No one doubts that the U. S. network in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, which is basically made up of NGO workers, missionaries and retirees, wants consular services. structure at a cost of US$300 million? To be opened in 2023, the diplomatic mission buildings will occupy no less than 6. 6 acres, or 26,709 square meters, of land in a business park on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. In a colorful online brochure, the U. S. Consul General. . . The U. S. Department of Homeland Security in Chiang Mai describes the assignment as “a concrete sign of our long-term commitment to the other people of northern Thailand and the long-term nature of our partnership” and the text goes on to state that the U. S. Consulate General is a long-term commitment to the other people of Northern Thailand and the long-term nature of our partnership. “The U. S. Department of Homeland Security is “dedicated to serving the local American network or those who wish to the United States. “

While all of this is possibly accurate, Michael Vatikiotis, a Singapore-based British analyst, said in an op-ed for Nikkei Asia on Jan. 7 that Beijing is contemplating building such a giant diplomatic complex just 500 kilometers from the border with China. even closer to Myanmar and Laos “in a bid to increase existing U. S. intelligence-gathering capacity in northern Thailand. “

The covert activity of EE. UU. de this type would have compatibility with the broader picture of geostrategic rivalries in the region. China’s rise as an economic and political superpower in Asia has been accompanied by the formation of new alliances in the region. The first, the Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which was created in 2007 and brings together the United States, Japan, India and Australia. Then, on September 15 last year, the formation of AUKUS, or the Australia-UK-US Pact, was announced, with the express aim of coordinating activities in the spaces of “cyber capabilities, synthetic intelligence, quantum technologies and other submarine capabilities”. Under the terms of the pact, the United States and the United Kingdom will help Australia obtain nuclear-powered submarines.

Both pacts are widely noted as efforts to counter China’s influence in the disputed South China Sea and common Chinese navy incursions into the Indian Ocean. This did not escape Beijing, which condemned in particular the creation of AUKUS. Just two days after the pact was announced, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the alliance threatens to “seriously damage regional peace. . . and intensify the arms race. ” He also criticized what he called “the outmoded Cold War mentality” of the pact members and warned them that they were “harming their own interests. “

In an editorial published in Global Times, spokesman for the Chinese Communist Party, on September 30, the rhetoric is even more brutal and scathing: “The 3 countries, drawing lines based on ideology, have built a new military bloc that will exacerbate geopolitical tensions. The foreign network rejects the Cold War and its divisions, yet the U. S. The US blatantly violates its political claims of having no interaction in a new Cold War and joins forces with others to create a small Anglo-Saxon “clique”, highlighting non-public geopolitical interest over the foreign network. . solidarity. This is a typical Cold War mentality. “

The editorial also warned of the danger of an escalation of the arms race: “This resolution will prompt countries in the region to boost the progression of the army’s capabilities, and even seek to cross the nuclear threshold and increase the threat of military conflict. “. The United States, on the one hand, imposes sanctions and represses certain countries to inspire them to expand their nuclear capabilities, while blatantly moving nuclear technologies to non-nuclear states. It’s a typical double standard. “

The Global Times editorial did not elaborate on the reference to the nuclear proliferation option, and indeed Australia will not be a nuclear force just because it is on the verge of winning nuclear-powered submarines. But the harsh rhetoric shows how involved the Chinese government is and that the war lines of the new Cold War are clearer. China is seen as the enemy of a number of countries that see themselves as guardians of democratic values. Increasingly prosperous Asia is a massive market for customer goods and the region is rich in herbal and mineral resources that many countries are eager to exploit.

This festival can also be noticed on land and it is no coincidence that Chiang Mai has been selected as a strategic listening post in the region. And in that sense, it turns out that the old ghosts have come back to life. The Americans first established a diplomatic project in Chiang Mai in 1950, and it was then primarily an intelligence station that coordinated for the nationalist Chinese, the Kuomintang, the forces that had withdrawn to Shan State in eastern Myanmar after his defeat in the Chinese Civil War. . A chain of bases has been established across the border in Shan State and north along the Chinese border. Unlike Thailand’s Chiang Rai province, the small airstrip at Möng Hsat has been redeveloped into a formidable air base capable of receiving C-46 and C-47 transport planes, which have brought weapons, ammunition and medical supplies. This dramatic buildup was a joint venture between the ROC Kuomintang government, which still controlled the island of Taiwan, and the US security government to encircle and attempt to recapture mainland China. But the effort failed miserably. The Shan State-based ‘Secret Kuomintang’ army tried no fewer than seven times in the early 1950s to invade China’s neighboring Yunnan province, but was continually pushed back across the border.

Then came the wars in Indochina, and the US consulate in Chiang Mai oversaw signals and human intelligence gathering in the region. Local agents were sent across the border, and the Americans and Thais had an extensive network of listening posts in northern Thailand. The main such facility was located in Ramasun, 20 kilometers south of Udon Thani, in northeastern Thailand. This base was first established in 1966, but later became an outpost for major facilities in Bangkok. In 1970, it was upgraded to an AN/FLR-9 Circular Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) station, a giant circular array of Wullenweber antennas commonly known by the nickname “Elephant Cage” because its shape resembled an elephant kraal. The Ramasun facility picked up radio traffic from Laos, southern China and northern Vietnam and monitored Chinese military movements in the region. More importantly, it served as the Army’s intelligence terminal for communications between the United States and its intelligence sites in Southeast and East Asia.

A similar signals intelligence facility has been set up near Lampang, 108 kilometers south of Chiang Mai, with the express goal of tracking radio traffic in northern Myanmar and Yunnan. Chinese language experts translated the intercepted messages into English, and the Burmese-speaking Shan translated the Burmese messages into Thai and English. A main target at the time was the Chinese-backed Communist Party of Burma (PCB). There was the option of a link between the CPB and the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), which would open a direct direction for the flow of arms from China to Southeast Asia. China’s plan at the time was to use Myanmar as a springboard to succeed not only in the CPT but, at least until the 1960s, the communist movements in Malaysia (now Malaysia) and Indonesia.

The Ramasun “elephant cage” was officially dismantled in 1976, a year after the end of the Indochina wars, and in 1975 Thailand also transferred popularity to the People’s Republic of China from the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Americans withdrew and the Thais took over the operation of the Ramasun and Lampang facilities. Over the years, elephant cages have become obsolete and, in May 1986, the last of them, in Alaska, was taken out of service. Today, there are more complex and complicated tactics for monitoring movements in cyberspace as well as in the field.

The existing American project in Chiang Mai is located in old buildings overlooking the banks of the Ping River. Some of them were built more than a hundred years ago and then called the Chedi Ngam Palace or the charming Pagoda Palace. The complex once served as the apartment of the last ruler of northern Thailand, Chao Kaew Nawarat, who died in 1939. After that, it became the government’s estate, and 11 years later, the Americans moved in and turned it into a consulate. It is vital not to forget that it remained a consulate until 1986 and then became a consulate general or a real foreign service project. Before 1986, yes it was an intelligence station, it also provides consular services.

No one knows what role the new U. S. Consulate General will play. When it opens next year. Apart from the evidence, that other people will pass by to obtain visas, for cultural events and to make a stopover in their libraries, the intelligence collection will be maximum. be a sensible top priority. Monitoring Myanmar will again be one of the main responsibilities of the Consulate General, although in another context, since China no longer exports the revolution. But Beijing’s expanding economic empire requires political cover and also influence in neighboring countries. Myanmar is right there, between Thailand and China, and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor is China’s only direct access to the Indian Ocean.

Already in 2017, China’s consul general in Chiang Mai, Ren Yisheng, spoke about Beijing’s multi-billion dollar infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, at the city’s university. Two years later, Ren attended a similar convention in Chiang Rai focused on progress in the so-called Greater Mekong subregion, which includes parts of southern China, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. Even China happens to have made Chiang Mai and its consulate general there a base for its plans for the region.

Chinese boats with armed police, noted by this correspondent, also venture for the first time in history on the Mekong River, almost to the river crossing where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. This might not be seen as a major risk to the region. However, it is a new progression that China’s adversaries would be interested in monitoring. And although the U. S. While the U. S. strongly condemned the Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar last year, China is reaching out to the generals. In August, China transferred $6 million to Myanmar to be used for projects and systems under Beijing’s Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Framework, a small but vital move in the broader scheme of things. Then there are the internal insurgencies in Myanmar, where China has close ties to the Wa State Army, while its rival, the Shan State Restoration Council receives the maximum of its materials from Thailand.

The new Cold War may not yet be as hot as the past, but it is clear that the Americans and their allies Quad and AUKUS are building a bulwark against China and that the construction of a new U. S. consulate general is not going to be a new U. S. consulate general. The U. S. in Chiang Mai is part of that strategy. But we can only wait and see what this means for the region, and especially for Myanmar’s suffering and vulnerability. There is still a long way to go before we see a return to the open clashes of the 50s, 60s and 1970s. But then again, Myanmar would possibly be in the midst of a geopolitical storm.

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