University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities. / Department of English

This thesis is a genealogy of the Thai conception of détente in the long 1970s (1968-1980), largely based on newly declassified documents in Thailand. It argues that Thai détente marked a history of rupture in Thai foreign policy narrative that was fundamentally different from the hegemonic discourse of anticommunism. By the late 1960s, the latter had become seriously challenged by the deteriorating situation in the Vietnam War and exacerbated by the concomitant prospect of American retrenchment. This sequence of events resulted in discursive anxiety in Thailand and the idea of 'flexible diplomacy' was initiated by Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman to cope with the changed environment. Since then, détente emerged as a new diplomatic discourse to normalize relations with the Communist powers in general, and specifically, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The thesis closely examines three episodes of Thai détente, including that of Thanat Khoman (1968-1971), M.R. Kukrit Pramoj and Chatichai Choonhavan (1975-1976), and General Kriangsak Chomanan (1977-1980). It argues that each episode, epitomized by varying concepts of 'flexible diplomacy' and 'equidistance', developed out of discursive struggles between détente proponents and Cold Warriors. These struggles precipitated attempts to sustain the anticommunist discursive hegemony, which culminated in the military coups in November 1971 and October 1976. The thesis demonstrates how these coups can be interpreted as events born out of foreign policy, and specifically to deter, or at least temper, the course of détente. The thesis also asserts that, throughout the long 1970s, détente in general transformed Thai foreign relations with the Soviet Union and the PRC from the discourses of 'enemy' towards 'friend'. This diplomatic transformation was represented in numerous diplomatic practices, such as ping-pong or sports diplomacy, petro-diplomacy, trade, cultural diplomacy, the establishment of diplomatic relations, and normal state visits. Despite its decline in the early 1980s, the détente discourse remained intact and determined Thai diplomacy toward the Communist powers. Finally, the thesis interrogates the so-called bamboo or bending-with-the-wind diplomacy, which is often treated as an ahistorical 'tradition' of Thai diplomacy, and argues that bamboo diplomacy emerged as a new narrative or knowledge only in the early 1970s. It aimed at not only legitimizing Thailand's changing diplomatic practices, namely détente, but also constituting the metanarrative that could explain and evaluate (the success or failure of) Thai diplomacy in the past. This narrative was then an invented tradition, which was socially and epistemically constructed as a result of the transformative practices of détente in Thailand. By tracing the birth of bamboo diplomacy, the thesis constitutes a history of the present.

楊晶. / "2004年6月". / 論文(藝術碩士)--香港中文大學, 2004. / 參考文獻 (leaves 32-34). / 附中英文摘要. / "2004 nian 6 yue". / Yang Jing. / Lun wen (yi shu shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2004. / Can kao wen xian (leaves 32-34). / Fu Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / 前言 --- p.1-2 / Chapter 第一章 --- 歷史中的色彩回顧 --- p.3-11 / Chapter (一) --- 開創時期 --- p.3-6 / Chapter (二) --- 發展時期 --- p.6-9 / Chapter (三) --- 衰落時期 --- p.10-11 / Chapter 第二章 --- 二十世紀中的「創新」課題 --- p.12-18 / Chapter (一) --- 以古開今 --- p.13-14 / Chapter (二) --- 中外融合 --- p.15-18 / Chapter 第三章 --- 色彩創新與自我探索 --- p.19-31 / Chapter (一) --- 用色觀念 --- p.20-25 / Chapter (二) --- 著色技巧 --- p.25-27 / Chapter (三) --- 顏料運用 --- p.27-31 / 後記 --- p.32 / 附錄一參考書目 / 附錄二圖版

Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a poet known for his performances and as an organiser of poetry events, as a participant in the British Poetry Revival, as a late-modernist and as a sound and concrete poet. This thesis seeks to reconfigure our view of Cobbing as a performer by considering his performances across a range of institutions to argue that this institutionalised nature was their defining aspect. It maps the transition from Cobbing’s defence of amateurism and localism in the 1950s to his self-definition as a professional poet in the mid 1960s and his attempt to professionalise poetry in the 1970s. This process was not uncontested: at each stage the idea of the poet and the reality of what it meant to live as a poet were at stake The first chapter considers Cobbing’s poems and visual artworks of the 1950s in the context of Hendon Arts Together, the suburban amateur arts organisation he ran for ten years, and it situates both in Britain’s postwar social and cultural welfare system. Chapter two analyses Cobbing’s transition from Finchley’s local art circles to his creative and organisational participation in London’s international counterculture, specifically the Destruction in Art Symposium (9-11 September 1966). Chapter three considers ABC in Sound in the context of the International Poetry Incarnation (11 June 1965) and analyses Cobbing’s emergence as a professional poet. Chapter four examines Cobbing’s tape-based poems of 1965-1970 and their associated visual scores in the context of audio technology, and the role they played in Cobbing’s professionalisation. The final chapter examines Cobbing’s performances at the Poetry Society (1968- 1978) in order to investigate the effects of subsidy and friendship on poetic performance.

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