History
Thai history has all the dramatic elements to inspire the imagination: palace intrigue, wars waged with spears and elephants, popular protest movements and a penchant for ‘smooth-as-silk’ coups.
From the Beginning
Though there is evidence of prehistoric peoples, most scholars start the story of Thai nationhood at the arrival of the ‘Tai’ people during the first millennium AD. The Tai people migrated from southern China and spoke Tai-Kadai, a family of tonal languages said to be the most significant ethno-linguistic group in Southeast Asia. The language group branched off into Laos (the Lao people) and Myanmar (the Shan).
Most of these new arrivals were farmers and hunters who lived in loosely organised villages, usually near a river source, with no central government or organised military. The indigenous Mon people are often recognised as assembling an early confederation (often referred to as Mon Dvaravati) in central and northeastern Thailand from the 6th to 9th centuries. Little is known about this period, but scholars believe that the Mon Dvaravati had a centre in Nakhon Pathom, outside of Bangkok, with outposts in parts of northern Thailand.
The ancient superpower of the region was the Khmer empire, based in Angkor (in present-day Cambodia), which expanded across the western frontier into present-day northeastern and central Thailand starting in the 11th century. Sukhothai and Phimai were regional administrative centres connected by roads with way-station temples that made travel easier and were a visible symbol of imperial power. The Khmer monuments started out as Hindu but were later converted into Buddhist temples after the regime converted. Though their power would eventually decline, the Khmer imparted to the evolving Thai nation an artistic, bureaucratic and even monarchical legacy.
Thai history is usually told from the perspective of the central region, where the current capital is. But the southern region has a separate historical narrative that didn’t merge with the centre until the modern era. Between the 8th and 13th centuries, southern Thailand was controlled by the maritime empire of Srivijaya, based in southern Sumatra (Indonesia), and controlled trade between the Straits of Malacca.
oHistorical Sites & Museums
Si Satchanalai-Chaliang Historical Park
The Rise of the Thai Kingdoms
While the regional empires were declining in the 12th to 16th centuries, Tai peoples in the hinterlands established new states that would eventually unite the country.
Lanna
In the northern region, the Lanna kingdom, founded by King Mengrai, built Chiang Mai (meaning ‘new city’) in 1292 and proceeded to unify the northern communities into one cultural identity. For a time Chiang Mai was something of a religious centre for the region. However, Lanna was plagued by dynastic intrigues, fell to the Burmese in 1556 and was later eclipsed by Sukhothai and Ayuthaya as the progenitor of the modern Thai state.
Sukhothai
Then just a frontier town on the edge of the ailing Khmer empire, Sukhothai expelled the distant power in the mid-13th century and crowned the local chief as the first king. But it was his son Ramkhamhaeng who led the city-state to become a regional power with dependencies in modern-day Laos and southern Thailand. Sukhothai replaced Chiang Mai as a centre of Theravada Buddhism on mainland Southeast Asia. The monuments built during this era helped define a distinctive architectural style. After his death, Ramkhamhaeng’s empire disintegrated. In 1378 Sukhothai became a tributary of Ayuthaya.
Ayuthaya
Close to the Gulf of Thailand, the city-state of Ayuthaya grew rich and powerful from the international sea trade. The legendary founder was King U Thong, one of 36 kings and five dynasties that steered Ayuthaya through a 416-year lifespan. Ayuthaya presided over an age of commerce in Southeast Asia. Its main exports were rice and forest products, and many commercial and diplomatic foreign missions set up headquarters outside the royal city. Ayuthaya adopted Khmer court customs, honorific language and ideas of kingship. The monarch styled himself as a Khmer devaraja (divine king) instead of the Sukhothai ideal of dhammaraja (righteous king).
Ayuthaya paid tribute to the Chinese emperor, who rewarded this ritualistic submission with generous gifts and commercial privileges. Ayuthaya’s reign was constantly under threat from expansionist Burma. The city was occupied in 1569 but later liberated by King Naresuan. In 1767 Burmese troops successfully sacked the capital and dispersed the Thai leadership into the hinterlands. The destruction of Ayuthaya remains a vivid historical event for the nation, and the tales of court life are as evocative as the stories of King Arthur.
The Bangkok Era
The Revival
With Ayuthaya in ruins and the dynasty destroyed, a general named Taksin filled the power vacuum and established a new capital in 1768 in Thonburi, across the river from modern-day Bangkok. King Taksin was deposed and executed in 1782 by subordinate generals. One of the leaders of the coup, Chao Phraya Chakri, was crowned King Buddha Yot Fa (Rama I), the founder of the current Chakri dynasty. He moved the capital across the river to the Ko Ratanakosin district of present-day Bangkok. The new kingdom was viewed as a revival of Ayuthaya and its leaders attempted to replicate the former kingdom’s laws, government practices and cultural achievements. They also built a powerful military that avenged Burmese aggression, kicking them out of Chiang Mai. The Bangkok rulers continued courting Chinese commercial trade.
The Reform
The Siamese elite had long admired China, but by the 1800s the West dominated international trade and geopolitics.
King Mongkut (Rama IV; r 1851–68), often credited with modernising the kingdom, spent 27 years prior to assuming the crown as a monk in the Thammayut sect, a reform movement he founded to restore scholarship to the faith. During his reign the country was integrated into the prevailing market system that broke up royal monopolies and granted more rights to foreign powers.
Name Changes
The country known today as Thailand has had several monikers. The Khmers are credited for naming this area ‘Siam’. In 1939 the name of the country was changed from Siam (Prathet Syam) to Thailand (Prathet Thai).
Mongkut’s son, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V; r 1873–1910) took greater steps in replacing the old political order. He abolished slavery and introduced the creation of a salaried bureaucracy, a police force and a standing army. His reforms brought uniformity to the legal code, law courts and revenue offices. Schools were established along European models. Universal conscription and poll taxes made all men the king’s men. Many of the king’s advisors were British, and they ushered in a remodelling of the old Ayuthaya-based system. Distant sub-regions were brought under central command and railways were built to link them to population centres. Pressured by French and British colonies on all sides, the modern boundaries of Siam came into shape by ceding territory.
Democracy vs Dictatorship
The 1932 Revolution
During a period of growing independence movements in the region, a group of foreign-educated military officers and bureaucrats led a successful (and bloodless) coup against absolute monarchy in 1932. The pro-democracy party soon splintered and, by 1938, General Phibul Songkhram, one of the original democracy supporters, had seized control of the country. During WWII, Phibul, who was staunchly anti-royalist, strongly nationalistic and pro-Japanese, allowed that country to occupy Thailand as a base for assaults on British colonies in Southeast Asia. In the post-WWII era, Phibul positioned Thailand as an ally of the US in its war on communism.
The Cold War
During the Cold War and the US conflict in Vietnam, the military leaders of Thailand gained legitimacy and economic support from the US in exchange for the use of military installations in Thailand. By the 1970s a new political consciousness bubbled up from the universities. In 1973 more than half a million people – intellectuals, students, peasants and workers – demonstrated in Bangkok and major provincial towns, demanding a constitution from the military government. The bloody dispersal of the Bangkok demonstration on 14 October led to the collapse of the regime and the creation of an elected constitutional government. This lasted only three years until another protest movement was brutally squashed and the military returned to restore civil order.
By the 1980s the so-called political soldier General Prem Tinsulanonda forged a period of political and economic stability that led to the 1988 election of a civilian government. Prem is still involved in politics today as the president of the palace’s privy council, a powerful position that joins the interests of the monarchy with the military.
The Business Era
The new civilian government was composed of former business executives, many of whom represented provincial commercial interests, instead of Bangkok-based military officials, signalling a shift in the country’s political dynamics. Though the country was doing well economically, the government was accused of corruption and vote-buying and the military moved to protect its privileged position with a 1991 coup. Elected leadership was restored shortly after the coup, and the Democrat Party, with the support of business and the urban middle class, dominated the parliament.
The 1997 Asian currency crisis derailed the surging economy and the government was criticised for its ineffective response. That same year, the parliament passed the watershed ‘people’s constitution’, which enshrined human rights and freedom of expression and granted more power to a civil society to counter corruption. (The 1997 constitution was thrown out during the 2006 coup.)
By the turn of the millennium, the economy had recovered and business interests had succeeded the military as the dominant force in politics. The telecommunications billionaire and former police officer Thaksin Shinawatra ushered in the era of the elected CEO. He was a capitalist with a populist message and garnered support from the rural and urban poor and the working class. From 2001 to 2005, Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party transformed national politics into one-party rule.
