News Analysis Thailand is buying submarines that it doesn’t need from China, and China has no engines to put in them. How could this happen? Perhaps the Thai navy got bad advice. Perhaps Thai officials got paid off by the Chinese—it is one of Beijing’s favorite strategies when signing contracts for billions of dollars around the world. Whatever happened, China sold Thailand something it couldn’t deliver: Chinese submarines with German engines. When Germany’s engine maker, MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH, refused to provide the engines due to European Union sanctions from the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Beijing realized it had to provide something else, or lose the Thai contract and its own pride. The regime offered Thailand two old submarines, decommissioned from the Chinese navy. What an insult. They are only fit for training. Beijing also offered Bangkok two other kinds of engine to replace the German ones for the submarines. Vice …