THE GEOPOLITICS OF THAILAND:
A Kingdom in Flux
May 13, 2009
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THE GEOPOLITICS OF THAILAND:
A Kingdom in Flux
The Kingdom of Thailand, formerly Siam,
has never been colonized by a foreign
power. Throughout its history, Thailand has
been preoccupied with two things:
overcoming regional divisions to consolidate
central Thailand’s power and attracting
foreign wealth without allowing it to
undermine internal stability. On the surface,
the country’s politics fluctuate continuously
as successive governments attempt to
balance regional and foreign interests. Yet
Thailand’s economic and cultural core
remains relatively stable.
The Thai Heartland
The Southeast Asian peninsula extends south of the great Eurasian landmass, making it the most
prominent formation east of the Indian subcontinent and west of the Chinese mainland, and marking
the division between the Andaman Sea to
the west and the South China Sea to the
east. The northern portion of the peninsula
is bounded by low mountains and foothills
— the roots of the Himalayas. The rest of
the peninsula can be divided into two parts:
the Indochina Peninsula, a glob of land that
extends southeastward into the South China
Sea, and the Malay Peninsula, a long finger
that juts southward into the Indonesian
archipelago. Several big rivers flow down
from the Tibetan Plateau, including the
Irrawaddy, the Salween and the Mekong.
Thailand sits at the crux of the Indochina
and Malay peninsulas, forming the core of
the greater Southeast Asian peninsula and
overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. The Dawna
mountain range bounds the northern and
western extent of Thai territory, while the
Khorat Plateau, a grassy highland at the
base of the Indochina Peninsula, forms the
more permeable eastern boundary. North of
the Khorat Plateau, the Mekong River marks
the boundary line. In the south, Thailand
extends down the narrow bottleneck of the
Malay Peninsula until the point where it
widens. (click here to enlarge map)
Directly through the heart of this territory
runs the Chao Phraya River and its small
tributaries — the Ping, Wang, Yom and Nan
— all of which emerge from the northern
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mountains, where Doi Inthanon is the highest peak at 8,415 feet. These rivers are smaller than the
Salween and Mekong rivers that flow from higher altitudes. The Chao Phraya courses through the
fertile alluvial plains and lowlands that have become the Thai heartland, and forms a large delta where
it enters the gulf.
The Chao Phraya River basin was an ideal place for a civilization to thrive. The numerous rivers
provide a consistent source of water and form rich lowlands where fruit and especially rice can grow in
abundance. High humidity — Bangkok is one of the most humid cities in the world — is conducive to
agriculture as well as a sedentary lifestyle. The tropical climate is characterized by an alternating
warm, rainy monsoon from the southwest and a dry, cool monsoon from the northeast. Natural
features — mountains, a plateau escarpment and the gulf — hem in the basin on almost every side.
There are several theories about the
origins of the Tai people and when they
came to inhabit this region, most of which
hold that they were latecomers. The
original Tai likely emigrated from
southwestern China (modern Yunnan and
Sichuan provinces) from 1000 to 1400
A.D., traveling in separate waves and
breaking into different subgroups,
including Thai, Lao and Shan. They
established bases in the Himalayas to
fend off raids by Mongol armies and soon
descended into the lush plains below.
The Kingdom of Siam emerged around
1350 with its capital at Ayutthaya, on the
Chao Phraya River not far from the delta.
The region’s conditions provided for a
number of powerful city-states to emerge,
and Siam was not the first great Thai
power. But Siam’s strategic location near
the delta and gulf gave it several
advantages, such as being a receiving
point for rice grown upriver and a point of
contact for foreign maritime traders
willing to pay for surplus rice production,
which made Siam the preeminent Thai
power. (click here to enlarge map)
Borders and Periphery
Much of Thai history is the story of central
Thailand attempting to consolidate power
over three outlying provinces in the north,
northeast and south. During the 14th and
15th centuries, the young Siamese
kingdom expanded into surrounding areas
outside the Chao Phraya basin. With
considerable difficulty, it subordinated
three regions that formed its borders with
foreign kingdoms — the northern
mountains, the northeast plateau and the southernmost portions of the peninsula. In modern times,
central Thailand continues to exercise power over these regions, which provide defensible positions
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and strategic depth against potential threats from foreign powers but are also where resistance to
central rule remains the strongest.
