This article centres on the nature of the Thai state amid a shifting global economic environment, examining it through the lens of foreign direct investment and specifically Japan’s declining foreign direct into the kingdom since 2015. It posits that the Thai state is neither a liberal democracy nor a liberal capitalist model and is instead akin to a deep and global competition-oriented state. Through this modality, the article examines recent drops in foreign investment, especially from Japan, and goes on to seek to explain said drops in foreign direct investment through a policy framework extracted from such a theoretical insight of the nature of the Thai state. The article concludes that falling foreign investment can be linked to the reception by Japan of recent policy imperatives and outputs in Thailand that operate on the level of a deep state–globality nexus.