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China Lifts Thailand Travel Alert After Yingluck Visits Chinese Embassy in Bangkok


It seems Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand’s prime minister, attended a Chinese New Year party at the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok on Wednesday, along with Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul. During her time there, she spoke to the Chinese ambassador to Thailand, and asked if China could remove the travel alert put into place last week after the US Embassy warned of possible terrorist attacks in Bangkok.

Apparently, Yingluck must be a lot more persuasive with the Chinese than she was with the Americans as, where the Americans said “Not a chance”, the Chinese caved – and the travel alert has now been removed from the Chinese Embassy’s website.

Oddly, it still seems the Thai governnment is far more concerned about tourist dollars than they are about the safety of tourists coming to Thailand as, during the whole terror alert, all they’ve talked about is how it’s “damaging Thailand’s economy” and “harming tourism”.

Luckily, many Thais are as outraged about this as are westerners both living here and planning to travel to Thailand, particularly as the Thai police still say there’s at least one terror suspect on the loose.

China meanwhile is telling its citizens it’s safe to travel to Thailand, while the US and 18 other embassies are still keeping their travel alerts going, and warning their citizens to be careful.

Therefore, one must wonder, did China cave because it feels Thailand is safe, or simply as it prefers to do things the opposite of whatever America is doing?

Time will tell, it seems.