Thailand: A Chinese Colony?
So what about that Thai identity. The kingdom has so far been spared the racial chasm that openly split Indonesia and still today Malaysia. Are ethnic Chinese the shadowy masters of Thais? Name a leader here. They’re all of Chinese descent. Except, yes.
There is no Singapore without them. But what would Thailand today be without the Chinese. After centuries of immigration and assimilation there’s hardly a Thai family left without some Chinese blood.
Thailand’s a quasi-Chinese colony, internally taken over by immigrants whose diaspora did what Thais didn’t and took chances? Now traces of the old envious sinophobia rooted in socio-economics are back.
Blame it on the Chinese:
This despite their nearly seamless assimilation with a fairly full acculturation. Excerpt from G. William Skinner, “Chinese Assimilation and Thai Politics”:
“In spite of the popular myth about the “unchanging Chinese,” the descendants of Chinese immigrants have been assimilating to Thai society since the beginnings of Chinese settlement in Siam (…) In the nineteenth century, some children and practically all grandchildren of Chinese immigrants achieved complete assimilation to Thai society. Fourth-generation Chinese were unheard of, not because Chinese had not been settled and rearing families for at least four generations, but because all great-grandchildren of Chinese immigrants had merged with Thai society (…) Assimilation is considered complete when the immigrant’s descendant identifies himself in almost all social situations as a Thai, speaks the Thai language habitually and with native fluency, and interacts by choice with Thai more often than with Chinese.”
One wouldn’t say Thailand’s Chinese are anti-Thai, on the contrary. There is no modern Thailand without the Chinese, these decent, hard working, successful people.
Hi, I’d be really interested to watch the video here but it is listed as private. Is there a publicly available version you could point me to? Thanks.
(BD: Oops sorry, that video just went private. Contacted the publisher. Seems to be public again.)
Yeah, nationalism and scapegoating go hand in hand in official Thailand. It’s a classic “double edged sword” which when directed at alien, uneducated or other non “Thai” influences works very well for the ruling classes. The alternative version of cultural pollution that you are alluding to was asserted by an earlier monarch. The Chinese were “Jews of Asia” apparently … The modern version of the argument focuses on traditional Chinese culture rather than race but the subtleties of prejudice tend to get lost in the violence when riots happen. I wonder if the Indonesian 1998 “pogrom” like events are well known here. They have some very obvious parallels here and now.
Surprised Dan has decided to touch upon this matter. It is one of those subjects which are like sort of unspoken taboos: no one talks about it, although at very least is aware of it.
But the fact remains same: there is no person up in the government, politics, big companies, military and any other high positions who are not Chinese. Also, PAD curiously and self-admittedly is mostly a movement aimed to “ensure the rights of minorities” (particularly Chinese).
There were several posts on another blog a year or so ago dedicated to this matter. I forgot which one. but anyway, I doubt that it would be much of a discussion here on this matter.
“Except, yes”? Which leader is not of Chinese descent?
If you’re talking about the royal family, the late queen mother, HRH Princess Srinagarindra (Mae Fah Luang), was born to a Chinese father and Thai mother.
(Due to LM it’s prudent to be careful, but this post does not imply anything negative at all, and only discusses a historical figure, not about current members of the royal family.)
Thai-Nease?
Chi-Thai?
Or the holy “Thainess” rather reads like “Thainese”?
BangkokDan
Sino-Thai should perhaps be spelt in a more phonetically correct fashion as “Sigh (pause) – No Thai”?
Going along with Jaded’s version, there is another pronunciation of Sino-Thai, which ultimately has the same meaning as Jaded’s, and that would be “See (pause) – No Thai.”
AntiPADshist, I think it was Wise Kwai aka Prof. Federico Ferrara who posted last year on China’s unofficial-but-very-real economical colonization of Thailand.
