For two thought-provoking days—May 31 to June 1, 2012—Bangkok played host to the 21st World Economic Forum on East Asia, a first for Thailand. The arrangements for the event, which was staged at the swank Shangri-la Hotel on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, were made in early 2011 at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, by former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose unexplained absence from the event here was duly noted. Thai politics are not to be trifled with.