府，如今却竭尽全力留住它中意的那一个。豁免权横行，问责机制荡然无存。
Having spent 20 years getting rid of elected governments it disliked, the establishment now goes out of its way to keep the one it prefers. Impunity reigns, and accountability is nowhere to be seen. At issue is how the establishment holds sway.
问题的核心在于建制派如何掌控权力。有人把参议院风波视为泰国建国党对国家的“俘获”。但事实恰恰相反。几十年来，是国家俘获了泰国的精英阶层，并将大众灌输为对建制派的顺从。这就是为什么一次又一次的政变遭遇大商界、知识界和普通泰国民众如此微弱的抵抗。皇家勋章、职位任命、准入资格和社会地位被授予那些留在圈子里、或者至少不掀风浪的人。
Some see the Senate saga as state capture by Bhumjaithai. But it's the other way around. Dating back decades, it is the state that has captured Thailand's elites while indoctrinating the country's masses into establishment submission. This is why one coup after another has met so little resistance from big business, the intelligentsia and ordinary Thais. Royal decorations, appointments, access and status are handed out to those who stay inside the fold or at least do not rock the boat. Anutin Charnvirakul interacts with another politician after being elected as Thailand's prime minister on March 19.
一套层层叠叠的证书与人脉培训体系，以国防学院为最高标准，将将军、法官、大亨、官僚、政客和媒体界人士捆绑进共同的特权圈层和相互迁就的网络中。这些群体不再推动变革，而成了现状的利益相关者。
A layered hierarchy of certificate and networking programs, with the National Defense College as the gold standard, binds generals, judges, tycoons, bureaucrats, politicians and media figures into common circles of privilege and mutual accommodation. Rather than pushing for change, these groups become stakeholders in the status quo.
精英共治由大众说服机制提供支撑。皇室主义与民族主义在社交媒体上被放大，去年与柬埔寨的边境冲突更将其推向高潮，助推泰国国家发展党（Bhumjaithai）赢得大选，选民选择了安全而非改革。当说服不足以奏效时，法律强制便接管一切，主导者是针对批评王室的冒犯君主罪（lese-majeste law），自2020至2021年年轻抗议者走上街头为更美好的未来抗争以来，已有数百人因此被起诉。
Elite co-optation is buttressed by mass persuasion. Royalism and nationalism, amplified on social media and ramped up by border clashes with Cambodia last year, helped carry Bhumjaithai to victory as voters opted for security over reform. Where persuasion falls short, legal coercion takes over, led by the lese-majeste law against royal criticism, under which hundreds of young protesters have been prosecuted since 2020-21 when they revolted in the streets for a better future.
经济后果显而易见。“特氟龙泰国”——政变、街头冲突与走马灯般更迭的政府来来去去，经济却照常运行——这一局面不复存在。1960至1997年间，经济年均扩张7.5%，但自2006年以来仅平均2.6%，目前趋势增长徘徊在2%左右，在东南亚垫底。泰国错失了半导体繁荣，在竞争中败给越南和马来西亚，家庭债务逼近GDP的90%，公共债务逼近70%的法定上限。毫不意外，其全球竞争力排名持续下滑。当有改革想法的民选政府长期被架空，国家制定、协调和执行政策的能力也随之相应削弱。
The economic upshot is unmistakable. "Teflon Thailand," where coups, street clashes and revolving-door governments came and went while the economy carried on, no longer holds. Economic expansion averaged 7.5% a year in 1960-97 but that has averaged just 2.6% since 2006, with current trend growth hovering around 2%, a laggard in Southeast Asia. Thailand missed the semiconductor boom and has been outcompeted by Vietnam and Malaysia, with household debt approaching 90% of GDP and public debt pressing against its 70% legal ceiling. Unsurprisingly, its global competitiveness rankings have slid consistently. When elected governments with reform ideas are kept weak over time, state capacity to craft, coordinate and carry out policies correspondingly diminishes.
然而，悖论正在于此。一个表现如此不佳的国家本应面临清算，但泰国依然持续吸引着人们。游客仍以千万计涌入。曼谷始终位列全球最热门旅游目的地榜首。来自欧洲、美国、英国和东南亚的退休人员依然愿在此颐养天年，而数百万移民工人——主要来自战乱不断的缅甸——蜂拥至泰国打工，将薪资汇回家乡。换个说法，泰国的地理中心位置、关键体量、自然美景与好客民风，构成了一层缓冲垫，吸收了误治的成本，使建制派免受纠偏压力。
Yet herein lies the paradox. A country faring so poorly should face a reckoning, but Thailand keeps drawing people in. Tourists still arrive by the tens of millions. Bangkok consistently ranks as the most popular destination globally. Retirees from Europe, the U.S., Britain and Southeast Asia still want to spend their twilight years in the country, while several million migrant workers, mainly from war-torn Myanmar, have flocked to Thailand for wages to send home. Put another way, Thailand's central location, critical mass, physical beauty and hospitable people act as a cushion that absorbs the costs of misrule and insulates the establishment from corrective pressure.
大多数泰国人深知这个国家正朝着错误的方向前进。他们在自己的财务债务中以及在孩子黯淡的前景中感受到了这一点。他们看到了体制化的腐败以及直达最高层的滥用职权。但很少有人将其大声疾呼出来。一些人已被拉拢，另一些人被起诉所吓退，还有许多人在经历了二十年的抗议、政变和以同样结局收场的法院判决后，已经精疲力竭。
Most Thais know the country is going in the wrong direction. They feel it in their financial debts and in dimmer prospects for their children. They see institutionalized corruption and abuses that reach all the way to the very top. But few are calling it out. Some have been co-opted, others are deterred by prosecution, and many are simply worn out after two decades of protests, coups and court rulings that ended the same way.
可以肯定的是，当权派可以指出稳定性，阿努廷政府听从其吩咐，并且看来有望完整做满一个任期。但缺乏问责和良好表现的稳定导致了政治腐烂和经济衰退。为了打破这种模式，泰国需要改革和变革。发端于曼谷的1997年金融危机让旧势力信誉扫地，并产生了该国最具民主色彩的宪法。另一场全面经济危机，或许由财政不可持续引发，可能会开启一个类似的窗口。如果当权派核心机构出现继承危机，一场政治危机也是有可能发生的。
To be sure, the establishment can point to stability, with the Anutin government doing its bidding and appearing on course to serve a full term. But stability without accountability and favorable performance has led to political decay and economic decline. To break this pattern, Thailand needs reform and change. The 1997 financial crisis, which started in Bangkok, discredited the old guard and produced the country's most democratic constitution. Another full-blown economic crisis, perhaps induced by fiscal unsustainability, could open a similar window. A political crisis is also plausible should there be a succession crisis for the establishment's core institution.
正如1997年宪法的命运所证明的那样，这两种情况都不能保证有更好的结果。当权派似乎满足于让泰国作为一个低增长、高债务的经济体勉强混日子，它对游客和退休人员极具吸引力，对外国劳工不可或缺，但却让本国人民感到失望。来到曼谷的世界各国财政部长和央行行长们应当看清泰国的本质，而不是它自称的样子。泰国形式上是民主的，实质上是专制的，它正在走向衰退，这让比人们所注意到的要多得多的泰国人感到利益受损和厌恶。
Neither scenario guarantees a better outcome, as the fate of the 1997 charter attests. It seems the establishment is content for Thailand to muddle along as a low-growth, high-debt economy, alluring to tourists and retirees, indispensable to migrant workers but disappointing to its own people. The world's finance ministers and central bankers who came to Bangkok should see Thailand for what it has become rather than what it purports to be. A democracy in form but an autocracy in substance, Thailand is declining to the detriment and disgust of many more Thais than might be noticed.