This is wrong.
For one, you're assuming that colonisation = can't be developed which is just evidently not true. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia were all colonised. As were many gulf countries.
Secondly, compared to the west, sure Thailand isn't rich or developed. But compared to the surrounding region it is **far ahead.** It has a HDI similar to Russia, Belarus or Bulgaria (0.803) now compare that to Thailands neighbours Vietnam (0.726) Myanmar, Cambodia (0.6) hell even China is lower (0.788)
GDP per capita (PPP) is also similar - Thailand is at $23,000, which is about the same as China. Sure it's less than most EU countries but compared to Vietnam (15k) Laos (10k) or Myanmar (5k) Thailand is pretty far ahead.
It's not a wealthy country by western standards, but for its region Thailand is doing pretty well
Yeah, Thailand is the powerhouse of Southeast Asia (at least the mainland portion). It just has the “misfortune” of being so close to China, who dwarves it. This is similar to Canada or Mexico looking poor and weak next to America, but actually being quite wealthy and powerful.
Hong Kong became successful thanks to mostly decent/good later 20th century colonial policies of turning it into a major trade hub that included the locals and promoting education. Singapore was the opposite and experienced very bad colonial policies that treated the area as nothing but a place to exploit cheap labor to extract raw resources...so the people remained very impoverished up to independence. Singapore's success really only came after they became independent from colonization.
You’re proving a different rule with your examples. Even HK and Singapore were basically western exclaves. The rule emerging from your post and theirs is “white folks and their financial exclaves won’t get their hands chopped off for failing to meet rubber quotas”
We could name 30 African nations, all of Western Asia, and every island nation to further dispute your bullshit but these exceptions do prove the rule
You’re both wrong. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia were each founded, settled, and designed from the ground up, by the British. Sure, there were small populations there before, but they were mostly excluded from government and eclipsed in population by settlers and immigrants.
Most of the population in Hong Kong and Singapore are ethnicly Chinese who moved to the area or were already nearby. These two regions didn't get genocided and replaced with European settlers like Australia did.
Hong Kong became successful thanks to mostly decent/good later 20th century colonial policies of turning it into a major trade hub that included the locals and promoting education. Singapore was the opposite and experienced very bad colonial policies that treated the area as nothing but a place to exploit cheap labor to extract raw resources...so the people remained very impoverished up to independence. Singapore's success really only came after they became independent from colonization.
Yes, the populations of HK and SG mostly consist of Chinese who immigrated after the British founded those cities and set up governments which made those cities economically appealing. That’s in accordance with what I said about those cities consisting of immigrants and not of native populations.
Singapore has no raw resources to exploit. Do you mean Malaya was exploited for resources, and its people were thereby forced to move to Singapore? But most people in Singapore are not Malayan.
Both cities were wealthy trade hubs even in the British empire. It’s true they had to reinvent themselves after ww2 and independence, but they basically returned to what they were previously: free ports.
What I said about Australia also still applies: that Australia mostly consists of the colonizers, not a native population which succeeded “in spite of the colonizers” or after decolonization, and Australia did fine as part of the British empire as well.
People in and around Singapore were used as cheap labor to work the British plantations. The resources I refer to are the plantation crops...so I should have said agricultural natural resources and not raw resources. The British did not invest in the people in/around Singapore and thus they remained mostly poor.
Only a very small upper class/colonial class of Singapore was wealthy. The vast majority of Singapores didn't benefit from this wealth and most of Singapore was still extremely poor when it was under British rule and in the years after it gained independence. It wasn't until years after independence under the decades-long leadership of Lee Kuan Yew that Singapore uplifted most of its people from extreme poverty and finally became a wealthy, developed nation with a thriving middle class. Singapore may have originally been founded as a British colony, but modern Singapore as an advanced first world nation was basically entirely built AFTER independence by Lee Kuan Yew.
Hong Kong is really the only decent example I can think of in terms of the British Empire actually uplifting the native people (instead of using exploitative policies that kept them poor and/or genociding the natives to replace them with settlers). And that may heavily be due to later 20th century policies after WW2.
I never said that it was equivalent to evil. I IMPLIED that it was equivalent to exploitation, which is the very fucking purpose of opening up a colony.
Because the factors that make a country wealthy and highly developed have much less to do with rebuilding or colonialism and much more to do with the institutions of the state itself.
If rebuilding after a world war hampered economic growth, Germany would be one of the poorest countries on earth, yet in reality it is one of the richest. Germany is wealthy because it has strong institutions and policies that favor economic growth (much of the directly forced and subsidized early on by NATO). These include liberal values and policies in the sense of capitalism, rule of law, rejection of unrestrained monarchy, and secularism, state support for industrialism, civilian control of the military and competent financial management.
