Letter from the Editors

“There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests.” The famed aphorism, with many variations on the theme, applies to both politics and diplomacy. It captures a key point: In any relationship – whether between politicians or states – mutual interests and areas of conflict always coexist. If circumstances change the relative weight of those interests and conflicts, yesterday’s enemy can rapidly become today’s friend (and vice versa).

In this issue, we examine shifting alliances and enmity within the politics of Thailand and Kyrgyzstan, and in the trilateral diplomatic dance between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.

Thailand’s politics was turned on its head last year, when the establishment willingly joined hands with Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party to form a government. Back in 2006, Thailand’s military had ousted Thaksin in a coup. That, independent analyst James Buchanan writes in this month’s cover story, “was a huge miscalculation.” The ensuing waves of protests precipitated a return to democracy in 2011, but voters elected yet another Shinawatra – trading the exiled Thaksin for his sister, Yingluck. When she was ousted in 2014, the military settled in for a long stint managing affairs directly. A decade on from that coup, it appears that the Shinawatras have reconciled with the establishment at last. But while Thaksin, Buchanan notes, would rather make a deal than fight, the same can’t be said of a new generation of Thais who have known nothing but instability and establishment meddling with the political preferences of the people.

Since the 2020 revolution, Kyrgyzstan’s third irregular change of government since independence in 1991, those in the know refer to Bishkek as being led by a “tandem”: President Sadyr Japarov and Kamchybek Tashiev, head of the powerful security services. Japarov and Tashiev took advantage of revolutionary fervor to rise to power, made savvy moves to capitalize on that power, and thereby entrenched themselves, writes Dr. Aksana Ismailbekova, a research fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. Money, she notes, is the veritable “heart” of the tandem. Through informal (often criminal) networks, cash-generating anti-corruption gambits, targeted excising of potential threats, and the ongoing performance of friendship between the two, Japarov and Tashiev have re-wired Kyrgyz’s politics with themselves at the center. But while “money serves to reinforce the tandem’s cohesion,” Ismailbekova writes, it also “holds the potential for future conflict.”

Moving from the personal to the state level, independent researcher Claudia Chia explores how Beijing and Islamabad have approached ties with the Taliban government now in power in neighboring Afghanistan. For Pakistan, it’s a clear case of buyer’s remorse – while initially enthused by the presumption that the Taliban would prove pliant partners, Pakistan has since had to grapple with the reality of a militant group in government next door. A huge spike in terrorist and militant attacks has plagued Pakistan since the Taliban’s return to power, and Kabul is not interested in solving the problem. Meanwhile, China had its own security concerns regarding Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, but for now Beijing is cleverly calibrating its engagement so that it seems to be doing more than it is. It’s easy to look like a favorite partner when much of the rest of the world is ignoring the Taliban’s government entirely.

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.