History of Thailand (1973–2001)
This is the second half of the History of Thailand article. For earlier history, see History of Thailand before 1768
The Kingdom of Siam
Despite its complete defeat and occupation by Burma, Siam made a remarakbly rapid recovery. The resistance to Burmese rule was led by a noble of Chinese descent, Tak Sin, a capable military leader. Initially based at Chanthaburi in the south-east, within a year he had defeated the Burmese occupation army and re-established a Siamese state with its capital at Thonburi on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, 20km from the sea. In 1768 he was crowned as King Taksin (now officially known as Taksin the Great). He rapidly re-united the Siamese lands under his rule, and in 1769 he also occupied western Cambodia. He then marched south and re-established Siamese rule over the Malay Peninsula as far south as Penang and Terengganu. Having secured his base in Siam, Taksin attacked the Burmese in the north in 1774 and captured Chiang Mai in 1776, permanently uniting Siam and Lan Na. Taksin's leading general in this campaign was Thong Duang, known by the title Chaophraya Chakri. In 1778 Chakri led a Siamese army which captured Vientiane and re-established Siamese domination over Laos.
Despite these successes, by 1779 Taksin was in political trouble at home. He seems to have developed a kind of religious mania, alienating the powerful Buddhist monkhood by claiming to be a sotapanna or divine figure. He also attacked the Chinese merchant class, and foreign observers began to speculate that he would soon be overthrown. In 1782 Taksin sent his armies under Chakri to invade Cambodia, but while they were away a rebellion broke out in the area around the capital. The rebels, who had wide popular support, offered the throne to Chakri. Chakri marched back from Cambodia and deposed Taksin, who was secretly executed shortly after. Chakri ruled under the name Ramathibodi (he was posthumously given the name Phutthayotfa Chulalok), but is now generally known as King Rama I, first king of the Chakri dynasty. One of his first decisions was to move the capital across the river to the village of Bang Makok (meaning "place of olive plums"), which soon became the city of Bangkok. Siam thus acquired both its current dynasty and its current capital.
Rama I restored most of the social and political system of the Ayutthaya kingdom, promulgating new law codes, reinstating court ceremonial and imposing discipline on the Buddhist monkhood. His government was carried out by six great ministries headed by royal princes. Four of these administered various parts of the country, the other two were the ministry of lands and the ministry of the royal court. The army was controlled by the King's brother, known as the Uparat. The Burmese, seeing the disorder accompanying the overthrow of Taksin, invaded Siam again in 1785. Rama allowed them to occupy both the north and the south, but the Uparat led the Siamese army into western Siam and defeated the Burmese in a battle near Kanchanburi. This was the last major Burmese invasion of Siam, although as late as 1802 Burmese forces had to be driven out of Lan Na. In 1792 the Siamese occupied Luang Prabang and brought most of Laos under indirect Siamese rule. Cambodia was also effectively ruled by Siam. By the time of his death in 1809 Rama I had created a Siamese Empire considerably larger than modern Thailand.
The reign of Rama I's son Phuttaloetla Naphalai (now known as King Rama II) was relatively uneventful. The Chakri family now controlled all branches of Siamese government - since Rama I had 42 children, his brother the Uparat had 43 and Rama II had 73, there was no shortage of royal princes to staff the bureacracy, the army, the senior monkhood and the provincial governments. (Most of these were the children of concubines and thus not eligible to inherit the throne.) There was a confrontation with Vietnam, now becoming a major power in the region, over control of Cambodia in 1813, ending with the status quo restored. But during Rama II's reign western influences again began to be felt in Siam. In 1785 the British occupied Penang, and in 1819 they founded Singapore. Soon the British displaced the Dutch and Portuguese as the main western economic and political influence in Siam. The British objected to the Siamese economic system, in which trading monopolies were held by royal princes and businesses were subject to arbitrary taxation. In 1821 the government of British India sent a mission to demand that Siam lift restrictions on free trade - the first sign of an issue which was to dominate 19th century Siamese politics
Rama II died in 1824, and was peacfully succeeded by his son Chetsadabodin, who reigned as King Nangklao, now known as Rama III. Rama II's younger son, Mongkut, was ordered to become a monk to remove him from politics.
In 1825 the British sent another mission to Bangkok. They had by now annexed southern Burma and were thus Siam's neighbours to the west, and they were also extending their control over Malaya. The King was reluctant to give in to British demands, but his advisors warned him that Siam would meet the same fate as Burma unless the British were accommodated. In 1826, therefore, Siam concluded its first commercial treaty with a western power. Under the treaty, Siam agreed to establish a uniform taxation system, to reduce taxes on foreign trade and to abolish some of the royal monopolies. As a result, Siam's trade increased rapidly, many more foreigners settled in Bangkok, and western cultural influences began to spread. The kingdom became wealthier and its army better armed. One consequence was a successful war in Laos, during which Vientiane was burned and the Lao lands formally annexed to Siam. In 1842-45 Siam waged a successful war with Vietnam, which tightened Siamese rule over Cambodia. Rama III's most lasting legacy however, is the Wat Pho temple complex in Bangkok, which he enlarged and endowed with magnificent new temples.
Rama III regarded his brother Mongkut as his heir, although as a monk Mongkut could not openly assume this role. He used his long sojourn as a monk to acquire a western education from French and American missionaries, one of the first Siamese to do so. He learned English and Latin, and studied science and mathematics. The missionaries no doubt hoped to convert him to Christianity, but in fact he was a strict Buddhist and a Siamese nationalist. He intended using this western knowledge to strengthen and modernise Siam when he came to the throne, which he did in 1851. By the 1840s it was obvious that Siamese independence was in danger from the colonial powers: this was shown dramatically by the British Opium Wars with China in 1839-42. In 1850 the British and Americans sent missions to Bangkok demanding the end of all restrictions on trade, the establishment of a western-style government and immunity for their citizens from Siamese law (extraterritoriality). Rama III's government refused these demands, leaving his successor with a dangerous situation. Rama III said on his deathbed: "We will have no more wars with Burma and Vietnam. We will have them only with the West."
The age of reform
Mongkut came to the throne as Rama IV in 1851, determined to save Siam from colonial domination by forcing modernisation on his reluctant subjects. But although he was in theory an absolute monarch, his power was limited. Having been a monk for 27 years, he lacked a base among the powerful royal princes, and did not have a modern state aparatus to carry out his wishes. His first attempts at reform, to establish a modern system of administration and to improve the status of debt-slaves and women, were frustrated. Rama IV thus came to welcome western pressure on Siam. This came in 1855 in the form of a mission led by the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Bowring, who arrived in Bangkok with demands for immediate changes, backed by the threat of force. The King readily agreed to his demand for a new treaty, which restricted import duties to 3 percent, abolished royal trade monopolies, and granted extraterritoriality to British subjects. Other western powers soon demanded and got similar concessions
It soon became apparent that the real threat to Siam came from the French, not the British. The British were interested in commercial advantage, the French in building a colonial empire. They occupied Saigon in 1859, and 1867 established a protectorate over southern Vietnam and eastern Cambodia. Rama IV hoped that the British would defend Siam if he gave them the economic concessions they demanded. In the next reign this would prove to be an illusion, but it is true that the British saw Siam as a useful buffer state between British Burma and French Indo-China.
Rama IV died in 1868, and was succeeded by his 15-year-old son Chulalongkorn, who reigned as Rama V and is now known as Rama the Great. Rama V was the first Siamese king to have a full western education, having been taught by an English governess, Anna Leonowens - whose place in Siamese history has been fictionalised as The King and I, causing great offence to modern Thais. At first Rama V's reign was dominated by the conservative regent, Chaophraya Suriyawong, but when the King came of age in 1873 he soon took control. He created a Privy Council and a Council of State, a formal court system and budget office. He announced that slavery would be gradually abolished and debt-bondage restricted.
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At first the princes and other conservatives successfully resisted the King's reform agenda, but as the older generation was replaced by younger and western-educated princes, resistance faded. The King could always argue that the only alternative was foreign rule. He found powerful allies in his brother Prince Chakkraphat, who he made Finance Minister, and his brother-in-law Prince Devrawongse, Foreign Minister for 38 years. In 1887 Devrawonge visited Europe to study government systems. On his recommendation the King established Cabinet government, an audit office and an Education Department. The semi-autonomous status of Chiang Mai was ended and the army was reorganised and modernised.
None of this was enough to deter French expanionism, and in 1893 the French authorities in Indo-China used a minor border dispute to provoke a crisis. French gunboats appeared at Bangkok, and demanded the cession of all of Laos east of the Mekong. The King appealed both to international law and to the British, but neither proved to any deterrent to the French. The British minister told the King to settle on whatever terms he could get, and he had no choice but to comply. Britain's only gesture was an agreement with France guaranteeing the integrity of the rest of Siam. In exchange, Siam had to give up its claim to the Tai-speaking Shan region of north-eastern Burma to the British.
The French, however, continued to pressure Siam, and in 1906-07 they manufactured another crisis. This time Siam had to give up territory on the west bank of the Mekong opposite Luang Prabang and around Champasak in southern Laos, and also western Cambodia (to which, it is fair to say, Siam had little real claim). The British interceded to prevent more French bullying of Siam, but their price, in 1909, was the transfer to British Malaya of Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu. These were Malay-speaking areas which Siam was probably better off without, but the loss was humiliating nevertheless.
Meanwhile, reform continued apace, increasingly under the control of Rama V's sons, who were all educated in Europe. Railways and telegraph lines united the previously remote and semi-autonomous provinces. The currency was tied to the gold standard and a modern system of taxation replaced the arbitrary exactions and labour service of the past. The biggest problem was the shortage of trained civil servants, and many foreigners had to be employed until new schools could be built and Siamese graduates produced. By 1910, when the King died, Siam had become at least a semi-modern country, and had done enough to avoid colonial rule. Modern Thais are proud to be only nation in south-east Asia to have escaped colonialism. They owe this mainly to the reforming zeal of Rama V and the diplomatic skills of Devrawongse.
Decline of the monarchy
One of Rama V's reforms was to introduce a western-style law of royal succession, so in 1910 he was peacefully succeeded by his son Vajiravudh, who reigned as Rama VI. He had been educated at Sandhurst military academy and at Oxford, and was a thoroughly anglicised Edwardian gentleman. Indeed one of Siam's problems was the widening gap between the westernised royal family and upper aristocracy and the rest of the country. It took another 20 years for western education to extend to the rest of the bureaucracy and the army: a potential source of conflict.
There had of course been no political reform under Rama V. The king was still an absolute monarch, who acted as his own prime minister and staffed all the agencies of the state with his own relatives. Rama VI, with his British education, knew that the rest of the nation could not be excluded from government for ever, but he was no democrat. His solution was build a mass royalist political and paramilitary movement called Sua Pa ("Wild Tigers") to create a sense of participation without weakening the royal grip on power. He applied his observation of the success of the British monarchy, appearing more in public and instituting more royal ceremonies. But he also carried on his father's modernisation program. Polygamy was abolished, primary education made compulsory, and in 1916 higher education came to Siam with the founding of Chulalongkorn University, which in time became the seedbed of a new Siamese intelligentsia.
In 1917 Siam declared war on Germany, mainly to gain favour with the British and the French. Siam's token participation in World War I gained it a seat at the Versailles Peace Conference, and Foreign Minister Devrawongse used this opportunity to argue for the repeal of the 19th century treaties and the restoration of full Siamese sovereignty. The United States obliged in 1920, France and Britain delayed until 1925. This victory gained the king some popularity, but it was soon undercut by discontent over other issues, such as his extravagance, which became more noticable when a sharp postwar recession hit Siam in 1919. There was also the fact that the king had no heir, since he obviously prefered the company of men to women: a matter which of itself did not much concern Siamese opinion, but which did undermine the stability of the monarchy.
Thus when Rama VI died suddenly in 1925, aged only 44, the monarchy was already in a weakened state. He was succeeded by his younger brother Prajadhipok (Rama VII), who inherited a country which had outgrown the system of personal rule but had no experience of any other system. The state's finances were in chaos, the budget out of control, the army restive and the newest player in Siamese politics, the Bangkok press, increasingly outspoken in its criticism. The new king, who had not expected to inherit the throne, had been trained as an army officer and had little aptitude for government.
Rama VII tried to tinker with the government system without actually reforming it. He established a Supreme Council of State, but then stacked it with his relatives, thus negating any good impression it might have created. Pressure for political reform mounted from the new class of university educated civil servants, who filled the Bangkok press with their opinions. One of these was a young lawyer called Pridi Phanomyong. There was also pressure from the influential Chinese business community, who wanted financial stability. The return of prosperity in the mid 1920s eased these pressure somewhat, but the onset of the Great Depression in 1930 brought a renewed air of crisis. Keen to maintain its respectability with foreign creditors, Siam maintained the gold standard, thus pricing itself out of its export markets.
All reforming kings eventually find that the one thing they cannot reform is their own power, and Rama VII reached this point in 1932. With the country deep in depression, the king made a speech in which he said: "I myself know nothing at all about finances, and all I can do is listen to the opinions of others and choose the best... If I have made a mistake, I really deserve to be excused by the people of Siam." This was not well received. Serious political disturbances were threatened in the capital, and in April the king agreed to introduce a constitution under which he would share power with a prime minister. This was not enough for the radical elements in the army, however. On June 24, 1932, while the king was holidaying at the seaside, the Bangkok garrison mutinued and seized power, led by a group of 49 officers known as "the Promoters." This ended 150 years of Siamese absolute monarchy.
Military rule
The military came to power in 1932, and retained for more than 30 years, because it was the only institution in Siam outside the royal family with the education, ability and cohesion to rule the country. The aristocracy was discredited but the urban middle class was still too weak to take power. The army at this time was the only avenue for advancement for ambitious young Siamese, since the royal family monopolised government service the Chinese dominated the business world. The period of military rule can thus be seen as a time of transition between the old aristocratic Siam and the modern democratic Thailand.
The new regime of 1932 was led by a group of colonels headed by Phraya Phahonphonphayuhasena and Phraya Songsuradet. In December they produced a constitution, Siam's first, with a National Assembly, half appointed and half indirectly elected. Full democratic elections were promised when half the population had completed primary education - expected to be sometime in the 1940s. A prime minister and Cabinet were appointed and a facade of constitutional rule maintained.
Although real ppower remained with the army, the civilian democrats, of whom Pridi Phanomyong emerged during the 1930s as the leader, at first accepted the new system as an improvement on absolute monarchy. In late 1933 there was a royalist rebellion in the north, which troops led by Colonel Luang Phibunsongkhram (originally named Plaek Phibunsongkram, and generally known as Phibun) put down. As a result, the king went into exile in Europe and in 1934 he abdicated. His 10-year-old son Ananda Mahidol was proclaimed as Rama VIII, but remained in Europe. Thus Siam became a monarchy without a king, which it remained until the late 1950s.
The new regime carried out some important reforms. The currency went off the gold standard, allowing trade to recover. Serious efforts were made to expand primary and secondary education. Elected local and provincial governments were introduced, and in 1937 democratic development was brought foward when direct elections were held for the National Assembly, although political parties were still not allowed. Thammasat University was founded, at Pridi's initiative, as a more accessible alternative to the elitist Chulalongkorn, and became a hotbed of radicalism. Military expenditure was also greatly expanded, but in the threatening international environment of the 1930s this was generally accepted as wise.
The military, now led by Field Marshal Phibun as Defence Minister, and the civilian liberals led by Pridi as Foreign Minister, worked together harmoniously for several years, but when Phibun became prime minister in December 1938 this co-operation broke down, and military domination became more overt. Phibun was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and his regime soon developed some fascist characteristics. In early 1939 forty political opponents, both monarchists and democrats, were arrested, and after rigged trials eighteen were executed. Phibun launched a demogogic campaign against the Chinese business class. Chinese schools and newspapers were closed, and taxes on Chinese businesses increased.
Also in 1939, Phibun changed the country's name from Siam to Prathet Thai, or Thailand, meaning "land of the free." This was a nationalist gesture: it implied the unity of all the Tai-speaking peoples, including the Lao and the Shan, but excluding the Chinese. The regime's slogan became "Thailand for the Thai."
In 1940 France was occupied by Germany, and Phibun immediately set out to avenge Siam's humiliations by France in 1893 and 1904. By agreement with Japan, Thai troops occupied Lao territory west of the Mekong, and also western Cambodia. This caused a rapid deterioration of relations with the United States and Britain. In April 1941 the U.S. cut off oil supplies to Thailand. The democratic forces were anti-Japanese, and in August the National Assembly voted to resist Japanese pressure by a mass popular mobilisation. But Phibun controlled the army, and when World War II broke out in the Pacific in December, after a brief show of resistance, he allied Thailand with Japan, allowing Japanese troops to pass through the country to attack the British in Malaya and Burma.