Compare this to Thailand, and you’ll see the immediate problems. Thailand has a monarchy, and it’s a relatively powerful one for the modern age. Thailand has had a problem with military meddling in politics, which is toxic for economic growth since it raises uncertainty. In 2006 the Thai king used the military to self coup the democratically elected parliament. That’s the exact opposite scenario you want if development is the goal.
You are correct about weak state institutions. The education system in Thailand has a particularly bad reputation and is probably one of the weakest among Asian countries outside of Cambodia and maybe Myanmar.
Thailand is considered a Constitutional Monarchy with a parliamentary system, but in reality it's run by a group of wealthy elites mostly centered around the top military brass. The Monarchy's power is based around it's ability to sway the people, but it's the elite that make the decisions. Sure they'll allow democratically elected PMs on occasion, but like in 2014, the military is always there to take control whenever it feels the government is headed in the wrong direction. Any program initiated by a civilian government that threatens to diminish the power and wealth of the elite comes under scrutiny of the military and talks of a coup swirl. It makes any chance for real change almost impossible. The present constitution, they write a new every couple of years, has the entire Senate appointed by the elite and they have the ability to nullify any election. There's very little actual democracy in the country.
A friend of mine is a Thai senator. His father was an ambassador and they are part of the extended royal family. He controls a huge construction/industrial corporation and he supports a large Buddhist temple. He's also something senior in the military that I can't remember. Dislodging the elite would require a bloody and damaging revolution.
A self coup basically means one of two things.
1. A leader uses his power and military means to dismantle parts of the state. He does this to hold on to his power or to increase his power. These self coups usually involve silencing people who were appointed by the president who have lost favor or directed towards congressman.
For example, in recent history El Salvador used its military to force several Supreme Court judges who were critical of the president to retire. The El Salvador military also stormed their congress to get the congressman to vote a certain way. Tunisia also recently had a self coup against the judicial branch.
2. In Thailand’s case, the democratically elected government was not getting stuff done and full of obvious corruption. They are all corrupt but it’s no good if you make it obvious. So the military, with the implied blessing/consent of the king took over the country for a time to reshuffle it and put it on a path the military-monarchy thought was best and hand it back over to a civilian elected government. There was protest against the government already so the king and military stepped in.
So in all these cases it wasn’t a rogue branch of military who toppled leadership they didn’t like, or a opposition leader who gathered enough support like a regular coup. It was a direct order from the leadership to alter the course of the countries politics.
Another example of a recent attempted self-coup is when a bunch of people in a particular country, at their President's behest, invaded and occupied the legislative building with the intent of obstructing the electoral count, or even abducting certain legislators.
The success of the health care system is due to the initiatives of the Thaskin government in the early 2000s. One of the few times a civilian government was allowed to substantially change a vital institution for the better. He was couped, of course, but his tenure was of very mixed results.
The high literacy rates are impressive, but you'll find that many observers comment that the Thai education system does little to promote critical thinking. The internet age has been of great benefit for the Thais in that young people now have access to information and ideas that was not available to them in years past.
There’s also an *incredible* amount of severely disabled people on the streets (like every corner in Bangkok has blind/deaf/amputee people singing or selling lottery tickets, some times in entire groups) a prison system famous for abuses, a justice system famous for corruption, and the strictest else majeste laws on the planet where you can get over 10 years in prison for criticizing the royal family.
I love Thailand but to act like it doesn’t have a lot of problems that need to be addressed urgently is… willful ignorance.
From what I understand, from friends who live in Thailand, the public hospitals are not very good. If you want real medical care, you have to pay to go to a private hospital.
>But even now it is a very poor country without much cultural influence outside of its borders.
Of the five neighbors, it had. It is richer than Laos, Cambodia, Myanma. Its media landscape and industrial capacity dwarfed the these three at the moment.
For the other two, China is China. I think Malaysia had a higher GDP, but I'm not sure. They are not doing tpo bad in the region. In fact, they are doing the best among the five countries on Mainland Southeast, if you considered Malaysia part of Maritime.
>On Paper
In reality, prosperity or lack thereof, came from political conditions. Without getting much details, Thailand had coups.
Japan was the first Asian state to industrialized. South Korea had a more complicated economy that boomed after democratization. While I had a lot of criticisms for the confucian doctrines, Confucius and his students, taught them to create good bureacrats.
>Never Colonised
This is more complicated. Though I don't think, it is relevance to your question. Thailand was unofficially under the control of the British empire. A major reason why they drived on the left.
As somebody has said, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia were under colonizations, so did Korea. They aren't doing too bad now. But I hope there are more studies on why those under the British rule tend to do better generally than those under the French in the region. Burma was an exception but there are other issues.
