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?
In: 205
There was really no reason to colonize Thailand.
1. Siam (Thailand’s western name at the time) didn’t have a lot of resources the colonizers wanted.
2. They bordered several different colonies. So anybody that took them over would now have competing countries on multiple fronts around them.
3. Leadership was very active in diplomacy. They gave up rights, resources, and land to colonizers, and also worked w/ them a lot so they became advocates for Siam back home.
Overall the reward ratio was super low for Thailand, and the colonizers could get whatever they wanted through diplomacy anyway. Eventually Thailand would have fallen but traditional colonization fell out of favor after WWII.
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