There are Chinese people in many parts of the world, and many Chinese descendants still maintain the Chinese language and customs, even in the American Chinese Towns on the other side of the ocean, but there is one country that is just the opposite, it is adjacent to the mainland, but the Chinese there have long forgotten their mother tongue and customs. This country is Thailand, why is Thailand so capable of assimilation?
Historical origins
The Chinese have a longer relationship with Thailand than some countries. As early as the 13th century, Thailand, still known as Siam, began to come into contact with the mainland. At that time, Thailand was still one of China's many vassal states, and when the relationship between the two countries was still in the honeymoon period, China also generously exempted Thailand from paying taxes, making Thailand profitable.
As a result, the Thai side began to actively trade with China. These Siamese caravans that led to China's wealth one after another, while passing through the Chinese frontier, also allowed some Chinese to join the caravan commuting, so that the Siamese envoys who went to China every year to pay tribute also began to have the participation of Chinese, who usually appeared as generals, building bridges of communication between the two countries' unspoken languages.
By the beginning of the 14th century, there had been a considerable number of Chinese on both sides of the Kra Isthmus, and two centuries later, a large number of Chinese settlements had developed throughout Thailand, and they intermarried with the local Thai people and became an integral part of the Siamese state.
However, in 1767, when the Kingdom of Siam was destroyed by Burma and the whole of Thailand became a slave to Burma, it was at this critical moment that a Cantonese man named Zheng Xin stepped forward, and he used his personality to lead the rest of the Thais to fight back, and finally successfully defeated the invading Burmese army in 1769, re-established the independent Thonburi Dynasty, and he became the first king in Thai history to have Chinese ancestry.
Although Cheng Sin's rule was not long after he was replaced by the Bangkok Dynasty, it did not prevent the Thais from considering him a national hero, and many kings of the Bangkok Dynasty have since adopted the surname "Zheng" to show their respect for the hero who saved Thailand.
Cultural cleansing and invasion
However, it is a pity that this situation of friendly coexistence between Huatai did not last forever. In modern times, the dominant Thai people began to implement a purge policy in the face of other ethnic groups in Thailand, large and small, and as the second largest ethnic group in Thailand after the Tai, the Chinese were naturally regarded as a thorn in the side of the Thai ruling class.
As for how to weaken and divide the Chinese forces in the country, Rama VI also has a unique method. In 1913, he published a book under his pseudonym, The Jews of the East, in which Rama VI involuntarily accused the Chinese of plundering the wealth that belonged to Thailand and that the Chinese were not loyal to the king as outsiders.
It is clear that Rama VI's actions were to justify his subsequent plundering and persecution of the Chinese. In foreign countries, the industrious and simple Chinese nation can always rely on its own wisdom to obtain a lot of wealth, but this will often always become the object of hatred of the locals, they do not find the reason from their own bodies, they always like to stare at the wealth created by the Chinese people, which is also the reason why overseas Chinese are often persecuted.
However, fortunately, Thailand at that time did not have the ability to completely tear the Chinese in the country, so after thinking about it again, the king of Thailand finally decided to attack the Chinese from a cultural point of view.
Therefore, around 1918, Thailand successively promulgated the "Private Schools Ordinance", the "Compulsory Education Ordinance" and the "Immigration Act", which comprehensively supervised Chinese schools in Thailand, mandated that Chinese children aged 7-14 must receive Thai education, and forced Thai Chinese to change to Thai surnames.
For a time, the culture and customs of the Chinese in Thailand became the target of fierce pursuit and attack by the Thai high-level. Although Thailand did not violently implement a "nationalist" policy like Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries, in fact, the existence of the Chinese has been wiped out by Thailand under the siege and attack of the Chinese in many aspects.
The status of the modern Chinese
And after this cultural onslaught, it was replaced by Thailand's policy of Huairou. In 1973, after the fall of the Thai military junta, the new successor government started the idea of a Chinese economy in order to promote economic development, but unlike Malaysia and other countries that are predominantly violent, Thailand's approach is a little softer, by giving the restoration of the political status of the Chinese, to assimilate the Chinese economy into the Thai economy.
So Thailand finally decided to pass a series of bills to improve the status of the Chinese to win over the Chinese in Thailand, but what gave the Thai side a headache was how to legally improve the status of the Chinese on the basis of not offending the main ethnic Thai, but fortunately, it didn't take long for this opportunity to be sent to the Thai prime minister.
In 1975, China and Thailand formally established diplomatic relations, and with this ice-breaking trip that China and Thailand have rarely seen in a century, the Thai side can finally let go of its hands and feet to completely improve the status of the Chinese through the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Thailand, so Thailand once again relaxed the policy of Chinese immigration, so that a large number of new generation of Chinese have the status of Thai citizens.
In 1989, the Thai government once again revised its policy toward China, lifting the ban on studying and working in China and the return of overseas Chinese to Thailand since 1949, and establishing the same political status of Chinese and Thai.
As a result of this bill, the Chinese can exert an increasingly powerful influence in Thailand. In Thailand's political arena, the proportion of Chinese mixed race has remained above 60% all year round, and as of 2023, 22 of Thailand's 30 prime ministers have Chinese blood in their veins.
In terms of economy, the Chinese have also shown a strong influence, in the top ten of Thailand's rich list, more than half of them are Chinese, they only occupy about 15% of Thailand's population, but control about 78% of the wealth of the entire Thailand, such a huge political power and equal system, but also let the Chinese highly identify with Thailand's political system.
These Chinese in Thailand do not object to changing their surnames to Thai surnames, nor do they object to Thailand's erasure and attack on their own culture, in the decades of assimilation, those signboards in Bangkok's Chinatown that were once bright and glittering have gradually been replaced by Thai characters, and the language and culture that have been remembered by the Chinese in their bloodline have gradually been replaced by Thailand's native culture.
They don't know what they have lost, and they don't know what the Thai government has done to them, under the deception and deception of the Thai high-level, these Chinese finally lost their persistence, lost their traditions, and finally gradually became the appearance of the Thai people, and the funny thing is that these Chinese often do not know what kind of embarrassment they are facing, and they are still enjoying the so-called equal life in Thailand, but they do not know that their identity and culture have long been quietly erased by Thailand.
Perhaps Thailand has never done the so-called genocide, but compared to Hitler's personal massacre, Thailand's behavior is undoubtedly much more sophisticated, surrounded by Thai culture, it will not be long before these Thai people who have forgotten their roots will be gradually diluted, and after two or three generations, these so-called Chinese can become part of the Thai people.
Thailand, although it has not done genocide, is not much more civilized than physical slaughter compared to Malaysia and Indonesia, which also have a large concentration of Chinese.
Text丨Bosh
Editor丨Bosh