Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the US-Thai Treaty of Amity, specifically the provision in the Treaty of Amity that notes that Companies which are determined to be American Companies in Thailand, and as we have noted in other videos there is a certification process associated with gaining recognition as an American Company in Thailand that is integral to being granted Amity Certification and therefore Amity status and therefore "National treatment" but once that certification is obtained and formalized, that means that that "National Treatment" means that that Company is treated as if it were a Thai Company. It is granted quite literally National Treatment, treatment as a national.

I was just thinking about this while recently I was watching a rather old series, it was based on a book by James Clavell based on Hong Kong, it is called Noble House. I was thinking of this when watching the series I got a copy of it from a friend and I was able to watch the series. I hadn't seen the series in years. For those who are interested, it is worth a watch. I am not implying in this video that there are necessarily a lot of similarities between Hong Kong and Thailand; I am not conflating the two. I'm very well aware of the differences in culture, the differences in history; a lot of different things. Thailand and China and Hong Kong are different things. I'm not trying to conflate things unnecessarily.

But the reason for the video, there were a number of scenes in the series where it is made clear that "old friend status" is very important in Hong Kong China at the time. This was set in the '80s, the late 80s and at one point, even it's asked of a rather senior person whether someone can be granted "old friend status" and at one point one person even says I want "old friends status" with all of that implies and there is a great deal of sort of mutual respect might be the right word but just sort of giving someone the benefit of the doubt under certain circumstances, kind of thing. This was all implied and it gets rather deep into kind of Asian thinking. I find this stuff rather fascinating just on a personal level but this notion of "old friend status", I am not saying that is an apples to apples comparison between that notion, in the context of that particular book and that particular series, I am not saying it is an apple and apple comparison between that notion and what is called National treatment under the Amity Treaty, but there is something there in the sense that the US-Thai Treaty of Amity goes back 190 years and it has seen Thailand and the United States’ alliance last for nearly two centuries and it has seen both countries through a lot of turbulence in the wider world; we have just seen a lot of strange things have happened in the interim: I mean colonialism, a cold war, a lot of stuff after the Cold War has transpired but yet, Thailand and the United States are still old friends basically. When I was thinking of that I thought yeah, to kind of give a little bit more nuanced understanding of what it means if a company in Thailand has National Treatment, well it does mean something to Thailand, it is treated as if it's a Thai Company with all that that implies. Those who I have seen doing business, including our firm when we first started out here, we got started out here, we got started under Amity, I have since become Thai so that kind of changes things with respect to how that all works, but it has proven to be a very beneficial thing to be able to do business under that kind of rubric when compared to dealing with things like the Foreign Business Act here in the Kingdom of Thailand.