Thailand confirms purchase of 3 Chinese-made submarines

By P.S. Waller

BANGKOK (AA) – Thailand’s military government confirmed Friday that is set to purchase three submarines from China in a deal worth around $1 billion.

The Bangkok Post quoted Thailand’s deputy prime minister-cum-defense minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, as saying that the Chinese-made submarines would be bought one at a time for 12 billion baht ($342.3 million) each.

Starting with the fiscal 2017 budget, the purchases of the Yuan class S26T submarines, said to be fitted with new technology, would be financed over 10 years.

Wongsuwan insisted that there was a necessity for Thailand to acquire such submarines as the Southeast Asian country already had plenty of marine resources in the Andaman Sea.

The deal comes at a time when Bangkok has being making overtures toward China, the United States’ rival for hegemony in the region, since Thai generals overthrew an elected government and seized power in a May 2014 coup.

Analysts have remarked on a shift in Thailand's foreign policy amid condemnation of the coup, followed by a suspension of high-level visits to the kingdom by European Union and U.S. representatives.

In late May, Thailand became the first country to jump on a Chinese proposal to hold military drills with Southeast Asian nations allegedly aimed at easing tensions in the disputed South China Sea.

Wongsuwan had said, “we agree to go ahead with the drills, if other countries in the region also agree to take part.”

Apart from Thailand, none of the nine other Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, members -- several of whom have contesting claims with China in the resource-rich sea -- have yet expressed willingness to participate in the proposed military drills.

In December, the U.S. ambassador to Thailand, Glyn Davies, told reporters that Washington welcomed good relations between its oldest treaty ally in the region and China, insisting that the U.S. had not "lost" Thailand.