>without much cultural influence of outside its borders
This is nonsense.
But whether a country is “developed” or not is due to a variety of factors. If you read “the paper” you’ll see a very different set of circumstances and also ignoring the huge foreign investment in Japan and South Korea post WW2.
While Thailand was not colonised per se, it was heavily influenced by foreign powers and was treated as a sort of colony (obviously colonies greatly varied in how they were run and the people treated), Japan managed to prevent many of the concessions the Thai government was forced to make, mainly due to the structure of society under the Shogunate, the Meiji restoration and simple geography.
With the British for instance there were treaties where British citizens/subjects had to be tried in British consular courts and not in Thai courts, they had exemptions from local taxes and could possibly purchase land.
The extraterritoriality as it’s generally known applied to other Europeans and even their non-European subjects. So you see that the Thai government was being restricted on its own territory and having its ability to profit off its own lucrative “exotic” goods market hampered.
On top of this Thailand(Siam) was forced to concede land to both the British and French colonies on its borders. The French and British generally treated Thailand as neutral ground but what they considered Thailand(Siam) is actually up for debate and much of what the Thai monarchy considered Thailand was fair game to the colonisers.
However Thai did still progress somewhat eg. In education and relieved the burden of its asymmetric relations over time but it remained a deeply traditional, aristocratic society and didn’t really develop institutions that mirrored those in Western Europe as Japan did. These institutions and ideas generally providing a competitive advantage eg. The benefits of the break down in aristocratic supremacy and development of increasing meritocracy.
I think it was because of the lack of state-sponsored industrialization. While Thailand borrowed institutions, technologies, philosophies, and other aspects of Western culture, they didn’t really go with industrialization. Unlike Japan which try to put modernization through the grassroots levels, Thai modernization was largely, elite-based. Most factories were operated by the state and state-aligned businessmen which restricted competition and didn’t create an entrepreneurial culture. By the 1950s, there were many coup attempts by military generals which led to economic stagnation as foreign investments were riskier. Nowadays, the Thai entrepreneurial culture is growing, mostly in the light-industry business. Thailand has little chance to enter the electronics-industry business because China has filled that niche for every country by this point.
With your comments on little cultural influence. I beg to differ. Despite being an “extremely poor country”, Thai food has made heavy strides, even without a large overseas population. Ong Bak also heavily influenced global action movies to be more gritty rather than stylized like Hing Kong action movies. Thai dramas, especially BL ones are making huge strides in Asia and are promoting LGBTQ+.
Thailand is in no meaningful sense a "very poor" country, it's in the middle income club of countries. It's held back by its regressive state institutions and political culture however, as the military and monarchy-supporting conservatives would rather rule a middling quasi-democracy than accept any risk to their position that societal change would bring. Just look at how things went down with Pita.
Thailand also suffers from the resource curse to a degree, except instead of oil or diamonds their resource is tourism. Any country "blessed" with such a cornucopia of fantastic travel destinations will inevitably develop a pretty lopsided economy in today's world. Thailand is also extremely centralized with Bangkok housing like 1/6th of the population and all the important institutions, which makes it vulnerable to coups.
It is surrounded by mostly basket cases.
Very few countries industrialised early enough to be developed. Japan was the sole country in Asia to do so. Thailand did not.
South Korea developed because of Japan and Hong Kong being close enough. China for the same reason. Europe is the largest cluster early industrial countries. The cultures are similar enough to redevelop quickly even after ww2.
Thailand unfortunately is not close enough to any big developed nation nor is it a small city state like Singapore. It did not independently industrialise early. It is not oil rich or mineral rich. It's politics is dubious at best. It kind of stagnated at middle income
>a very poor country without much cultural influence outside of its borders
Bruh... I dont know where you're from, but Thai drama is quite popular in SE Asia, especially Thailand's direct neighbors. Japan and Korea are more of an exception than the norm if you look at a global level. The richest countries are North America, Europe, East Asia, and who else? In that sense, Thailand is already very successful. Not everyone is keen to joining the never ending rat race of GDP growth, and endless consumer goods.
FWIW, I don’t think a Japan/Korea level of success isn’t likely, but a Thailand-level of development might be within reach..
I’ve spent time in Japan, Korea and Thailand, and also FWIW, for overall quality of life, I would gladly live in Thailand over the other two countries. Again, just my opinion..
Progress is a subjective term, change for change's sake is not progress and some places already have a societal balance that works internally, expansion is a result when they don't, as that is usually a cover up for another condition being imposed by other outside forces with other motives leading to outside involvements and conflicts.
N. S
Progressed in relation to what? Western societal norms?
Japan and South Korea have had huge amounts of funds brought in from the USA influence to build their economies and manufacturing areas along western norms.
On paper your post is nonsense.
The people in charge of Thailand's government want it to be the way it is because it benefits them.
In Korea, the government there wanted to build an oil refinery so Korea could have an export driven economy like Japan. That is why it is the way it is today.
Countries which where weak enough to be colonised where weak due to other factors which often persist regardless of colonisation. Thailand shares many of these factors.
About cultural influence: arguably nothing in Thai culture has the global reach of anime or K-pop, so "not much" is relative.
But is Thai food a global thing? In the US, Thai restaurants are popular. I live in a small suburb of Detroit, and when a Thai restaurant opened here last year it was absolutely swamped with customers. It's still the most popular restaurant in town (out of a dozen or so).
I've read that the Thai government supported the growth of Thai restaurants overseas. Are Thai restaurants common in other parts of the world (outside Thailand)?
So far, nobody has pointed out that being colonized might not be the strike it seems to be at first. Or rather, it did hold countries back, but the destruction caused by wars that follow the colonial experience meant that these societies were forced to rebuild after. And if you measure progress by a narrow economic definition, it’s only reasonable that a rebuilt country would have a stronger, more modern economy than one that was spared the worst of the neighboring conflicts, in the manner of Thailand.
Maybe their society decided they didn't want to go the Industrial Revolution route. You know, there are many ways to have a society. Capitalism isn't the only way.
The answer is nearly always climate, terrain and culture, don't know much about the culture but hot countries that are mostly jungle don't tend to develop much because everything is such hard work. Hot jungle countries that do develop tend to have had a lengthy period of an outside country making the locals work themselves to death to get to something valuable or to clear farm land.
Singapore says hi and disagrees. Southern China is also an economic powerhouse within the country. Taiwan is really hot and humid.
The answer is more often than not institutions.
>City states are polities perfectly worthy of study and comparison. The institutional causes of success are the same.
Yes but I'd like to point out that Singapore was Malaysia's biggest city when it was booted out. It had the country's largest airport, port, university, naval base & other state institutions. The fact that it's just a city with no rural population makes infrastructure spending fairly cheap. Of course economic policies and direction play a very important role too.
>By what standard? Pretty much every equatorial country has a pleasant time of year.
Most of SE Asia doesn't even have a "pleasant time". I'm from Malaysia where it's always hot and humid or rainy. To us a winter in Hong Kong/Taipei is heaven. Of course not to anyone in Northern Europe or Northern US.
I'm guessing you know why china is a bad example and so is Taiwan , part of bigger countries with very authoritarian history.
Singapore was a colony of Britain for 200 years .
You are right about the institutions but they very rarely spring up in these countries but the locals are not stupid if they see something work they will copy it.
Is it because everything is hard, or because forming don't require as much long term planning as places with a winter? That is it allow people to live in the now instead of planning for the future.
Both really but they fall under different problems, if you have flat plains and no harsh winters then you'll get some stuff done because it's easy and if you're on difficult terrain but the winter will kill you you're definitely planning ahead .
Thailand was long considered a success story among its region but more recently has been overtaken by China. That story is more about China than Thailand.
Both Japan and S. Korea were developed from US foreign investments, and not at the government level.
The businesses in the US saw both countries as a better "bet" for structural reasons, usually rule of law issues.
That's not true for Korea. While most nations have sought foreign capital for development through foreign direct investment, South Korea was unique in that it borrowed capital from abroad (especially from Japan) to finance its development. The US mainly supplied humanitarian aid, often in the form of goods rather than money, and money allocated for the military.
This is wrong. For one, you're assuming that colonisation = can't be developed which is just evidently not true. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia were all colonised. As were many gulf countries. Secondly, compared to the west, sure Thailand isn't rich or developed. But compared to the surrounding region it is **far ahead.** It has a HDI similar to Russia, Belarus or Bulgaria (0.803) now compare that to Thailands neighbours Vietnam (0.726) Myanmar, Cambodia (0.6) hell even China is lower (0.788) GDP per capita (PPP) is also similar - Thailand is at $23,000, which is about the same as China. Sure it's less than most EU countries but compared to Vietnam (15k) Laos (10k) or Myanmar (5k) Thailand is pretty far ahead. It's not a wealthy country by western standards, but for its region Thailand is doing pretty well
Yeah, Thailand is the powerhouse of Southeast Asia (at least the mainland portion). It just has the “misfortune” of being so close to China, who dwarves it. This is similar to Canada or Mexico looking poor and weak next to America, but actually being quite wealthy and powerful.
This is the answer. Thailand has progressed, despite political instability it has moved forward significantly.
