Thailand is the only middle-income country in which the armed forces regularly seize power. There have been a dozen coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, two in the past 20 years. The lower house has 500 seats.
Thailand's politics are shaped by a long struggle between populist movements and conservative forces in the army, palace and parliament. The populist movement has been led by the Shinawatra family.
Thaksin Shinawatra first came to office in 2001. He sought to co-opt the bureaucracy and agencies regulating his companies; media critical of this were banned. The king at the time obliquely criticised these practices, setting the stage for a long-running feud between Thaksin and the monarchy, army and business leaders. He was removed in a coup in 2006. His movement won further elections in 2007 and 2011. On the run from criminal charges filed while he was out of power, Thaksin chaired meetings of the cabinet nominally led by his sister Yingluck from 2011 to 2014; her government sought to exonerate him, one reason she was eventually ousted by the courts in 2014, with a coup following two weeks later. Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile as part of a rapprochement with the palace and the army but has been busily reinserting himself in Thai politics and foreign policy. He went on trial for insulting the monarchy in July 2025.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin's daughter, became prime minister but was suspended by the Constitutional Court on July 1st 2025 after a petition argued she had violated ethics rules in a phone call with Hun Sen, Cambodia's former prime minister. On June 18th the second-largest party in her governing coalition defected to the opposition, leaving it with a majority of just six. On June 28th thousands rallied in Bangkok demanding her dismissal.
The junta that took power in 2014 concocted a constitution, passed in 2017, that they hoped would keep the Shinawatra movement out of power for good, reworking the electoral system to reduce the power of Thaksin's supporters, concentrated in the north-east. Thailand's unelected Senate was appointed by the armed forces. The constitution makes it easy for the courts to remove governments that offend the country's powerful royal and military establishments.
A new liberal movement, originally called Move Forward, got 18% of the vote in 2019 and 38% in 2023. It has called for a crackdown on monopolies, cuts to the army's budget and reforms to rules against criticising the monarchy. In 2023 it won the most seats in the lower house, but stooges in the Senate blocked it from forming a government. Move Forward was then dissolved by order of a constitutional judge, and its leaders—including Pita Limjaroenrat and his predecessor Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit—were banned from politics for ten years. Many of its members regrouped as the People's Party. Its leader is Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut. The court ruling forced them to drop their stance on reforming lèse-majesté laws. An anti-corruption body is investigating 14 People's Party candidates, including Natthaphong, for ethics violations related to co-sponsoring a 2021 bill to reform the lèse-majesté laws; he too could be banned from politics if found guilty.
Shocked by the liberals' rise, pro-military parties teamed up with Thaksin's Pheu Thai, a populist party founded by Thaksin that once claimed to speak for the poor, to govern in a coalition.
Anutin Charnvirakul, a construction tycoon, leads Bhumjaithai (also known as the Thai Pride Party), which withdrew from the ruling coalition in June 2025. He was once aligned with Thaksin. On September 7th 2025 the king asked Anutin to form a new government, even though Bhumjaithai holds only about one-seventh of the seats in the lower house. He became the country's third prime minister in two years. The People's Party agreed to prop up his minority government from the outside, in exchange for a pledge to call elections by early 2026 and to allow a referendum on constitutional change. His popular nickname is "Nu", which in Thai can mean either mouse or rat.
The election on February 8th 2026 was the first since 2023 in which the Senate played no role in choosing the prime minister. Voters elected 400 members through first-past-the-post and 100 through proportional representation. For the first time this century, Thailand's conservatives won a general election outright. Anutin Charnvirakul's Thai Pride Party (BJT) won just under two-fifths of lower-house seats—enough to cobble together a majority among other conservative parties without relying on the populists. Two short border wars with Cambodia had stoked nationalism, boosting Thai Pride. The People's Party won more votes nationwide than any other party, but they were too concentrated in cities and the middle classes, punishing it under the largely first-past-the-post system. Not only will it remain in opposition, but it will be in no position to shape the drafting of a new constitution that voters authorised in a simultaneous referendum on February 8th. The result could lead to an unusual run of political stability, but will delay—perhaps indefinitely—reforms to the monarchy and the armed forces championed by the liberal opposition.
