The former leader of Thailand’s now-defunct Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat was in Taiwan last week for the Yushan Forum, but the visit was not reported because of Pita’s desire to maintain a low profile at the event.
During a weekly briefing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Director Peter Lan (藍夏禮) said Pita was invited by the organizers of the annual Yushan Forum to speak as a guest.
Lan confirmed that Pita was in Taiwan as a Harvard Kennedy School of Government academic and spoke on the forum’s second and final day on Tuesday last week in a morning roundtable session titled “Forging a New Common Vision for the Indo-Pacific.”
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Asked if Pita, a former member of the Thai House of Representatives, had any other meetings in Taiwan, Lan said he was in Taiwan only to attend the Yushan Forum and events related to it, without elaborating or explaining why Pita wanted it to remain low-key.
He did not take media inquiries while in Taiwan, and the only official recognition of his visit was a news release and photographs released by Yushan Forum organizers showing Pita speaking at the forum.
The Thai politician also posted a photograph of himself in a coffee shop in Taipei on March 16.
An unnamed source said that Pita might have wanted to stay low key because of Thai laws forbidding him from engaging in politics.
Pita led the Move Forward Party to become Thailand’s largest party in the 2023 general election and had announced his plan to be elected prime minister.
However, in the first round of parliamentary voting on July 13, 2023, he was not elected by the National Assembly because he lacked votes from the Thai Senate.
During an interview with CNA on May 2023, Pita said several of the policies adopted by his Move Forward Party and its prospective coalition partners were based on those implemented by Taiwan.
“A lot of our policies are based on the Taiwanese experience,” Pita said, citing the uniform invoice lottery system, which aims to encourage people to ask for a receipt in a bid to reduce tax evasion.
He also said that marriage equality was another issue where his party hoped to follow the lead of Taiwan.
Pita resigned as leader of Move Forward Party in September 2023.
In August last year, the party was disbanded by the Thai Constitutional Court in a ruling that barred Pita and other party executives from politics for 10 years.
He later became a member of the Move Forward successor, the People’s Party, and began a fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government late last year.
The Yushan Forum, hosted by the ministry and the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation, aims to deepen Taiwan’s partnerships with countries in Asia and beyond by fostering regional dialogue and expanding multilateral opportunities for cooperation, the event’s Web site says.
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