Burma’s southeastern neighbor is the Kingdom of Thailand, the storied place of 19th century Siam of which famous musicals are made; and a favorite place for tourism and study today. It is unique among our ten countries of Southeast Asia for never having been colonized by a European power. Like Burma, Thailand escaped major damage during World War II. This came not from its distance from action but from the stain of collaboration with the Japanese which Thai leaders used to greatly enlarge the size of Thailand at the expense of neighbors. At the end of the war, Thailand held Lao and Cambodian territories, four states of northern Malaya, as well as two Shan states in Burma granted by the Japanese; and pressure to return these lands by France, Great Britain and the United States created the character of Thailand’s relationship with the West in the first years after 1945. Thailand returned territories to the status quo ante, and was favored by the Western powers for its nodding toward parliamentary democracy in 1946-47, its relative political quiet; for Thai material support in Korea in the 1950s, and in the regional security pact, SEATO.
Since the end of World War II, Thailand’s security concerns focused primarily on the states of former French Indochina – Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In the early 1960s, Thailand’s security concerns became American ones. Communist (Viet Minh) successes throughout the region set forces in motion that worked to profoundly change Thailand. Despite army corruption within Thai governments and a constitution based on the authoritarian models of Gaullist France and Nasser’s United Arab Republic, military and economic aid to Thailand increased steadily. Events in Laos in 1963 even led to agreements with the U.S. that the Americans would defend Thailand if threatened or attacked outright. In return for defense guarantees, Thailand supported the United States in Vietnam.
These agreements had mutual military benefits of course, but U.S. military spending had large collateral effects on the Thai economy and society. As a rear-area destination for American servicemen on leave, Bangkok for example exploded with high-rises, nightclubs, prostitution, financial institutions, and general construction; and a population that doubled to 1.7 million people from 1960 to 1975 (Steinberg 390). Through the 1960s, the economy expanded at a torrid 7% clip, doubling in a decade. Economic expansion led to pressure to broaden political participation, and in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Thailand began to democratize with rallies, demonstrations, and a welter of political parties asking for a new constitution to match the pressure for change. The world petroleum crisis and apprehensions from the American pull-out from Vietnam caused the reassertion of military authoritarianism in 1973. Still, the 1960s created a more urban and college-educated Thailand, and a middle class.
(Chaing Mai University – 1964; and Khon Kaen University – 1966)
match for foreign exchange students