The UN estimates there are 4.6m Burmese in Thailand, about half of whom arrived since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar. Some 40% are undocumented. They include entrepreneurs and skilled professionals: doctors, teachers, engineers. Thailand has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and does not formally offer protection to asylum-seekers. Undocumented migrants from Myanmar may apply for a "pink card" that offers the right to stay for a limited time while working in a blue-collar job, but the process is expensive and convoluted. Security forces are sometimes accused of extorting refugees. Men who have fled conscription in Myanmar have in some cases been handed straight back to the generals they escaped from.
Thailand's fertility rate is just 1-1.2 children per woman. International institutions believe the influx of educated Burmese could boost Thailand's moribund economy. The country's need for migrant labour grew after the 2025 military conflict with Cambodia, when hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrants went home.
Buddhism is the religion of more than 90% of Thais. Thai monarchs are constitutionally bound to protect it. The country has around 40,000 temples. The Sangha Supreme Council is Thai Buddhism's governing body.
A 2018 law change strengthened the king's power to appoint abbots and other clerics; Vajiralongkorn has made much use of that. He has also studied Pali, Buddhism's ancient liturgical language, and has been photographed praying and meditating with monks.
In 2025 a string of scandals rocked the monkhood. The abbot of Wat Rai Khing, a prestigious temple near Bangkok, was accused of diverting over 300m baht ($9.5m) from the temple's bank accounts. The abbot of another temple fled to Laos after being blackmailed by a woman who had allegedly amassed some 80,000 compromising photos and videos of senior monks and obtained around 385m baht by threatening to release them. In August police raided 200 temples and related sites, arresting 181 people (mostly monks) on charges ranging from drunk-driving to alleged involvement in organised crime; some of those detained were said to be criminals who had sought ordination to evade the police. In October the Sangha Supreme Council introduced new rules aimed at shoring up trust, including stricter financial reporting and a limit on how much money temples may hold in cash. Politicians proposed tougher penalties for monks who misbehave, and even suggested making it a crime for laypeople to have sex with monks.
Existing rules on reporting earnings are not consistently enforced. Junior monks find it perilous to report wrongdoing by seniors. Superstitious bigwigs sometimes cultivate a famous monk as a spiritual guide; monks who serve powerful people get courted by civil servants seeking contacts that might help them advance.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej acceded in 1946 when the monarchy was a remote symbol. He and Queen Sirikit, a spirited beauty whom the press called the Jackie Kennedy of Asia, made the monarchy wildly popular through charitable works, aggressive public relations and strict laws against criticising them. Bhumibol died in 2016; Sirikit died on October 24th 2025 at 93, having been out of the public eye since a stroke in 2012.
Vajiralongkorn, Bhumibol's son, rules as Rama X. He was 73 in late 2025, has been married four times, taken an official mistress, disinherited offspring and lacks an obvious heir. His erratic behaviour has tarnished the monarchy. Many younger Thais are at best indifferent to royalism.
When Bhumibol died, the then junta declared a full year of mourning; Thais earnestly complied. The reaction to Sirikit's death was far more muted—fewer wore mourning clothing, and popular events were not cancelled. The shift reflects the weakening hold of royalism on younger generations.
In January 2025 Thailand became the third Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, after Taiwan and Nepal.
The army has launched a dozen successful coups since the 1930s, including in 2006 and 2014. More recently, the ruling establishment---army, palace and assorted magnates---has used friendly constitutional judges to prevent changes to the country in ways the establishment might dislike.
On July 24th 2025 fighting erupted between Cambodian and Thai soldiers at eight spots along a 200km frontier. Cambodia's army launched rockets at Thailand; a Thai F-16 dropped bombs inside Cambodia. After five days more than 40 were dead, hundreds injured and 300,000 civilians displaced. A ceasefire was agreed at a summit in Kuala Lumpur on July 28th, facilitated by Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, which chairs ASEAN. Donald Trump threatened to halt trade negotiations with both countries until a truce was reached.
Admiral Sam Paparo, head of America's Indo-Pacific Command, quietly helped broker the peace by making multiple visits to Malaysia to meet both countries' military chiefs. On October 26th 2025 Donald Trump presided over a ceasefire deal at the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur—grandiosely dubbed the "Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord". The ceasefire fell apart on December 8th 2025 when Thailand sent F-16 fighter jets to strike Cambodian targets, after Thailand said Cambodia had attacked border areas a day earlier. Cambodia said Thailand fired first. By December 10th the renewed fighting had killed at least 19 people and injured more than a hundred; hundreds of thousands of refugees were once again on the move. Tensions had risen after Thai soldiers were injured by a landmine in the border areas in November; neutral observers said the mines had been freshly laid, contradicting Cambodia's claim that they were leftovers from the civil war. Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that no one should ask Thailand to exercise restraint: "We're long past that point." Thailand's top general said the objective was to "cripple Cambodia's military capability for a long time to come". A big military success would be popular in Thailand; generals back Anutin's government and would like to see him win in elections expected in early 2026.
Thai officials say Cambodian troops had occupied one of the disputed temples in February, after Thailand launched a crackdown on the scam industry that thrives along the border. They suggest Hun Sen may have been angered by the crackdown, or by the slow pace of negotiations over overlapping oil and gas claims in the Gulf of Thailand. Cambodians point the finger at Thai generals, saying they are using the conflict to whip up nationalist sentiment that might ease the way for another coup.
A leaked recording of a phone call between Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Hun Sen, in which she criticised the Thai army commander in charge of the area, helped destabilise Thai politics. As the Shinawatras dared not look weak, they backed the army to the hilt in the border war.
Paetongtarn's father, Thaksin Shinawatra, was once fast friends with Hun Sen, visiting him often during his years in self-exile. The two appear to have suffered a falling-out earlier in 2025 for obscure reasons.
Thailand's deputy finance minister, Vorapak Tanyawong, resigned in October 2025 after just 33 days in office, after Whale Hunting, an investigative journalism outlet in London, alleged that his wife had received $3m in cryptocurrency from a Chinese-Cambodian criminal network. He denies all allegations. He had been appointed to lead the country's campaign to track money flows from scam centres. Rangsiman Rome, the deputy leader of the opposition, has started investigating elite collusion with scam rings, warning that without action "we'll wake up to find the country run by crooks in suits".
Thailand, America's oldest ally in Asia (the pair signed a treaty of "amity and commerce" in 1833), has been leaning ever closer to China. King Vajiralongkorn became the first Thai monarch to visit China since the two countries established diplomatic relations half a century ago, in November 2025. In August 2025 an art gallery in Bangkok removed exhibits by Tibetan, Uyghur and Hong Konger artists after Chinese diplomats reportedly complained. Earlier in the year Thailand sent 40 Uyghur men, detained since 2014, back to China despite offers of asylum from America, Canada and other countries. On November 12th 2025 Thailand extradited She Zhijiang, an alleged Chinese criminal kingpin accused of running online gambling and fraud operations in Myanmar, after three years of legal wrangling.
Chinese firms are investing heavily in Thai infrastructure, from industrial parks to high-speed rail projects. Bilateral goods trade reached $122bn in the first ten months of 2025, up from $116bn in all of 2024. Tourism contributes 12% of GDP and a fifth of all jobs. Chinese accounted for 6.7m of Thailand's 35.5m international tourist arrivals in 2024; that number fell to 3.4m in the first nine months of 2025 after Wang Xing, a Chinese celebrity, was kidnapped and trafficked to a scam compound in Myanmar.
After America cut military financing and scaled back joint exercises following the 2014 coup, China filled the void, offering submarines, tanks and armoured vehicles at lower prices and without lectures about democracy. Between 2016 and 2022 Thailand purchased $394m in Chinese arms compared with $207m in American weapons, according to the Lowy Institute. America's military assistance fell from $106m in 2023 to $8m in 2025. Thailand and America still conduct "Cobra Gold", the region's largest multilateral military exercise, involving some 30 countries.
America remains Thailand's biggest export market. More than 70% of Thai CEOs worry about damage from cheap Chinese goods. While the king was touring China, Thailand's finance minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas announced a 10% duty on low-cost imports from January 1st 2026.
Thailand spends about 7% of GDP on oil and gas imports—more than any comparable emerging market—but holds nearly 100 days of imports in strategic oil reserves and more than seven months of import cover in foreign exchange, giving it substantial buffers against energy shocks.
Donald Trump wants to hit Thailand with tariffs of 36%.
When China banned exports of critical minerals to America in 2024, a trans-shipment network emerged. Between December 2024 and April 2025 America imported almost as much antimony oxide from Thailand and Mexico as in the previous three years combined, with Chinese firms shipping restricted materials through third countries using false labels.
Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign.