Thailand
Thailand's population is relatively homogeneous. More than 85% speak
a dialect of Thai and share a common culture. This core population
includes the central Thai (33.7% of the population, including
Bangkok), Northeastern Thai (34.2%), northern Thai (18.8%), and
southern Thai (13.3%).
The language of the central Thai population is the language taught
in schools and used in government. Several other small Thai-speaking
groups include the Shan, Lue, and Phutai.
Up to 12% of Thai are of significant Chinese heritage, but the
Sino-Thai community is the best integrated in Southeast Asia.
Malay-speaking Muslims of the south comprise another significant
minority group (2.3%). Other groups include the Khmer; the Mon, who
are substantially assimilated with the Thai; and the Vietnamese.
Smaller mountain-dwelling tribes, such as the Hmong and Mein, as
well as the Karen, number about 788,024.
The population is mostly rural, concentrated in the rice-growing
areas of the central, northeastern, and northern regions. However,
as Thailand continues to industrialize, its urban population--31.6%
of total population, principally in the Bangkok area--is growing.
Thailand's highly successful government-sponsored family planning
program has resulted in a dramatic decline in population growth from
3.1% in 1960 to less than 1% today. Life expectancy also has risen,
a positive reflection of Thailand's efforts at public health
education. However, the AIDS epidemic has had a major impact on the
Thai population. Today, over 500,000 Thais live with HIV or
AIDS--approximately 1.4% of the adult population. Each year,
25-30,000 Thais die from AIDS-related causes. Ninety percent of them
are aged 20-49, the most productive sector of the workforce. The
situation could have been worse; an aggressive public education
campaign in the early 1990s reduced the number of new HIV infections
from over 100,000 annually to around 15,000 annually now.
The constitution mandates 12 years of free education, however, this
is not provided universally. Education accounts for 18.0% of total
government expenditures.
Theravada Buddhism is the major religion of Thailand and is the
religion of about 95% of its people. The government permits
religious diversity, and other major religions are represented.
Spirit worship and animism are widely practiced. |
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Southeast Asia has been inhabited for more than half a million
years. Archaeological studies suggest that by 4000 BC, 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 Tai 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 Tai.
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 kingdoms and principalities, as well as with 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 I'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.
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.
Samak was forced from office in September by a Constitutional Court
ruling that he had violated the constitution’s conflict of interest
provisions by hosting a televised cooking show. His successor,
Somchai Wongsawat, PPP leader and brother-in-law of former Prime
Minister Thaksin, also was forced from office by the Constitutional
Court when it dissolved the PPP and two other coalition parties on
December 2 for election law violations. A split in the PPP paved the
way for parliament’s election of Democrat Party leader Abhisit
Vejjajiva on December 15, 2008.
Despite the PPP’s electoral mandate, its governments were dogged by
protests throughout 2008, some of which resulted in violence between
security forces and protesters and between pro- and anti-government
demonstrators. Anti-government protesters occupied Government House
from late August until December; briefly seized a television station
in August; blockaded parliament in October; and occupied and forced
the closure of Bangkok’s airports for several days in late November
through early December.
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. |
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