The north is mountainous, affording shelter for those who would elude central power. In the 14th and
15th centuries, Siam’s first great rival was Lanna, the chief ethnic Thai kingdom in the north, based in
modern Chiang Mai. Lanna was older than the Siamese capital Ayutthaya. Its location in a fertile
mountain valley gave it enough protection from outside forces to resist Siam’s attempts to render it
subservient (it was not until 1874 that Bangkok fully subordinated Chiang Mai). Further differentiated
by its proximity to neighboring countries such as Burma, China and Laos, the north saw a communist
insurgency from the 1960s to the 1980s, and a lucrative opium trade has long thrived in the region,
giving rise to a particular strain of organized crime that now extends throughout the country. Ethnic
minorities in the mountains also have resisted Bangkok’s rule.
The outlying province in the northeast, or Isan region, comprises the Khorat Plateau, beyond the
natural boundary formed by the plateau escarpment. The region is mostly populated by ethnic Lao and
Khmer people who have variously been at odds with the Thai. Originally, Khorat was sought after by
both the Siamese and Khmer kingdoms for its labor force (even today about a third of Thailand’s
population lives in the northeast). But Siam seized Khorat after forcing the collapse of the Khmer
empire in the 14th century. In the late 19th century, the northeast region was contested by the French
in Indochina, leading to border skirmishes as the French tried to encroach into Siamese territory. In
the 20th century, Isan continued to differentiate itself from Bangkok as the “Northeastern Party” tried
to form an autonomous region in 1959, but was crushed by the Thai military. During the Cold War, the
region was especially susceptible to communist influence due to its relatively high population density
and poverty as well as its proximity to communist North Vietnam and communist movements in South
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In modern
times, the region continues to be a
source of resistance to political forces
based in Bangkok and central Thailand.
Central Thailand struggles to control the
southernmost parts of the Malay
Peninsula, where the population is mostly
Malay-speaking and Islamic, in contrast
to the country’s prevailing Thai language
and Theravada Buddhism. In the 15th
century, Siam’s progress to the south
was checked when it sought to push all
the way to the Straits of Malacca, a
crucial choke point for maritime trade
that lies at the southwestern tip of the
Malay Peninsula, which could have
enabled the Thai to develop still more rice
paddies, fisheries and trading posts on
the expanded coastline. Not only did the
Malays resist, but the Chinese, the
dominant military and maritime
commercial force at the time, supported
the Malay sultans so as not to have any
competition over the Straits of Malacca,
an important part of their trading empire.
Siam therefore fell short of gaining
control over the straits and was pushed
back farther up the peninsula. Nevertheless, the Siamese retained their own narrow part of the
peninsula, and from the peninsula’s west coast they still retain access to the Andaman Sea and Indian
Ocean where they can fish and conduct trade.
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In general, the southern region remains politically aligned with central Thailand, but Thai-Malay
stresses persist. Islamic opposition groups, motivated by Middle Eastern anti-colonial movements and,
more recently, by Islamic fundamentalism, have fought an insurgency there since 1948. This
insurgency flared in the 1950s and 1970s and has continued from 2002 to the present, resulting in
several thousand deaths since 2004.
In the 21st century the divisions between Thailand’s center and the main outlying regions persist,
particularly between Bangkok and the north and northeast (the southern troubles are mostly local and
self-contained). Controversial former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose term lasted from 2000
to 2006, has served as a lightning rod for regional tensions. Thaksin was born in Chiang Mai into a
family with business and political connections. His popularity and power in the north and northeast
provinces, his grip on the electoral process, and his close ties with foreign businesses (namely in
Singapore), struck a nerve in Bangkok, where the civil bureaucracy, the military and the monarchy
gradually came to feel threatened by his rule. This led to a military coup in 2006 (one of many in
modern Thai history) that ousted Thaksin.
