Literally everyone of its neighboring countries was colonized by the West for centuries except them. How were they able to succeed in maintaining their independence when everyone around them took years of political struggle to be free?
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Hot take: This is the one of the few comments in this thread that dares go beyond the usual Thai ultranationalist propaganda.
Siam did indeed “fall to colonization”, just like everybody else. Even if only because the French forced them to give up all the territories east of the Mekong, and in the north, and in the Malay Peninsula, and pretty much anywhere they wanted or needed. For centuries Siam had subjugated, vassalized and enslaved those lands and peoples that we now call “Lao”.
The objective of the French was always to secure the Mekong as a waterway to get to China. They didn’t care much for conquest for the sake of conquest.
Also, everybody in the West should read a bit about the documented historical facts of SE Asia prior to Western intervention.
First of all, many will be surprised to learn that the Tai peoples (Tai, not “Thai”) invaded from the north, from mainland China, not that long ago, during historical times and the European medieval era (pushed south by the Han Chinese colonizers).
They quite literally overrun, displaced and erased the indigenous aboriginal populations, and the Khmer, Mon and Cham civilizations. And then, they spent the following centuries warring and trying to destroy each other.
Especially Siam’s history of brutal oppression, slavery and genocide against the Lao peoples — not that the Lao themselves didn’t engage in those practices anyway. So did the “Vietnamese” (whatever that word meant back then), and pretty much everybody else.
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