Indonesia progressive, Thailand regressive - Who'd have thought it?

A decade or so ago, Indonesia and Thailand were the exact opposite of what they are now. Indonesia was a dictatorship while Thailand thrust itself forward headlong into progress and success...

Now look at the two countries today...

I missed this article when it was published a couple of weeks ago... but it's an interesting examination of how the roles of Thailand and Indonesia have reversed in recent years. I could have posted it in Thailand Could have been so much better or any number of threads here at Orient Expat... but I thought it'd make a nice addition to the Indonesia forum...

Peter Hartcher had better not visit Thailand in the future. He would likely be arrested at the airport for the 19th paragraph. Which ironically would just go to prove that his observation of Thailand heading down the toilet is a correct one.

"The essential difference is that Indonesian power elites universally respect the legitimising power of democracy. The Thais have not."

Right. And yet no mention of the fact that it was Thaksin who trampled on the first People's Constitution, bribed the electorate, enriched himself, subverted democracy by placing his stooges in supposedly neutral bodies like the Senate, presided over gross human rights violations and suppressed the press to an extent not seen since the old military dictators.

If Indonesia is more stable than Thailand is unclear, and such conclusions are nothing but speculation.

Economically it is considerable weaker, about half GNP/capita of Thailand. What is 'progressive' in Indonesia?

Not so small areas are totally off limits for foreigners in Indonesia, nothing is known to be done by the government to be friendly for long-stay/retirement or offering some property to foreigner to buy, marriage between Indonesian and Western foreigners is by far not that what you expect from a country of 245 million people etc. etc.

You cannot trust both of them I would say, Thailand and Indonesia.

I think, investors are rather fed up with Thailand and its restrictions and are now indeed looking around for other countries, which might offer better conditions. But Indonesia? I doubt it.

Mandrunk, on 30 May 2009 - 03:41 AM, said:

A counter argument... which sounds eerily like the UK to me...

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True, all these comparisons are ephemeral, nothing but a snapshot in time. But it's certainly true that opportunities for foreign mining and exploration companies in Indonesia are far better than Thailand. The issues of foreign ownership make Thailand a much tougher country to do business in, and the process of obtaining the necessary exploration and exploitation licences is far from routine and distinctly opaque. Whilst Indonesia is no walk in the park, it's far more foreign business friendly than Thailand.

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Same goes for very many developing countries, Indonesia does very well give its problems with geography, size of population, and in the case of Java - population density.