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The Democrat-led government's new foreign policy does not have any slogan--often practiced by the previous governments in the past eight years. The nine-point template quickly aims at restoring Thailand's oversea creditability and promoting good relations with at three levels--with neighboring countries, Asean and the international community as a whole. It seeks to protect the rights and interests of oversea Thai workers and investors as well as strengthening the Thai communities in foreign countries.

The Thai diplomacy has also broken two new diplomatic grounds: overall cooperation with the Asean and Muslim countries. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sets forth succinctly his government's commitment to Asean and its newly enforced charter. As the current Asean chair, Thailand will ensure that the charter is faithfully followed and that the planned Asean Community in 2015 becomes a reality.

Specifically, Thailand will work together the Asean members to promote the respect of human rights and eventually transform Asean into a people-centered organization. Moreover, the Abhisit-led government would raise the grouping's international profiles and broaden the cope of cooperation with Asia and the rest of the world under various economic frameworks.

Beefing up the Asean policy represents a huge shift in the country's diplomatic practice over the past three decades. The Kukrit government (1975-1976) was the first Thai government to put Asean as part of its foreign policy. The next 23 governments after that included the Asean element in their policy announcements on foreign affairs. However, they did not give prominence to Asean and spell out in concrete terms what Thailand would undertake as the present government is doing.

Ending the ongoing violence and conflict in the three southern provinces has now been incorporated into Thai diplomacy as never before seen. Indeed, it is a remarkable step for the Thai government to recognize the international dimension of the insurgent problem albeit the strong denials from the Thai security apparatus. Thailand is hopeful that closer cooperation with the Muslim countries and Jeddah-based Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) would not only promote better mutual understandings but also contribute to the effort in searching for acceptable solutions.

Thailand became an OIC observer in early 1999 under former Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan's tutelage--long before the southern crisis became the daily news headlines. In the past eight years, uneven attention and inconsistency policies of successive governments including domestic predicaments have eroded the once closed and significant connection, not to mention the observer status in other forums such as the Organization of American States, Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. In private conservations before he became prime minister, Abhisit vowed to redouble efforts to restore confidence with the 57-member grouping.

Today's platform has followed the gist of policy directions adopted during the Chuan government (1997-2001) right after the collapse of country's economy. At that time, Thailand had to bite the bullets as the country urgently needed to restore confidence in the international community and stopped the economy from free-fall by ensuring the continuation of inflow foreign investment and trade deals. The country was at the mercy of sympathy and assistance, especially those from various international financial institutions.

Apart from economic remedies and strengthening ties with foreign countries, the Thai diplomacy a decade ago brought great shock to the region as one of its pillars focused on the promotion of human rights and democracy. It was the first time a developing country adopted such noble diplomatic objectives.

Ironically, it was Surin, currently serving as the Asean secretary general, who pushed and transformed the Asean passivity into a pro-active mode--enhancing discussion and cooperation on transnational ssues affecting peace and security in the grouping and beyond. For instance, the Chuan government's views and stands on Burma were well documented as they were principled and firm, no wavering and laced with conflict of interest. It is notable that Chuan was the only Asean leader who refused to visit Burma during his premiership due to the political oppression there.

It is quite fortunate that Thailand has a new government with a young prime minister with liberal outlooks during the transitional period of Asean. The Asean chair is the best platform for him to bring back the country's confidence and reputation. Previous two prime ministers Somchai Wongsawat and Samak Sundravej were clueless on Asean. The former did not utter anything related to Asean that would demonstrate his understanding and vision. The latter was similar even though he boasted endlessly how close he was with the Asean leaders, especially the Burmese junta leaders.

As the youngest leader to chair the summit, Abhisit has taken up the challenge by embracing the Asean Charter as a new regional benchmark. It provides the much-needed legitimacy for Thailand to combine the human right elements as part of its overall schemes of cooperation in Asean. In the previous Democrat-led government, this was an ideal component. With the Asean Charter, it is more realistic now to bring into fruition. The chair and Asean are finalizing the terms of reference for the establishing of a human rights body, which will be set up at the end of next year. Remaining bone of contentions is how to balance the protection of state security and the broader human rights and human security of the 575 million Asean citizens.

It would be interesting to watch how other Asean members would react to the greenhorn leader and the new Thai diplomacy. Countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines would certainly welcome the revival of Thai interest regarding human rights and political freedom, after a lapse of eight years. These two countries have worked hard to promote openness within Asean but so far with limited success.

Thailand would need a stable government and predictable political environment to carry out these objectives. Most importantly, Abhisit must demonstrate his decisiveness in ending the culture of impunity proliferating in the Thai society. Cases of enforced disappearances, violations of human rights and injustice in the south and the rest of the country must be swiftly dealt with. Any delay and discrepancy between policies and implementations would severely undermine his leadership and break Thai foreign policy tools he has invented to use.