The trend of Singapore based foreign condo buyers may have faltered but surely “undervalued” Thailand remains attractive for all kinds of different Chinese money …
What’s the bet that much of the capital inflows of the last few months was Chinese based? Not necessarily China based but then if you look at capital inflows to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore after the big stimulus you can see that as much as twenty percent of those government monies were in foreign bank accounts within a couple of months of the initial disbursement … I saw a financial report that claimed Hong Kong alone picked up ten percent of it in a few months. Of course Hong Kong has Macao and Singapore is now casinoed up too. Pity about Thailand’s ban but who knows what might change in the future? Where are those Chinese tourists anyway and what are they doing when they visit Thailand? What is likely to increase those flagging tourist numbers from the West?
Of course given the fantastic level of casino capitalism visible in the U.S. stock markets last night we might all be forgiven for assuming that the serious gambling money has moved away from traditional entertainments.
(BD: Indeed some serious completely legal gambling glitch last night! Who knows, the next glitch may push the DOW some 2,000 points upwards!)
Jaded, I think an Indonesia-type progrom is very unlikely here, simply because of how deeply the Chinese have intgerated into Thai society. For instance, a Thai friend of mine (3rd generation Chinese on both sides), when studying in the U.K. was amazed to meet a guy calling himself “Malaysian-Chinese.” In my friend’s case he’s just Thai, period (and doesn’t speak any Chinese). There are very few people in Thailand without some Chinese blood, but they are Thai in their own minds. Although you can see how they’ve changed Thai society, just as that society has changed them.
It’s a fascinating question in many ways, how much of his culture should an immigrant give up?
@Robin
No, I was referring to News in Bangkok blog, search there for three posts “Chinese in Bangkok.”
Here it is, I found it, three posts (this blog has changed its template since, thus I couldn’t recall its name immediately):
http://news.inbangkok.org/?p=497
http://news.inbangkok.org/?p=501
http://news.inbangkok.org/?p=534
As you can see, I have made a comment to first post, and provided some more links to other articles on the matter.
Especially I recommend reading this one, it provides quite revealing stuff, as well as some other side of story about 1997 crisis.
Notice that the article on Stickman’s blog (“Thais, Farang, and The Land“) has been removed already quite a while, so, the link is to its archived version. But is quite revealing I think. In this article the author starts to explain main thing from the third paragraph, with words:
I think he makes a VERY solid point ins saying :
I won’t make longer quotes here, although surely it would be worth it. But I suggest to read that all to get SOME idea of what’s actually going on here.
Also a good one is by BP: “Colonized by the Middle Class,” which he based on article “Shuffling Towards Fascism” – where in the comments there is some discussion on fascism.
BTW, I think the SAME thing is gonna happen now, with Korn’s & his buddy Abhisit’s massive project called “Khem Kaeng,” which is not simply a single project, but as super-huge package of MANY mega-projects – which makes all the prelude to ’97 pale in comparison. I bet that Korn & his fellow banksters (and other plunderers, as CP and other magnates) are right NOW causing this country a much higher damage than what has lead to ’97 crisis. Wait and see!
And that, in my opinion, is the MAIN reason of why Abhisit is so stubborn in refusing to call for elections now – because he & Korn along with all the Demo-craps (the most corrupt, cockroach party) are so desperate to drag on few more months until the end of year – to make sure that B400bln have been fully divided among themselves and their allies BEFORE any elections take place. And then – let even TRT/PPP/PT/whoever else of UDD win the elections LOL! Because they will inherit the HUGE load of debt left over by Demo-craps. After all, that’s why they’re Demo-craps, right?
(BD: So easily forgetting the Thaksin order, it’s flabbergasting … Thanks for the Stickman link, excellent read.)
Federico Ferrara is Khi Kwai not Wise Kwai.
I believe there must be a large number of pure-blooded Thais still. Also, isn’t there some doubt that has arisen in recent years among evolutionary biologists/geneticists that the Tai or Kradai peoples are actually of Australonesian origin rater than having moved from Southern China as had widely been accepted previously? Anyway my close friend maintains that his family is pure Thai and I believe him.