The banker said: "In China, politics is not a problem. The Chinese leaders are only discussing national development. If politics becomes a problem, they deal with it quickly and decisively."

Now China has racked up more than US$1 trillion (Bt35.6 trillion) in foreign exchange reserves. Its leaders are embarking on a global campaign to buy up strategic assets critical to China's long-term growth. China's leaders are everywhere - in Africa and South America - doing their shopping and establishing new contacts.

"It is very difficult to stop them. You know, they come with money," an ambassador from a Latin American country told me the other day.

Shortly after Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont's rise to power, a Government House official told me a similar story. "Thailand is not moving anywhere because our politics are horrible. Look at China, there is stability over there. Its leaders can focus on building the nation with new physical infrastructure and development projects. In a few years, China will become a superpower to be reckoned with."

We all know that China is a communist regime, but everybody takes its political system for granted. Insofar as there is stability and explosive growth potential, foreign funds and investors keep pouring their money into China.

Foreign funds, investors, media outlets and even global democratic leaders nowadays do not question when China will embrace democracy. They know that if they were to poke their noses into China's internal affairs, they would be sharply rebuked with something like "You'd better mind your own business". Case closed.

Back to Thailand, I am often disturbed by foreign analysts, media and outside watchers, who conveniently pick on Thailand. They rush to impose Western-style democracy on Thailand, yet they hardly dare to criticise China, whose political system is far more repressive.

Over dinner at a Western ambassador's residence, I heard a Thai diplomat ask her counterpart whether Singapore was enjoying more democracy than Thailand. "Is Singapore a democratic country? I don't think so," she said.

Again, few outsiders would dare to pick on Singapore's political regime. On the contrary, they praise Singapore's high competitiveness in global rankings.

Ever since Thailand experienced its latest military coup, it has a difficult story to tell the world. Outsiders are looking at us with suspicious eyes. Yes, we do love democracy and we hate military dictatorship, but the path towards democracy has not been smooth since 1932. To be frank, we are far from realising the democratic ideals that we have borrowed from the West.

Dr Anek Laothamatas, a well-known political scientist, is quite realistic when he discusses Thai democracy. At a recent seminar, he said democracy puts a demand on individuals to make informed choices and to bear responsibility for society as a whole. But Thais are more used to the patronage system. Their instinct is to look to a leader. From his observations, Anek does not think Western-style democracy is suitable for Thailand. We have to find ways to fine-tune our own democracy.

When Thaksin Shinawatra was in power, everybody - every agency, organisation and institution - rushed to him to get a piece of the action. In no time, Thaksin, under the guise of an elected leader, became the ultimate benefactor of this gigantic patronage system.

He was blessed with the 1997 constitution. He got a chance to become Thailand's greatest leader ever. As I have repeatedly said, if his regime was less greedy and less arrogant by 25 per cent, Thaksin would have survived.

Thai democracy was given a chance to prosper under Thaksin's rule, but he screwed it up badly. Much worse, he tried to create a police state and invited the military out of the barracks by pitting them against each other. The military, which has been removed from politics since the tragedy in May 1992, said "thank you". In the meantime, his regime was so corrupt that when the September 19 coup took place, the Thais accepted it as a fait accompli.

We are back to a learning curve for democracy again. Dr Chai-anan Samudvanija, another well-known political scientist, drew a rather bleak picture of the future of Thai democracy. The military will have a strong influence on informal politics, he said, and bureaucrats will get their act together to reclaim their lost power from the Thaksin era.

The new constitution might retract several democratic ideals that were present in the 1997 constitution. The current military rulers will still try to pull the strings from behind the scenes. Thaksin and his cronies will be defending their court cases over the next two to three years. The chain of unpleasant events ahead can be traced back to our patronage system that we have yet to overcome. Instead of pushing for more democracy, Thaksin tried to take advantage and push the patronage system to its farthest limit.

In the meantime, who is to blame for the current political mess?

 Thanong Khanthong