The Thaksin Era
Though Thaksin enjoyed massive popular support, his regime was viewed by urban intellectuals as a kleptocracy, with the most egregious example of corruption being the tax-free sale of his family’s Shin Corporation stock to the Singaporean government in 2006, a windfall of 73 billion baht (US$1.88 billion) that was engineered by special legislation. This enraged the upper and middle classes and led to street protests in Bangkok. On 19 September 2006 the military staged a bloodless coup, the first in 15 years, which brought an end to the country’s longest stretch of democratic rule. The military dissolved the constitution that had sought to ensure a civilian government and introduced a new constitution that limited the resurgence of one-party rule by interests unsympathetic to the military and the aristocrats.
The Coup Decade
Following Thaksin’s ouster a cycle of elections-protests-coups followed. Thaksin’s allies would win an election, followed by massive protests by anti-Thaksin factions, then a military coup backed by the Constitutional Court and the palace. The final scene in the political ping-pong came in 2011 when Thaksin’s politically allied Puea Thai party won a parliamentary majority and Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra was elected as prime minister. Yingluck Shinawatra became both the first female prime minister of Thailand and the country’s youngest-ever premier. The belief that the Yingluck government was a Thaksin administration in all but name ensured she faced bitter opposition.
The most disastrous misstep was a proposed bill granting amnesty for Thaksin, which would have allowed him to return to the country. Street demonstrations began in October 2013 with sporadic violence between Yingluck’s supporters and opponents. Yingluck and nine of her ministers stepped down on 7 May of the next year. The military seized control 15 days later.
Return to Military Dictatorship
On 22 May 2014, the Thai military under General Prayut Chan-o-cha overthrew the elected government and brought to an end months of political crisis. Prayut said the coup was necessary to restore stability.
Prayut’s military government is known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). The NCPO set about restoring stability by implementing martial law and silencing critics. All media were under orders to refrain from dissent. Internet providers were ordered to block any content that violated the junta’s orders. Even now, some websites, including the Thailand section of the Human Rights Watch website, remain inaccessible inside Thailand. In March 2015 Prayut told journalists that he would execute those who did not toe the official line – the domestic media now self-censors its stories.
The crackdown extends into the civilian sphere as well. More than 1000 people – opposition politicians, academics, journalists, bloggers and students – have been detained or tried in military courts. In March 2015, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights claimed that the military is using martial law to silence opposition and to call for ‘freedom of expression to ensure genuine debate’.
In preparation for the inevitable transfer of the crown, the military also increased prosecution of the country’s strict lèse-majesté laws. In August 2015 one man received a 30-year prison sentence for insulting the monarchy on his Facebook page after sharing a news article. BBC Thai was investigated for defamation of the new king after a 2016 profile piece aired online.
While the NCPO was busy silencing critics, it failed to address Thailand’s slumping economy. Foreign investment, exports and GDP all contracted after the coup. In 2016 a much-needed infrastructure investment plan was announced to help bolster the downturn. Tourism continues to be the bright spot in the economy.
Timeline
4000–2500 BC
Prehistoric inhabitants of northeastern Thailand develop agriculture and tool-making.
6th–11th centuries AD
The Mon Dvaravati thrive in central Thailand and in 10th century the Tai peoples arrive.
1240–1438
Approximate dates of Sukhothai kingdom.
1351
Legendary kingdom of Ayuthaya is founded.
1511
Portuguese found foreign mission in Ayuthaya, followed by other European nations.
1767
Ayuthaya falls at the hands of the Burmese.
1782
Chakri dynasty is founded, and the capital is moved to Bangkok.
1826
Thailand allies with Britain during the first Anglo-Burmese War.
1868–1910
King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) reigns; it’s a time of modernisation and European imperialism.
1932
A bloodless revolution ends absolute monarchy.
1939
The country’s English name is officially changed from Siam to Thailand.
1941
Japanese forces enter Thailand during WWII.
1946
King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) ascends the throne; Thailand joins the UN.
1957
A successful coup by Sarit Thanarat starts a period of military rule that lasts until 1973.
1973
Civilian demonstrators overthrow the military dictatorship; a democratic government is installed.
2004
A tsunami kills 5000 people and damages tourism and fishing on the Andaman Coast.
2006
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is ousted by a military coup.
2011
Yingluck Shinawatra becomes the first female prime minister; destructive floods hit the country.
2014
Thailand’s Constitutional Court finds Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of abuse of power, forcing her from office.
2016
King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) dies; his son succeeds the throne. Military-backed constitution wins popular referendum.
2017
Yingluck Shinawatra flees into exile to avoid appearing in court to hear a judgement on corruption charges.