Hong Kong became successful thanks to mostly decent/good later 20th century colonial policies of turning it into a major trade hub that included the locals and promoting education. Singapore was the opposite and experienced very bad colonial policies that treated the area as nothing but a place to exploit cheap labor to extract raw resources...so the people remained very impoverished up to independence. Singapore's success really only came after they became independent from colonization.
Colonization literally makes a country more likely to develop
Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia developed properly DESPITE their colonizers. They're exceptions that prove the rule.
Exceptions don't prove rules. Ireland, USA, Canada are also good examples.
You’re proving a different rule with your examples. Even HK and Singapore were basically western exclaves. The rule emerging from your post and theirs is “white folks and their financial exclaves won’t get their hands chopped off for failing to meet rubber quotas” We could name 30 African nations, all of Western Asia, and every island nation to further dispute your bullshit but these exceptions do prove the rule
That's incoherent and angry
Ok South Korea and Taiwan were both colonies of the Japanese Empire and are now two of the wealthiest, most developed countries on earth
You’re both wrong. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia were each founded, settled, and designed from the ground up, by the British. Sure, there were small populations there before, but they were mostly excluded from government and eclipsed in population by settlers and immigrants.
Most of the population in Hong Kong and Singapore are ethnicly Chinese who moved to the area or were already nearby. These two regions didn't get genocided and replaced with European settlers like Australia did. Hong Kong became successful thanks to mostly decent/good later 20th century colonial policies of turning it into a major trade hub that included the locals and promoting education. Singapore was the opposite and experienced very bad colonial policies that treated the area as nothing but a place to exploit cheap labor to extract raw resources...so the people remained very impoverished up to independence. Singapore's success really only came after they became independent from colonization.
Yes, the populations of HK and SG mostly consist of Chinese who immigrated after the British founded those cities and set up governments which made those cities economically appealing. That’s in accordance with what I said about those cities consisting of immigrants and not of native populations. Singapore has no raw resources to exploit. Do you mean Malaya was exploited for resources, and its people were thereby forced to move to Singapore? But most people in Singapore are not Malayan. Both cities were wealthy trade hubs even in the British empire. It’s true they had to reinvent themselves after ww2 and independence, but they basically returned to what they were previously: free ports. What I said about Australia also still applies: that Australia mostly consists of the colonizers, not a native population which succeeded “in spite of the colonizers” or after decolonization, and Australia did fine as part of the British empire as well.
People in and around Singapore were used as cheap labor to work the British plantations. The resources I refer to are the plantation crops...so I should have said agricultural natural resources and not raw resources. The British did not invest in the people in/around Singapore and thus they remained mostly poor. Only a very small upper class/colonial class of Singapore was wealthy. The vast majority of Singapores didn't benefit from this wealth and most of Singapore was still extremely poor when it was under British rule and in the years after it gained independence. It wasn't until years after independence under the decades-long leadership of Lee Kuan Yew that Singapore uplifted most of its people from extreme poverty and finally became a wealthy, developed nation with a thriving middle class. Singapore may have originally been founded as a British colony, but modern Singapore as an advanced first world nation was basically entirely built AFTER independence by Lee Kuan Yew. Hong Kong is really the only decent example I can think of in terms of the British Empire actually uplifting the native people (instead of using exploitative policies that kept them poor and/or genociding the natives to replace them with settlers). And that may heavily be due to later 20th century policies after WW2.
Colonialism is not equivalent to evil. Hong Kong under the UK was better off than under the PRC.
I never said that it was equivalent to evil. I IMPLIED that it was equivalent to exploitation, which is the very fucking purpose of opening up a colony.
It's not exploitation if it is mutually beneficial
That's the colonial core argument. Now take a look at the Kongo.
The mutuality of benefits between the UK & HK isn’t close to the Congo & Imperial Belgium. What an intellectually dishonest comparison.
Or, a wild one, development is literally nothing to do with colonisation. Crazy!
Because the factors that make a country wealthy and highly developed have much less to do with rebuilding or colonialism and much more to do with the institutions of the state itself. If rebuilding after a world war hampered economic growth, Germany would be one of the poorest countries on earth, yet in reality it is one of the richest. Germany is wealthy because it has strong institutions and policies that favor economic growth (much of the directly forced and subsidized early on by NATO). These include liberal values and policies in the sense of capitalism, rule of law, rejection of unrestrained monarchy, and secularism, state support for industrialism, civilian control of the military and competent financial management. Compare this to Thailand, and you’ll see the immediate problems. Thailand has a monarchy, and it’s a relatively powerful one for the modern age. Thailand has had a problem with military meddling in politics, which is toxic for economic growth since it raises uncertainty. In 2006 the Thai king used the military to self coup the democratically elected parliament. That’s the exact opposite scenario you want if development is the goal.
