Critics have consistently slammed his bold ideas as unsustainable and lacking underlying principles. Worse, there have been times when the supposed beneficiaries of Thaksin's proposals appeared to be indifferent to their effects.

The Bangkok Process, for example, was given the cold shoulder by Rangoon. It didn't seem to occur to Thaksin that Burma has good reason not to trust initiatives coming out of Thailand.

The junta has consistently accused Thailand of arming Burmese insurgents, while Thai generals argue that Rangoon is using the 20,000-strong Wa army to keep the Thai Army in check.

In the end, the so-called process became a comfort forum for like-minded countries who wanted to see an end to Burma's political deadlock, but would not invest the energy and resources to pressure the junta to change their ways. For what was billed as a "process", the Thai initiative produced only one meeting, which took place at the Thai Foreign Ministry in December of 2003. The so-called first-hand information provided by Burma's then foreign minister Win Aung was the same junta line available from its mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar.

In the end, the Thai government's roadmap for democracy in Burma never got out of the starting block. The administration's main contact in Rangoon, former prime minister Khin Nyunt, was purged in October of 2004, and since then Thailand has been scratching its head as to how to deal with Burma.

As for other neighbours, sad to say, Thaksin's generous policies have not been reciprocated, as evidenced by the anti-Thai riots in Cambodia and Laos' outright refusal to take back Hmong refugees who are living in a condition of political limbo in northeastern Thailand.

While relations with Burma were stranded in purgatory, ties with Muslim countries in the region hit a sour note because of the government's handling of violence in the Malay-speaking deep South.

Domestically the government proved incapable of forming a united front to deal with the violence, so obviously one can imagine the level of international consensus on the issue. In spite of their inability to bring the violence under control, the one thing that all the various agencies agreed on is that they opposed outside intervention into what they deemed domestic affairs.

As a man who was initially billed as the next leader of Southeast Asia, Thaksin's handling of the South may have been a fatal blow to his aspirations as he managed to alienate Muslims, who make up about half of Asean's citizens.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)'s harsh statement responding to the massacre at Tak Bai forced Thailand to dispatch three envoys to Saudi Arabia to help clear the air.

OIC representatives were invited to tour the region, but in the end nothing really changed as the organisation slammed Thailand again following the exodus of 131 villagers from Narathiwat, who fled over the border to northern Malaysia.

At the 2004 Asean summit in Vientiane, Thaksin nearly brought the regional grouping to its knees when he threatened to walk out if Indonesia or Malaysia raised any concerns about the South. A compromise was reached when the topic was discussed at a pre-summit working dinner on the condition that there would be no questions following Thaksin's briefing.

But bitterness between Thailand and its Muslim neighbours did not end at the summit in Laos. Bilateral ties between Thailand and Malaysia continued to plummet, especially when Kuala Lumpur permitted the UN refugee agency to interview the 131 Narathiwat villagers.

In a sign of the shifting focus, Thaksin, who was at the centre of the 2004 summit, was very much out of the limelight at the 2005 Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur, where Malaysia took the lead in turning up the heat on Burma.

The meeting ended with an Asean endorsement for Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar to go to Rangoon to obtain first-hand information about the political deadlock. On a separate issue, Indonesia exerted its growing influence in its push for a blueprint of the Asean Security Community.

Syed may have been disappointed with Burmese foot-dragging during his visit, but at the least, Kuala Lumpur demonstrated that it too had a stake in the country's future because Burma's "domestic problem" was taking its toll on the region as a whole.

In another effort to make his mark abroad, Thaksin expressed the desire to contribute to six-party talks aimed at ending the nuclear deadlock on the Korean peninsula and dispatched Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon to Pyongyang for a bilateral visit last August.

Kantathi talked up the possibility of helping facilitate the stalled six-party talks, but nothing ever came of the effort.

At the 2005 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, however, President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono was able to claim that Indonesia had made some headway with North Korea. Pyongyang had earlier said that it would like to see Indonesia play a role in the stand-off.

Amid a myriad of setbacks, Thaksin still can point to the bright spot provided by his deputy Surakiart Sathirathai. At the least, the premier can say without hesitation that Asean has endorsed the Thai candidate to replace Kofi Annan as UN secretary-general later this year.

And every time Thailand's envoys meet with foreign dignitaries, backing for Surakiart's candidacy goes up a notch. The last count of supporters announced was 128 countries.

While the past five years have seen many of Thaksin's initiatives go out the window, Surakiart, for the time being, remains one of the premier's last hopes for a memorable foreign-policy legacy.

This is the second of two articles on Thaksin Shinawatra's international profile over the past five years.

Don Pathan,

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation