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The last few years have been a total waste and a series of missed opportunities for Thailand. On top of political instability, internal division, turmoil, apathy and deficient vision, Thailand faces a double whammy of worldwide financial pandemic. With thorns in its side from both antagonists and "allies" alike, the current government has been dealt an extremely poor hand. But the fact is that, even if one cannot tell which way the political wind will blow tomorrow or next month, this does not mean that a long-term view should not be considered. After all, the future is all about the big picture.

One of Thailand's top economists - perhaps respected and understood more overseas than at home - has offered an interesting viewpoint.

Thailand is now at a crossroads that will turn into a dead end if we do not make a turn in our macro-economic structure. Fundamentally, we have two options. We can take Thailand to the world in the next few decades, or we can bring the world to us.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s General Prem Tinsulanonda, the then prime minister, spearheaded and successfully implemented economic policies that brought Thailand into the orbit of export-led industrialisation. Those policies led to the establishment of Maptaput and several other industrial estates, to the utilisation of natural gas as a major power source, and to partnerships with Japan that have helped develop Thailand as a manufacturing base for Japanese products, especially automobiles (which later earned Thailand the nickname, the "Detroit of Asia"). It was those policies that led to the impressive increase in Thailand's export per GDP ratio from a single digit to more than 60 per cent today.

Now, Maptaput has become an environmental and political hot potato, to put it mildly. It epitomises our outdated manufacturing mode as well as our inefficient and incoherent policies. In the meantime, newcomers have sprung up in the segments of the world market once occupied by Thailand's exports, rendering competition more intense, while consumers' preferences and expectations have changed, especially as a result of the new shifts in the world economic and financial order.

The Thai private sector is good at adapting to world trade and economic conditions, but it is only one part of the whole picture and, as such, cannot offer a total and sustainable solution. In order for Thailand to become competitive again economically, the public sector will have to play its part in formulating a new national policy direction and strategy.

If Thailand is to continue on the path of export-led industrialisation with growth and wealth generated by export revenue, we need a re-calibrated economic paradigm which is a niche-based structure to achieve a new competitive advantage vis-a-vis major regional players like China and India.

Thailand will have to embark on capital-intensive investment to transform its industrial fundamentals including transportation, infrastructure, human resource development (to produce more skilled and reliable labour), research and development, new sources of power (such as nuclear as well as renewable energy), new sites and models for industrial estates, waste management and logistics and finance, among many other things.

The country will have to re-formulate and articulate comprehensive supporting strategies and policies such as investment incentives, multinational cooperation frameworks and methodology as well as legal frameworks that will make Thailand a more attractive destination for foreign direct investment. Under this scenario, the government, especially the Foreign and Commerce ministries, will have to take the new and improved "Thailand Corporation" and its products into the world market, whose landscape in the coming decades will be drastically different from anything we have become familiar with to date.

The other scenario is aimed at bringing the world to Thailand. We can say forget about industrialisation, we will become the food hub of the world by making our agricultural sector a world class segment of the global market in terms of maximised and sustainable yields and quality products with the highest degree of food safety and environmental protection. We can also make Thailand a service-based economy by focusing on a few areas in which we truly have, and can maintain, a comparative advantage, such as tourism, health care, and as a long-stay destination for international retirees. Again, under this scenario, fundamental changes to the legal and regulatory framework will be needed.

Some of these changes will go against the deep-seated mindset on certain matters, but the leadership will have to do what it is elected to do - namely to lead and to serve the best interests of Thailand, and not to succumb to political expediency and ill-guided, misplaced nationalism and false pride.

As a nation never to have been colonised, Thailand should feel adequately self-assured. Insecurity breeds xenophobia, which will prove ruinous in the precarious brave new world we will henceforth inhabit. Hubris and complacency are to be avoided because they are nothing but the yoke that hinders our progress. But most important of all, political stability is both a necessary and sufficient condition for the fundamental changes dictated by the new global environment. Without it, no meaningful changes, large or small, can take place.

Lest we forget, we are writing a new chapter for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Lest we forget, they, like all of our warring factions, are called "Thai". To leave them a better place to live and prosper in is our responsibility, and it will be our legacy. In the final analysis, we have to decide which way to go, put our heads together, and make it happen.

It is up to all of us to get our act together, think of the interests of the country, and stop pulling each other's hair out - until death do us part.