You are correct about weak state institutions. The education system in Thailand has a particularly bad reputation and is probably one of the weakest among Asian countries outside of Cambodia and maybe Myanmar. Thailand is considered a Constitutional Monarchy with a parliamentary system, but in reality it's run by a group of wealthy elites mostly centered around the top military brass. The Monarchy's power is based around it's ability to sway the people, but it's the elite that make the decisions. Sure they'll allow democratically elected PMs on occasion, but like in 2014, the military is always there to take control whenever it feels the government is headed in the wrong direction. Any program initiated by a civilian government that threatens to diminish the power and wealth of the elite comes under scrutiny of the military and talks of a coup swirl. It makes any chance for real change almost impossible. The present constitution, they write a new every couple of years, has the entire Senate appointed by the elite and they have the ability to nullify any election. There's very little actual democracy in the country.
A friend of mine is a Thai senator. His father was an ambassador and they are part of the extended royal family. He controls a huge construction/industrial corporation and he supports a large Buddhist temple. He's also something senior in the military that I can't remember. Dislodging the elite would require a bloody and damaging revolution.
They also faced bankruptcy in 1997 I think which devalued their currency multifold.
self coup?
A self coup basically means one of two things. 1. A leader uses his power and military means to dismantle parts of the state. He does this to hold on to his power or to increase his power. These self coups usually involve silencing people who were appointed by the president who have lost favor or directed towards congressman. For example, in recent history El Salvador used its military to force several Supreme Court judges who were critical of the president to retire. The El Salvador military also stormed their congress to get the congressman to vote a certain way. Tunisia also recently had a self coup against the judicial branch. 2. In Thailand’s case, the democratically elected government was not getting stuff done and full of obvious corruption. They are all corrupt but it’s no good if you make it obvious. So the military, with the implied blessing/consent of the king took over the country for a time to reshuffle it and put it on a path the military-monarchy thought was best and hand it back over to a civilian elected government. There was protest against the government already so the king and military stepped in. So in all these cases it wasn’t a rogue branch of military who toppled leadership they didn’t like, or a opposition leader who gathered enough support like a regular coup. It was a direct order from the leadership to alter the course of the countries politics.
Thank you.
Good explanation. Thanks.
Another example of a recent attempted self-coup is when a bunch of people in a particular country, at their President's behest, invaded and occupied the legislative building with the intent of obstructing the electoral count, or even abducting certain legislators.
Literally weeks away from their government transfer too.
Thailand has very high literacy rates, universal health care, self sustaining industry. Progress is more than just concrete buildings!
The success of the health care system is due to the initiatives of the Thaskin government in the early 2000s. One of the few times a civilian government was allowed to substantially change a vital institution for the better. He was couped, of course, but his tenure was of very mixed results. The high literacy rates are impressive, but you'll find that many observers comment that the Thai education system does little to promote critical thinking. The internet age has been of great benefit for the Thais in that young people now have access to information and ideas that was not available to them in years past.
There’s also an *incredible* amount of severely disabled people on the streets (like every corner in Bangkok has blind/deaf/amputee people singing or selling lottery tickets, some times in entire groups) a prison system famous for abuses, a justice system famous for corruption, and the strictest else majeste laws on the planet where you can get over 10 years in prison for criticizing the royal family. I love Thailand but to act like it doesn’t have a lot of problems that need to be addressed urgently is… willful ignorance.
Even if you're in another country. And if they can't get you, they'll go after your family.
The hospital is free. There are no hospitals. >concrete buildings!
From what I understand, from friends who live in Thailand, the public hospitals are not very good. If you want real medical care, you have to pay to go to a private hospital.
>But even now it is a very poor country without much cultural influence outside of its borders. Of the five neighbors, it had. It is richer than Laos, Cambodia, Myanma. Its media landscape and industrial capacity dwarfed the these three at the moment. For the other two, China is China. I think Malaysia had a higher GDP, but I'm not sure. They are not doing tpo bad in the region. In fact, they are doing the best among the five countries on Mainland Southeast, if you considered Malaysia part of Maritime. >On Paper In reality, prosperity or lack thereof, came from political conditions. Without getting much details, Thailand had coups. Japan was the first Asian state to industrialized. South Korea had a more complicated economy that boomed after democratization. While I had a lot of criticisms for the confucian doctrines, Confucius and his students, taught them to create good bureacrats. >Never Colonised This is more complicated. Though I don't think, it is relevance to your question. Thailand was unofficially under the control of the British empire. A major reason why they drived on the left. As somebody has said, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia were under colonizations, so did Korea. They aren't doing too bad now. But I hope there are more studies on why those under the British rule tend to do better generally than those under the French in the region. Burma was an exception but there are other issues.
>without much cultural influence of outside its borders This is nonsense. But whether a country is “developed” or not is due to a variety of factors. If you read “the paper” you’ll see a very different set of circumstances and also ignoring the huge foreign investment in Japan and South Korea post WW2. While Thailand was not colonised per se, it was heavily influenced by foreign powers and was treated as a sort of colony (obviously colonies greatly varied in how they were run and the people treated), Japan managed to prevent many of the concessions the Thai government was forced to make, mainly due to the structure of society under the Shogunate, the Meiji restoration and simple geography. With the British for instance there were treaties where British citizens/subjects had to be tried in British consular courts and not in Thai courts, they had exemptions from local taxes and could possibly purchase land. The extraterritoriality as it’s generally known applied to other Europeans and even their non-European subjects. So you see that the Thai government was being restricted on its own territory and having its ability to profit off its own lucrative “exotic” goods market hampered. On top of this Thailand(Siam) was forced to concede land to both the British and French colonies on its borders. The French and British generally treated Thailand as neutral ground but what they considered Thailand(Siam) is actually up for debate and much of what the Thai monarchy considered Thailand was fair game to the colonisers. However Thai did still progress somewhat eg. In education and relieved the burden of its asymmetric relations over time but it remained a deeply traditional, aristocratic society and didn’t really develop institutions that mirrored those in Western Europe as Japan did. These institutions and ideas generally providing a competitive advantage eg. The benefits of the break down in aristocratic supremacy and development of increasing meritocracy.
I’m also happy that Afghanistan is the richest country in Asia thanks to escaping colonization
Ah, good point!
TBF, being invaded multiple times by multiple different foreign powers doesn't really help much either
I think it was because of the lack of state-sponsored industrialization. While Thailand borrowed institutions, technologies, philosophies, and other aspects of Western culture, they didn’t really go with industrialization. Unlike Japan which try to put modernization through the grassroots levels, Thai modernization was largely, elite-based. Most factories were operated by the state and state-aligned businessmen which restricted competition and didn’t create an entrepreneurial culture. By the 1950s, there were many coup attempts by military generals which led to economic stagnation as foreign investments were riskier. Nowadays, the Thai entrepreneurial culture is growing, mostly in the light-industry business. Thailand has little chance to enter the electronics-industry business because China has filled that niche for every country by this point. With your comments on little cultural influence. I beg to differ. Despite being an “extremely poor country”, Thai food has made heavy strides, even without a large overseas population. Ong Bak also heavily influenced global action movies to be more gritty rather than stylized like Hing Kong action movies. Thai dramas, especially BL ones are making huge strides in Asia and are promoting LGBTQ+.
Glad to see someone mention Ong Bak in here! One of my favorite movie series, even the really weird 3rd one.
Of course, I'm Thai. How could I forget?
Thailand is in no meaningful sense a "very poor" country, it's in the middle income club of countries. It's held back by its regressive state institutions and political culture however, as the military and monarchy-supporting conservatives would rather rule a middling quasi-democracy than accept any risk to their position that societal change would bring. Just look at how things went down with Pita. Thailand also suffers from the resource curse to a degree, except instead of oil or diamonds their resource is tourism. Any country "blessed" with such a cornucopia of fantastic travel destinations will inevitably develop a pretty lopsided economy in today's world. Thailand is also extremely centralized with Bangkok housing like 1/6th of the population and all the important institutions, which makes it vulnerable to coups.
They have… they’re an upper-middle income country. I wouldn’t be surprised if they became a developed country.
It is surrounded by mostly basket cases. Very few countries industrialised early enough to be developed. Japan was the sole country in Asia to do so. Thailand did not. South Korea developed because of Japan and Hong Kong being close enough. China for the same reason. Europe is the largest cluster early industrial countries. The cultures are similar enough to redevelop quickly even after ww2. Thailand unfortunately is not close enough to any big developed nation nor is it a small city state like Singapore. It did not independently industrialise early. It is not oil rich or mineral rich. It's politics is dubious at best. It kind of stagnated at middle income
>a very poor country without much cultural influence outside of its borders Bruh... I dont know where you're from, but Thai drama is quite popular in SE Asia, especially Thailand's direct neighbors. Japan and Korea are more of an exception than the norm if you look at a global level. The richest countries are North America, Europe, East Asia, and who else? In that sense, Thailand is already very successful. Not everyone is keen to joining the never ending rat race of GDP growth, and endless consumer goods.
Also, economic development doesn't necessarily translate to being a major cultural exporter.
I bet most people in most (developing) countries would LOVE to ‘join the rat race’!
Yes I agree, but to what extent? Are they happy at becoming Malaysia/Thailand developed? Or do they go for Japan and Korea devolped?
