On track for success Share CLOSE Surasit Thanadtang, director of the Thai-Chinese Strategic Research Center at the National Research Council of Thailand, says the leadership of the Communist Party of China has put theories into practice to achieve national development. CHINA DAILY "If you want to be rich, you have to build roads." This was the Chinese proverb that Surasit Thanadtang, director of the Thai-Chinese Strategic Research Center at the National Research Council of Thailand, used to deploy when engaging with other experts during the drafting of the ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint in 2008. "At that time, we had the ASEAN connectivity plan, so I thought why don't we think about other strategic choices, not just those from Britain or the West," says Surasit, who believed that learning from China's railway technology could be a credible alternative for the region.