HISTORY
Southeast Asia has been inhabited
for more than half a million years. Recent archaeological studies
suggest that by 4000 B.C., communities in what is now Thailand
had emerged as centers of early bronze metallurgy. This development,
along with the cultivation of wet rice, provided the impetus for
social and political organization. Research suggests that these
innovations may actually have been transmitted from there to the
rest of Asia, including to China.
The Thai are related linguistically
to groups originating in southern China. Migrations from southern
China to Southeast Asia may have occurred in the 6th and 7th centuries.
Malay, Mon, and Khmer civilizations flourished in the region prior
to the arrival of the ethnic Thai.
Thais date the founding of their nation to the 13th century. According to tradition, in 1238, Thai chieftains overthrew their Khmer overlords at Sukhothai and established a Thai kingdom. After its decline, a new Thai kingdom emerged in 1350 on the Chao Praya River. At the same time, there was an equally important Tai kingdom of Lanna, centered in Chiang Mai, which rivaled Sukhothai and Ayutthaya for centuries, and which defines northern Thai identity to this day.
The first ruler of the Kingdom
of Ayutthaya, King Rama Thibodi, made two important contributions
to Thai history: the establishment and promotion of Theravada
Buddhism as the official religion--to differentiate his kingdom
from the neighboring Hindu kingdom of Angkor--and the compilation
of the Dharmashastra, a legal code based on Hindu sources and
traditional Thai custom. The Dharmashastra remained a tool of
Thai law until late in the 19th century. Beginning with the Portuguese
in the 16th century, Ayutthaya had some contact with the West,
but until the 1800s, its relations with neighboring nations, as
well as with India and China, were of primary importance.
After more than 400 years
of power, in 1767, the Kingdom of Ayutthaya was brought down by
invading Burmese armies and its capital burned. After a single-reign
capital established at Thonburi by Taksin, a new capital city
was founded in 1782, across the Chao Phraya at the site of present-day
Bangkok, by the founder of the Chakri dynasty. The first Chakri
king was crowned Rama I. Rama's heirs became increasingly concerned
with the threat of European colonialism after British victories
in neighboring Burma in 1826.
The first Thai recognition
of Western power in the region was the Treaty of Amity and Commerce
with the United Kingdom in 1826. In 1833, the United States began
diplomatic exchanges with Siam, as Thailand was called until 1938.
However, it was during the later reigns of Rama IV (or King Mongkut,
1851-68), and his son Rama V (King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910)),
that Thailand established firm rapprochement with Western powers.
The Thais believe that the diplomatic skills of these monarchs,
combined with the modernizing reforms of the Thai Government,
made Siam the only country in South and Southeast Asia to avoid
European colonization.
In 1932, a bloodless coup transformed the Government of Thailand from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) initially accepted this change but later surrendered the kingship to his 10-year-old nephew. Upon his abdication, King Prajadhipok said that the obligation of a ruler was to reign for the good of the whole people, not for a select few.
Although nominally a constitutional monarchy after 1932, Thailand was ruled by a series of military governments interspersed with brief periods of democracy. Following the 1932 revolution that imposed constitutional limits on the monarchy, Thai politics was dominated for a half-century by a military and bureaucratic elite. Changes of government were effected primarily by means of a long series of mostly bloodless coups. Thailand was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War until Japan's defeat in 1945.
Beginning with a brief experiment in democracy during the mid-1970s, civilian democratic political institutions slowly gained greater authority, culminating in 1988 when Chatichai Choonavan--leader of the Thai Nation Party--assumed office as the country's first democratically elected Prime Minister in more than a decade. Three years later, yet another bloodless coup ended his term.
Shortly afterward, the military appointed Anand Panyarachun, a businessman and former diplomat, to head a largely civilian interim government and promised to hold elections in the near future. However, following inconclusive elections, former army commander Suchinda Kraprayoon was appointed Prime Minister. Thais reacted to the appointment by demanding an end to military influence in government. Demonstrations were violently suppressed by the military; in May 1992, soldiers killed at least 50 protesters.
Domestic and international reaction to the violence forced Suchinda to resign, and the nation once again turned to Anand Panyarachun, who was named interim Prime Minister until new elections in September 1992. In those elections, the political parties that had opposed the military in May 1992 won by a narrow majority, and Chuan Leekpai, a leader of the Democratic Party, became Prime Minister. Chuan dissolved Parliament in May 1995, and the Thai Nation Party won the largest number of parliamentary seats in subsequent elections. Party leader Banharn Silpa-Archa became Prime Minister but held the office only little more than a year. Following elections held in November 1996, Chavalit Youngchaiyudh formed a coalition government and became Prime Minister. The onset of the Asian financial crisis caused a loss of confidence in the Chavalit government and forced him to hand over power to Chuan Leekpai in November 1997. Chuan formed a coalition government based on the themes of prudent economic management and institution of political reforms mandated by Thailand's 1997 constitution.
In January 2001, telecommunications multimillionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party won a decisive victory on a populist platform of economic growth and development. In the February 2005 elections, Thaksin was re-elected by an even greater majority, sweeping 377 out of 500 parliamentary seats. Soon after Prime Minister Thaksin's second term began, allegations of corruption emerged against his government. Peaceful anti-government mass demonstrations grew, and thousands marched in the streets to demand Thaksin's resignation. Prime Minister Thaksin dissolved the Parliament in February 2006 and declared snap elections in April. The main opposition parties boycotted the polls, and the judiciary subsequently annulled the elections. A new round of elections was anticipated in November 2006.
Before new elections could be held, on September 19, 2006 in a non-violent coup d'etat, a group of top military officers overthrew the caretaker administration of Thaksin Shinawatra, repealed the constitution, and abolished both houses of Parliament. Soon thereafter, the coup leaders promulgated an interim constitution and appointed Surayud Chulanont as interim Prime Minister. In a national referendum on August 19, 2007, a majority of Thai voters approved a new constitution drafted by an assembly appointed by the coup leaders. The interim government held multi-party elections under provisions of the new constitution on December 23, 2007, which resulted in the People's Power Party (PPP) winning a plurality of 233 of the 480 seats in the lower house of Parliament. PPP leader Samak Sundaravej formed a coalition government and formally took office as Prime Minister on February 6, 2008.
Thailand's southern border provinces have long been host to a secessionist movement. Since 2004, violent ethnic Malay separatists have conducted an insurgency in the provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani, and Songkhla against symbols and representatives of government authority, as well as against civilians, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths.
Since the end of the Second World War in 1945, Thailand has had very close relations with the United States. Threatened by communist revolutions in neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, Thailand actively sought U.S. assistance to contain communist expansion in the region. Thailand also has been an active member in multilateral organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