Since the 2006 coup, Thai politics have been consumed by topsy-turvy squabbles between Thaksin’s
proxy parties and anti-Thaksin parties. Ultimately, however, the controversy over Thaksin does not
result from his personality or his alleged deeds and misdeeds, or even from many other episodes of
modern political upheaval. Rather, it reveals the regional tension between centrally located Bangkok
and the outlying north and northeast, and their competing networks of money and power. It embodies
the ancient rivalry between Siam and the northern kingdom of Lanna as well as between Siam and the
defiant northeast. It also taps into Thailand’s inherent resistance to foreign influence that is perceived
as threatening traditional Thai authority, given Thaksin’s affiliations with international big business
capable of challenging traditional power centers. Of course, today’s political factions do not organize
perfectly along regional lines — both urban and rural power brokers have allies and connections at
every level throughout the country. Opportunism allows key players to switch sides on a whim. But the
basic lines of battle reflect the center’s struggle to control the north and northeast, just as in the 14th
century.
External Threats
Beyond the outlying regions that Siam has
historically sought to control, and feeding
into regional uneasiness, lie foreign
adversaries, most formidably the Khmer
and the Burmese. Throughout history
these powers alternately defeated each
other in occasional battles, but none of
them proved capable of subordinating
another for any significant period of time.
During the era of European colonization,
the Burmese threat was replaced by a
British threat, and the Khmer threat
became a threat from the French, but the
dynamic remained essentially the same
for Thailand, stuck in the middle of two
hostile forces to its east and west.
Historically, Burma has been Thailand’s
most feared rival to the north and west. A
unified Burma is capable of crossing over
the mountains and descending rapidly into
the Chao Phraya lowlands, posing an
existential threat to the Thai heartland. In
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the 1500s, a united Burma emerged for the first time, and Burmese armies crushed Lanna in 1558 and
Ayutthaya in 1569, causing a nascent Siam to collapse. The pattern repeated itself in 1767, when a
reunified Burma sacked Siam once again. This time the Burmese razed Ayutthaya to the ground,
attempting to permanently crush their Siamese rivals. As before, the Burmese armies retreated soon
after and Siam reassembled. In 1782, order was restored by King Rama I, who established the
modern Siamese Chakri dynasty (still on the throne in 2009). Rama I moved the Siamese capital from
Ayutthaya to Bangkok, closer to the Chao Phraya Delta on the east riverbank. He consolidated power
across the country and put an end to wars with Burma in 1793.
Tensions with the Burmese have persisted in modern times. During World War II, the Siamese invaded
Burma’s Shan states and held them briefly. In the 21st century, Burma entered one of its periodic
incoherent phases — modern Myanmar consists of a military junta ruling over an anarchic state.
Militant independence movements, drug cartels and waves of immigrants have the potential to
destabilize Thai society, especially in border areas, but until it is able to congeal into a single power,
Myanmar does not pose a formidable military threat to Thailand.
Meanwhile, to the east, the Siamese sought to subordinate their Khmer rivals in Cambodia. Siam had
crushed the Khmer empire’s capital Angkor by the 1430s, forcing the Khmer to relocate to Phnom
Penh. Nevertheless, Phnom Penh remained a thorn in Siam’s side, whether by blocking Thai advances
eastward, raiding inside Siamese territory during times of internal weakness, extending its influence
into the Khorat Plateau, or attempting to take up coastline and gulf waters for its own fisheries and
trade. Siam occasionally attempted to push its eastward border to the Mekong River, and could do so
in relation to Laos, but it could never maintain such a deep incursion into the Cambodian heartland for
long. As a result, the boundary between the Thai and Khmer was ill-defined; both struggled for
hegemony over the Khorat Plateau
because it offered an advantageous
strategic highland as well as a muchneeded labor force. Siam also fought with
the Khmer kings to extend its
southeastern shoreline along the gulf to
maximize arable land and access to
fishing waters and foreign trade. Siam’s
interest in Cambodia was not limited to
Cambodia itself — it also wanted to
preempt any potential threat from powers
further east, such as Vietnam. The
occasionally violent outbursts over the
ancient Preah Vihear Temple, which both
Thailand and Cambodia claim as their
own, is a modern manifestation of
inherent Thai-Khmer tensions, as are
disputes over boundaries in the gulf.
In modern times, the threats from the
east and west were replaced by European
colonizers Britain and France. In the 19th
century, the British established
themselves in Burma and Malaysia, while
the French colonized Vietnam. Fears ran
wild in Bangkok that Siam was next to be
colonized. A crisis erupted in the 1890s
when the French pushed west of the
Mekong River, triggering border clashes with the Siamese. In the so-called Paknam Incident, France
blockaded Bangkok and sailed two gunboats up the Chao Phraya, forcing Siam to capitulate. The
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British prevented France from taking over Siam, but the two powers agreed to divide it between
themselves at an opportune time.
This was, and still is, Thailand’s nightmare scenario: to fall under foreign dominion (regardless of who
the foreigner is) without control of the provinces and surrounded by powers on each side capable of
constricting or controlling trade out of the central basin and Bangkok. Without a grip on its outlying
regions, Thailand had no way to fend off foreign rivals and guard against colonization.
Fortunately for Bangkok, London and Paris became distracted with the rise of Germany in Europe in
the late 19th century and abandoned their plan to partition Siam. They were not to return, as World
War I would put an end to the days of aggressive European penetration in this part of the world. Siam
escaped colonization both because of distractions that called off the European powers and because of
its more defensible geographical position in the interior of the Southeast Asian peninsula.
Foreign Influence
Siam’s power was supported by its
agricultural production, particularly wet
rice. The country is known as the “rice
bowl of Asia,” and in the 21st century it
is the world’s largest rice supplier, with
over a third of global exports.
Throughout its history, Thailand’s rice
production has played a role in feeding
regional population booms, especially in
China. This surplus agricultural product
brought great wealth to the kingdom
through connections with the
international mercantile culture. While
the Thai themselves were not great
maritime traders, the country’s natural
ports were easily accessible through the
gulf, making it easy to sell commodities
to merchants (mostly Chinese) who then
exported them further afield.
Because Siam did not have much of a
merchant fleet or a navy to protect it and
remained a sedentary society relying on
foreign merchants to export its goods, it
sought to attract foreigners in order to
benefit economically and acquire
advanced technology. Siam had been
linked to Chinese merchants since the
14th century and to the Portuguese, who
brought cannon and musketry, since the
mid-1500s. Later Japanese, Persian,
Dutch, English and French merchants
joined the flurry of ships going in and out
of the Gulf of Siam. The Siamese royal
court was famous for its luxuries from around the world and its cosmopolitan guests. It is a nation that
has always been, and remains, comfortable interacting with foreign cultures.
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But there are limits to Thailand’s openness to the outside world. When its openness empowers
foreigners or non-Thai ethno-linguistic groups to generate social and political unrest among the native
population, the Thai tend to resist.
For example, the Chinese have long permeated Thai society and, as with much of Southeast Asia,
ethnic tension with the Chinese has been a recurrent theme in Thai history. Still, the Chinese and the
Thai generally have worked in tandem because the Chinese were motivated mostly by economic
interests and generally did not seek political power for its own sake. Thailand’s geographic isolation,
combined with the on-again, off-again Chinese flirtation with sea power, ensured that Thailand was
either unattractive as a target for China’s expansionary ambitions or that Chinese attention was too
short to pursue Thailand seriously. Only when the Chinese in Thailand became affiliated with
republican and later communist political activity, as they did in the 19th and 20th centuries, did
nationwide outbursts of anti-Chinese sentiment become more frequent. Nowadays leading Thai
politicians and businessmen often have partial Chinese heritage.
The Western world has provoked Thailand’s most intense reactions against foreign influence. In the
17th century, when the French reached beyond business and started trying to convert the Siamese to
Christianity, a full-fledged revolt broke out against foreign presence (and against the royalty of the day
that was seen as pandering to that presence). In 1688, Siam banished all foreign merchants (except
the fully embedded Chinese) and turned inward for a long period. This isolation would remain in place
until Siam signed a trade treaty with the British in 1826, inaugurating the modern Thai period of
economic openness.
In the late 1800s and for most of the 20th century, Thailand maintained this openness. Under King
Chulalongkorn in the late 19th century, Siam sought to modernize fully by studying and imitating
European forms of public administration, business, science and technology. In the 20th century,
successive military governments sought financial and technical assistance from the United States in
order to expedite the country’s modernization. In the 21st century, Thailand’s economy remains
dependent on attracting foreign investment, exporting commodities and manufactured goods to
external markets, and attracting foreign tourists.
Geopolitical Imperatives
Thailand’s geopolitical imperatives have remained constant since the Siamese kingdom’s earliest
expansionary phase in the 14th and 15th centuries. They continue to drive both its internally focused
and externally focused behavior.
•
•
•
•
Maintain stability in Bangkok — the home of 10 percent of the population — and preserve
central Thailand’s political dominance.
Rein in and consolidate power over three outlying regions to gain strategic depth: the northern
mountains, the northeastern Khorat Plateau and the southern Malay Peninsula.
Prevent incursions from Myanmar to the west and Laos and Cambodia to the east by helping to
keep them destabilized, fragmented and incapable of posing a threat.
Reach out to foreign powers to benefit from them economically and technologically while not
allowing them to undermine central Thai political power or social stability.
Grand Strategy
The economic and political center of power of Thailand will always lie near the mouth of the Chao
Phraya River, with Bangkok supplanting ancient Ayutthaya. The capital has always had trouble
maintaining control over the northern hills, the northeastern Khorat Plateau area and the southern
peninsular provinces. Threats from neighbors occasionally arise, with Burma as Thailand’s chief enemy
and Cambodia as a minor enemy. Agricultural abundance and international trade remain the source of
Thailand’s wealth, though too much foreign influence can create political imbalances at home.
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Through most of the 20th century, Thailand, whether consciously or not, has pursued its geopolitical
imperatives through a grand strategy of intervening militarily in internal affairs and of seeking foreign
alliances that bring security and economic prosperity.
Frequent political change is a fact of Thailand’s modern life. Siam officially became Thailand in 1939
after a 1932 coup that imposed a constitution on the monarchy (although amid changes in
government Thailand was known as Siam again until 1949). Since the 1932 coup broke the
monarchy’s absolute authority, the country has cycled through a ceaseless repetition of government
successions, with 19 military coups since 1932 (not to mention attempted coups). Not only have the
army’s top brass vied with each other, but popular demands for democratically elected government
have given rise to successive civilian regimes. Each civilian government is eventually — sometimes
very quickly — overthrown by the military or by popular protest, resulting in vacillation between
military and civilian rule. The ultimate effect of military intervention has been to re-concentrate power
in the army’s hands, thus preserving Bangkok’s dominance and preventing the provinces from gaining
too much power.
One aspect of this strategy has been the
military’s deliberate resurrection of the
Thai monarchy, which serves as a means
of creating social coherence among
regions with divergent interests. King
Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) acceded
to the throne in 1946 and the military
leadership in the following decade helped
elevate him to pre-revolution royal
grandeur, which he continues to
perpetuate from the throne to this day.
These are the roots of the Thai militarymonarchy power nexus in the 21st
century.
The second prong of Thailand’s grand
strategy consists of forming military
alliances and economic partnerships with
foreign powers.
Bangkok allied with the Japanese against
the British and the Americans in 1941,
leading the Thai army to invade the Shan
states in Burma and parts of French
Cambodia in 1942. The Japanese used
Thailand as a base of operations to
combat the British in Burma and
Malaysia, but Bangkok quickly turned
against the Japanese and by 1943
appealed to the United States for
support. At war’s end, the United States
refused to support Britain’s demands for
Thailand to pay reparations, bringing
Bangkok into Washington’s orbit.
