By throwing a lifeline to Burma's military government, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has made clear where his sympathies lie - with the oppressors rather than the oppressed of that Southeast Asian country, critics here say.
This week's announcement by the Thaksin administration that "friendly efforts" are the best way to nudge the junta in Rangoon to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi also reflects Bangkok's faith in what has been called the discredited notion of "Asian values".
For years, leaders of authoritarian governments in Southeast Asia used the phrase "Asian values" to justify the suppression of human rights and political liberties for the sake of economic development. Often, it was also used to justify a non-confrontational approach with one's neighbors.
Thailand also sought to drum up support for its diplomatic gambit with Burma at a two-day gathering of foreign ministers from Europe, Southeast Asia and East Asia this week in Bali, Indonesia.
Central to its campaign was a "roadmap" that Bangkok has just submitted to Rangoon as the basis for resolving its political problems and pursuing genuine reconciliation and dialogue with Suu Kyi.
"Of course, we want to see the ultimate goal of democracy. But democracy has different shades. We cannot transplant democracy from any particular country to Burma overnight," Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai was quoted as saying in the newspaper The Nation ahead of the Bali meeting.
But at the same time, while Bangkok supports Rangoon and says the soft approach still works, it is showing little sympathy to the people of Burma, particularly ethnic groups, who have sought refuge in Thailand from violence and persecution at home.
In recent weeks, news reports say, Bangkok has threatened Burmese political activists with deportation if they indulge in political activity critical of the military government in their homeland. This has sown fear among the hundreds of Burmese exiles here, including those living in the border towns.
"The Thai prime minister's comments are disturbing. They have caused concern and many Burmese are taking precautions and lying low," said Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), a regional group that lobbies for human rights in Burma. "Even refugee organizations and aid workers are troubled by the threats."
In fact, Bangkok's attempts to coddle the Burma's dictatorship has placed it at odds with a leading voice of the region, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a strong advocate of the "Asian values" concept during his 22 years in power.
This week, Mahathir seemed to imply that even "Asian values" have their limits. He was quoted as having said that Burma could be expelled from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for failing to free Suu Kyi.
ASEAN, Southeast Asia's main diplomatic grouping, has 10 members - Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
"We have already informed them [the Myanmar government] that we are very disappointed with the turn of events and we hope that Aung San Suu Kyi will be released as soon as possible," Mahathir said.
Mahathir's warning is significant in that he was primarily responsible for bringing Myanmar into the ASEAN family in 1997, despite its troubling human-rights record since military rule began after a coup in 1962.
In the years since, Rangoon was able to gain some legitimacy and benefited from the protective cloak ASEAN threw around it as a member nation.
The junta found leaders such as Mahathir advocating the idea of non-interference - a key pillar in ASEAN - when there were calls from the West for political pressure to be applied on Burma. ASEAN stuck to its policy of "constructive engagement" with Rangoon.
But ASEAN's solidarity has been shaken up since May 30, when Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi and leading members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were taken into custody by the authorities after being attacked by gangs linked to the junta north of Rangoon.
The incident triggered global outrage, with calls from across the world for Suu Kyi's release. This arrest came a year after the NLD leader had been freed by the junta following 19 months of house arrest.
Soon after, Rangoon assured the United Nations special envoy to Burma, Razali Ismail, who was credited for his behind-the-scene moves for securing Suu Kyi's freedom from house arrest, that she would be released in a few weeks.
But the junta's failure to deliver has not impressed governments in Europe, Japan and the United States, which has led the way in moving to impose economic sanctions on Burma. US legislatures have approved a call to freeze the junta's assets in the United States and to ban imports from Burma.
In going against this current - even opposing the US sanctions regime - the Thai government is pinning its hopes on the premise that Yangon will be receptive to its accommodating gestures.
The seeds of this policy of appeasement were planted in 2001, after Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai) party swept into power with a convincing majority. But while Bangkok has sought to be cordial with Rangoon, its moves have not been reciprocated.
Last year, for instance, Rangoon arbitrarily closed the border in the wake of cross-border skirmishes and verbal assaults by sections of the Burmese media on the Thai monarchy, an institution revered in this country.
Furthermore, Bangkok has still to secure a sea change in Rangoon over the flow of drugs from Burma to Thailand. The junta has often been linked to the narcotics trade in Burma, which includes the supply of methamphetamines to Thailand.
In short, Stothard feels that the Thaksin administration has taken a big political gamble by being soft on the military government. "The more Thailand tries to appease the junta, the more [the junta] will treat [Thailand] with contempt," she said.