Southeast Asia in the 19th and 20th

Centuries
Asia Tenggara Abad Ke-19 dan 20
HSA3043

Thailand Prior to WWII

Geography
 Modern Nation-State

 The name “Thailand” was invented in 1939; prior to that

year, the country was known as Siam
 The borders of the country were drawn in 1890s and 1900s
 The current capital, Bangkok, was founded in 1782 due to
the destruction of the old capital and one of the great
port cities of Southeast Asia, Ayutthaya (destroyed 15
years earlier)
 Integral part of global economy and colonial world order
of the period
 Modern Thailand and Colonialism

 Thongchai Winichakul (2011): Questions the “fact” of Thailand never being

colonised taken as a starting point to Thai historiography and views this as a
reflection of elite understanding of history at the turn of the 20th century
 Thailand as “crypto-colony” approaches historiography of modern Thailand as a
royalist myth deployed as a tool of concealing the country’s colonial condition
 ‘Colonialism’ and ‘Independence’ are not mutually exclusive concepts and realities
 A long line of scholars who argued that Thailand’s modern history reflects its semi-
colonial condition
 In fact, “the-Siam-was-never-colonised premise is the foundation of the royal-
nationalist ideology of Thai history”
 The Siamese rulers collaborated with colonisers and facilitated colonial
transformation of the society while placing the country under colonial order
 Chakri Dynasty and the 19th century
Reforms
 Chakri Dynasty: King Mongkut (1851-1868) and King Chulalongkorn
(1858-1910)
 “Modernisation for the purpose of defence” ≈ Siamese rulers’ quest for
siwilai (civility)
 “Administrative reforms in provinces” ≈ facilitated Siam’s colonisation
of Lao Nan in the northeast and the Patani sultanate in the south
 Struggle for his royal prestige in international arena prompted
Chulalangkorn’s travels to Europe (Britain, France and Russia)
 Collaboration with and admiration of Europeans

“Chulalongkorn Day”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eowj7QkrTGs)

 The Bowring Treaty 1855:
An ‘unequal treaty’ or a ‘royal cash cow’?

 Foreigners were exempted from local laws (not only the Europeans, but also
Chinese in cities and Lao around the northern frontier (who registered as French))
 Representing Thai monarchs (in particular, Chulalongkorn) as anti-colonial leaders
is meant to boost their popularity in Thailand but does not respond to the facts:
Thailand was a buffer zone between the French and the British territories thanks
to its geographical location and collaboration of local leaders with Europeans
 A ‘taste of colonial threat to sovereignty’ only came with the defeat by the
French troops in 1893 (due to the British backing off on the agreement to help
Thailand in its conflict with France)
 The ultimate threat to the country’s sovereignty (in the context of the late 19th
c.) was the humiliation of the monarch by this defeat which damaged the royal
prestige and invincibility of the supreme king (King Chulalongkorn was so
depressed that he lost too much weight and almost died)
 Modernisation:
A Means of Preventing Colonisation or Affirming
Supremacy
 Becoming siwilai through modernisation was intended as a means of
maintaining the image of civility of the Thai monarch, “the supreme overlord
of the Hindu-Buddhist culture”
 Preserving Thailand’s independence in this reading did not have a nationalist-
as-anti-colonial character
 The Thai monarchs were full of admiration for Europeans and endeavoured to
gain prestige by adopting what they believed were the latter’s assessment
criteria for civility
 At the turn of the 20th century, a large number of foreigners (British, German,
French, Belgian, Japanese) were hired to reform the country’s legal system
and set up postal and communication services, railways, forestry department,
to develop navy in line with transnational liberal-democratic (hence, colonial)
models
 Thailand’s Colonial Condition:
Semi-colony, crypto-colony, indirect colony

 Conventional historiography represents colonial powers as aggressors and Siam

as a victim
 This is achieved by treating the 19th _ and 20th_century conflicts in contemporary
terms, i.e. as if it was taking place between nation-states
 At that time, Siam was a modernising state with an inherited model of an
empire with tributary relations with surrounding vassal-states
 Under the pretext of having to defend and consolidate itself in the light of
European advancement Siam ‘reformed administrative system’ of peripheral
provinces it actually appropriated those territories in an imperialist conquest
 In fact, Siam maintained its imperial legacy by transforming the vassal state into
provinces within the modernising state of a nation-state kind
 Thus, its nationalism was devoid of a popular base and defined by the monarchy
 The Royal Chronicles and Modern
Historiography
 The format of composing chronicles of the reincarnation of monarchs,
contained records of the rulers virtues, accomplishments and failures as a
royal lineage of reincarnations
 It was a legacy of Khmer record-keeping combined with Theravada Sinhalese
tradition of keeping Buddhist chronicles
 Around the mid-19th century, methodology derived from the western
historiography (1. awareness of the difference between the author’s and
the time s/he writes about; 2. critical evaluation of evidence, and 3. a
narrative which evolves in a linear manner and relies on the logics of the
cause-effect kind of sequence of events) gradually replaces the chronicles
 The 1893 defeat represented the turning point in Thailand’s history making
after which a westernised historiography of Siam’s past was articulated
 Modern History of Thailand

 In the first three decades of the 20th century two

discourses on Thailand’s (royal-nationalist) history
emerged:
1. The discourse of siwilai antiquity of Siam which
focused on the history of Sukhotai (a kingdom in
today’s northern part of Thailand from 13th-15th
century) as promoted by King Vajiravudh since 1908
2. The discourse of Siam’s struggles for independence as
authored by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab in between
1914 and 1924
Ram Khaeng Inscription and Sukhothai as
siwilai of Thainess
 Folk legends kept the memory of Sukhothai kingdom in the
tales of Phra Ruang
 The ‘empirical evidence’: the inscription, the throne and
his other regalia were discovered in 1830
 Sukhothai was transformed into an ideal society
embodying the “essence of Thainess”: a benevolent,
father-like king, paternal democracy and a peaceful
Buddhist society flourishing through free trade
 A repository of Thai civilizational superiority maintained
until the present – all doubts cast at the authenticity of
the inscription in the past few decades firmly rejected by
 Brave and Enduring Struggles for
Independence
 Wars against Burma between 16th and 18th centuries
 Before the (re)discovery of Sukhothai, Ayutthaya was the only known predecessor of modern
Siam
 Wars with the Burmese were the most prominent narratives in the royal chronicles of
Ayutthaya
 Kings in the chronicles were treated as higher moral beings (chakravartin), universal rulers of
the Budhhist cosmic order (dharma) rather than individuals belonging to a particular nation
 However, modern western historiography of Siam turned chronicles into a story of wars for
national independence
 In the 1930s and 1940s the pre-Sukhothai history of “Thailand” was added to include the Nan
Chao kingdom of ancient Yunnan where the “Thai people struggled for independence” from
the Chinese
 Facing a Fragile Future? Hmong, the Agriculture Program (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZbWUBLCaw)