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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Three things make Siam preserved it’s political dependence:
1. Willingness to avoided confrontation: As British was gobbling up Burma, Siam watch from across its border and learned to positioned itself carefully. Any cooperation at that time was scrutinized with the fear of losing the nation. This somehow didn’t work out sometimes, as Siam was forced to sign many unequal treaties in some of the various aspects.
2. Modernization of the Kingdom: With threat looming across its border, Siam modernized various laws, regulations and governance with various success. The North was reorganized into territories and provinces, foreign advisors were employed and the King even went to tour Europe for recognition of the Kingdom. Even that, Siam lost Lao provinces and various territories, as those modernization program did not keep up to the rapid speed of colonization
3. Balancing the Great Powers: As Siam recognizes the ‘Concert of Europe’, non-threatening great powers such as Germany and Russia were given more recognition. Siam diplomatically played the cards carefully, to make sure that everyone has a equal share and interests in the Kingdom, while avoided solely over-relying only one of the great powers in the stage. This strategy backfired in Burma, in which Burma over-trusted France, and lost.
The three points cumulated in 1904 British-France treaty, in which Siam was divided into two sphere of influence, using the Chao Phraya Basin.
Keep in mind I specifically chose the word political. Siam partially lost the judicial and economical independence during the Bowring Treaty, in which trade was opened and extrajudicial rights were given to the British (and then to more than various colonizers), making it one of the many unequal treaties signed during the colonization era.
The real story begin after that, in which Siam regained its non-political independence from great nations after WW I, maintained as a junior independent nation in the interregnum and survived WW II relatively unscathed.
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