Thailand is one of the countries in Southeast Asia that has shown rapid development. Economically it has done very well. It recovered relatively easily from the financial crisis in 1997 and is showing good progress in recovering from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. It has liberalised in terms of trade, but it has also become more open politically.But of course there is one thing that you cannot do, and that is to criticise King Bhumibol. The Chronicle reports:
The government of Thailand has blocked access in that country to the Web site of Yale University Press. The move is in response to the site’s publicity material for The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej, a book in which the author criticizes the king of Thailand.The government will also ban importation of the biography, which Yale is to publish in July. At various times after an initial blockage of the Web site earlier this month, parts of it were viewable within Thailand. Now access is fully censored, with a notice that reads: This Web site has been blocked by Cyber Inspector, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.