Thailand became a full member of the
American alliance structure during the
Cold War. Communism posed a
fundamental geopolitical threat to
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Thailand by increasing the power of eastern neighbors Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, all of which
received Chinese or Soviet support. Moreover, the communists’ modus operandi was not in keeping
with Bangkok’s strategy of limiting foreign influence to economics. Communist ideology sought total
transformation of traditional Thai institutions like Buddhism and the monarchy, whereas American
influence supported the king and did not threaten Thai Buddhism, while it brought many an economic
boon. Aid and advice from the United States afforded Thailand access to Western credit and consumer
markets and enabled it to develop its infrastructure and industries and become a booming capitalist
economy.
The United States also strengthened the Thai military government, which contributed to the American
side in the Korean War and sent 10,000 troops to fight alongside the United States in Vietnam while
using U.S. intelligence and funds to fight a communist insurgency inside Thailand from the 1960s to
the 1980s. Thailand provided military bases and rest and relaxation for the Americans during the
Vietnam War, boosting the country’s industrial base and tourism (and giving rise to the sex industry
for which Thailand is notorious).
But American influence waned after the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam
War, and with the withdrawal the communists appeared poised to seize the advantage. South Vietnam
fell to the communists, the monarchy in Laos was overthrown and the Khmer Rouge emerged in
Cambodia. Yet Thailand managed to defeat the communist insurgency that had been raging in the
north and northeast by cutting a political deal with China, which had decided to open up its economy
in 1978. The Sino-Vietnamese war cut off the Thai communists’ supply lines, and a new strategy on
the part of the Thai military used political negotiations to discourage the communist insurgency, which
finally wound down in the mid-1980s.
Thailand has also courted regional and international economic relationships to bring in foreign capital
and boost its economic development. In the 1980s a surfeit of Japanese investment flooded into
Thailand, pushing Bangkok to adopt the Japanese model of weak currency and export-based growth.
Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong all began outsourcing the manufacturing of consumergood components to Thailand, which liberalized capital controls to enable freer flows through its
financial system. From 1985 to 1995, Thailand enjoyed an unprecedented period of prosperity,
growing at double-digit rates and becoming the fifth of the so-called “Asian tiger” economies.
Since Thailand remains open to the outside world on an economic basis, it has been able to weather
successive economic downturns without closing its doors. Thailand’s frenzied growth came to a
grinding halt during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, which originated in Bangkok because of the
wild investment of the preceding decade. Thailand’s external debt had become difficult to manage,
export growth began to slow, a domestic real estate bubble burst, and the decision to take the Thai
baht off its peg to the U.S. dollar led to a currency collapse. The Thai crash cascaded, triggering the
collapse of other Asian economies and leading to a region-wide recession.
Thailand recovered relatively quickly from the crisis, no longer an economic miracle but still with a
strong economy based on agricultural and manufacturing exports and tourism. Of course, the Asian
financial crisis, along with the current global crisis, has exacerbated the ever-present divisions
between power circles in favor of foreign influence and those that are against it. On the whole,
however, the balance continues to be in favor of promoting free trade and regional and international
economic links, and this balance will remain so long as foreign influences are not perceived as creating
unbearable social divisions and do not undermine Bangkok’s traditional power.
The eventual death of King Bhumibol presents the greatest immediate challenge to Thailand’s internal
political stability. Bhumibol is the longest-reigning king on earth and his sway over public opinion has
increased throughout his rule. But succession will create controversy. When Bhumibol dies, new
uncertainty about the power structure in Thailand — the relative roles of the monarchy, the military,
the civilian bureaucracy and the provinces — will emerge for the first time since the 1940s. Yet the
king’s passing will not change the country’s fundamental geopolitics. Whatever balance of power
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emerges in post-Bhumibol Thailand, the country will not stop trying to meet the imperatives that have
determined its behavior since the early days of Siam.
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