For most of us, a bad conference experience means drying up at the microphone. For Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai prime minister, it means having to ask your army to evacuate the prime minister of China and half a dozen other national leaders because protesters are smashing up your conference centre.

Mr Abhisit’s rather hopeless security got the blame for the collapse of the annual summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Pattaya in April, not least because many of the guests could have done a better job themselves – just ask Wen Jiabao, the Chinese leader, or Thein Sein, the Burmese prime minister.