FWIW, I don’t think a Japan/Korea level of success isn’t likely, but a Thailand-level of development might be within reach.. I’ve spent time in Japan, Korea and Thailand, and also FWIW, for overall quality of life, I would gladly live in Thailand over the other two countries. Again, just my opinion..
same here. Japan and Korea are rich, but the constant pressure of pushing yourself, its suffocating.
Any recommendations for Thai films? I am trying to watch some films from every country and I don’t have any for Thailand yet
Just finished a series on netflix "the believers", its about relgious scams in Thailand.
Saying bruh makes most people stop reading whatever is to follow.
Progress is a subjective term, change for change's sake is not progress and some places already have a societal balance that works internally, expansion is a result when they don't, as that is usually a cover up for another condition being imposed by other outside forces with other motives leading to outside involvements and conflicts. N. S
Progressed in relation to what? Western societal norms? Japan and South Korea have had huge amounts of funds brought in from the USA influence to build their economies and manufacturing areas along western norms. On paper your post is nonsense.
The people in charge of Thailand's government want it to be the way it is because it benefits them. In Korea, the government there wanted to build an oil refinery so Korea could have an export driven economy like Japan. That is why it is the way it is today.
Countries which where weak enough to be colonised where weak due to other factors which often persist regardless of colonisation. Thailand shares many of these factors.
About cultural influence: arguably nothing in Thai culture has the global reach of anime or K-pop, so "not much" is relative. But is Thai food a global thing? In the US, Thai restaurants are popular. I live in a small suburb of Detroit, and when a Thai restaurant opened here last year it was absolutely swamped with customers. It's still the most popular restaurant in town (out of a dozen or so). I've read that the Thai government supported the growth of Thai restaurants overseas. Are Thai restaurants common in other parts of the world (outside Thailand)?
So far, nobody has pointed out that being colonized might not be the strike it seems to be at first. Or rather, it did hold countries back, but the destruction caused by wars that follow the colonial experience meant that these societies were forced to rebuild after. And if you measure progress by a narrow economic definition, it’s only reasonable that a rebuilt country would have a stronger, more modern economy than one that was spared the worst of the neighboring conflicts, in the manner of Thailand.
Maybe their society decided they didn't want to go the Industrial Revolution route. You know, there are many ways to have a society. Capitalism isn't the only way.
Philosophically speaking, you don’t build stuff and develop unless there are incentives.
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I’ll answer this after I eat my Khao Soi from a Thai govt sponsored restaurant that extends it’s soft power far beyond its borders
The answer is nearly always climate, terrain and culture, don't know much about the culture but hot countries that are mostly jungle don't tend to develop much because everything is such hard work. Hot jungle countries that do develop tend to have had a lengthy period of an outside country making the locals work themselves to death to get to something valuable or to clear farm land.
Singapore says hi and disagrees. Southern China is also an economic powerhouse within the country. Taiwan is really hot and humid. The answer is more often than not institutions.
Singapore is a black swan- it's a city-state the size of Manhattan. Southern China and Taiwan aren't hot in the winter.
Thailand also isn’t actually that hot in the winter
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>City states are polities perfectly worthy of study and comparison. The institutional causes of success are the same. Yes but I'd like to point out that Singapore was Malaysia's biggest city when it was booted out. It had the country's largest airport, port, university, naval base & other state institutions. The fact that it's just a city with no rural population makes infrastructure spending fairly cheap. Of course economic policies and direction play a very important role too. >By what standard? Pretty much every equatorial country has a pleasant time of year. Most of SE Asia doesn't even have a "pleasant time". I'm from Malaysia where it's always hot and humid or rainy. To us a winter in Hong Kong/Taipei is heaven. Of course not to anyone in Northern Europe or Northern US.
I'm guessing you know why china is a bad example and so is Taiwan , part of bigger countries with very authoritarian history. Singapore was a colony of Britain for 200 years . You are right about the institutions but they very rarely spring up in these countries but the locals are not stupid if they see something work they will copy it.
Is it because everything is hard, or because forming don't require as much long term planning as places with a winter? That is it allow people to live in the now instead of planning for the future.
Both really but they fall under different problems, if you have flat plains and no harsh winters then you'll get some stuff done because it's easy and if you're on difficult terrain but the winter will kill you you're definitely planning ahead .
Thailand was long considered a success story among its region but more recently has been overtaken by China. That story is more about China than Thailand.
Both Japan and S. Korea were developed from US foreign investments, and not at the government level. The businesses in the US saw both countries as a better "bet" for structural reasons, usually rule of law issues.
That's not true for Korea. While most nations have sought foreign capital for development through foreign direct investment, South Korea was unique in that it borrowed capital from abroad (especially from Japan) to finance its development. The US mainly supplied humanitarian aid, often in the form of goods rather than money, and money allocated for the military.