As a reward, Japan allowed Thailand to annex the Shan States in northern Burma, and to resume sovereignty over the sultanates of northern Malaya. In January 1942 Thailand actually declared war on Britain and the U.S., but the Thai Ambassador in Washington, Seni Pramoj tactfully decided not to inform the State Department of this fact. When Pridi and the other democratic ministers were forced out of the government and the National Assembly suspended, Seni denounced the regime as illegal and formed a Free Thai Movement in Washington. Pridi led the resistance movement inside Thailand.
By 1944 it was evident that the Japanese were going to lose the war, and their behaviour in Thailand had become increasingly arrogant. This, plus the economic hardship caused by the loss of Thailand's rice export markets, made both the war and Phibun's regime very unpopular, and in July Phibun was forced to resign as Prime Minister. The National Assenmbly reconvened and appointed Pridi as Regent - de facto head of state - and Khuang Aphaiwong as Prime Minister. The new government hastily evacuated the British territories that Phibun had occupied and asked the Japanese to leave. The British were in favour of treating Thailand as a defeated enemy, but the Americans had no great sympathy for British and French colonialism and decided to support the new government. Thailand was thus neither occupied nor punished for its wartime role.
Postwar Thailand
Seni Pramoj became Prime Minister in 1945, and promptly restored the name Siam as a symbol of the end of Phibun's nationalist regime. Pridi as regent was the real power in the new government, which held democratic elections in January 1946. These were the first elections in which political parties were legal, and Pridi's People's Party and its allies won a majority. In March 1946 Pridi became Siam's first demcratically elected Prime Minister. In 1947 he very reluctantly agreed to hand back the French territory occupied in 1940, which all Siamese felt rightfully belonged to them, as the price for admission to the United Nations, the dropping of all wartime claims against Siam and a substantial package of American aid.
In December 1945 the young king Rama VIII had returned to Siam from Europe, but in July 1946 he was found mysteriously shot dead in the palace. He was probably murdered, but why and by whom has never been established. This is a subject which is still literally unmentionable in Thailand. He was succeeded by his young brother Phumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), who was a schoolboy in Europe. Pridi's government did not handle the crisis caused by the king's death well, and in August Pridi was forced to resign. Without his leadership, the civilian government floundered, and in November 1947 the army, its confidence restored after the debacle of 1945, seized power. In April 1948 the army brought Phibun back from exile and made him Prime Minister. Pridi in turn was driven into exile, eventually settling in Beijing as a guest of the People's Republic of China, although he was never a Communist.
Phibun's return to power coincided with the onset of the Cold War and the establishment of a Communist regime in North Vietnam. He soon won the support of the U.S., beginning a long tradition of U.S.-backed military regimes in Thailand (as the country was again renamed in July 1949, this time permanently). Once again political opponents were arrested and tried, and some were executed. There were attempted counter-coups by Pridi supporters in 1948, 1949 and 1951, the second leading to heavy fighting between rival army units before Phibun emerged victorious. In the 1951 attempt, led by naval officers, Phibun was nearly killed.
In 1949 a new constitution was promulgated, creating a Senate appointed by the king (in practice, by the government). But in 1951 the regime abolished its own constitution and reverted to the 1932 arrangements, effectively abolishing the National Assembly as an elected body. This provoked strong opposition from the universities and the press, and led to a further round of trials and repression. The regime was greatly helped, however, but a postwar boom which gathered pace through the 1950s, fuelled by rice exports and U.S. aid. Thailand's economy began to diversity, population growth and urbanisation accelerated, and many Thais began to think that stability and prosperity under authoritarian rule was better than chaos under democracy.
By 1955 Phibun was losing his leading position in the army to younger rivals led by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat and General Thanom Kittikachorn. To shore up his position he restored the 1949 constitution and called elections, which his supporters won. But the army was not prepared to give up power, and in September 1957 demanded Phibun's resignation. When Phibun tried to have Sarit arrested, the army staged a bloodless coup on September 17, 1957, ending Phibun's career for good. Thanom became Prime Minister until 1958, then yielded his place to Sarit, the real head of the regime. Sarit held power until his death in 1963, when Thanom again took the lead.
Sarit and Thanom were the first Thai leaders to have been educated entirely in Thailand, and were less influenced by European political ideas, whether fascist or democratic, than the generation of Pridi and Phibun had been. Rather, they were Thai traditionalists, who sought to restore the prestige of the monarchy and to maintain a society based on order, hierarchy and religion. They saw rule by the army as the best means of ensuring this, and also of defeating Communism, which they now associated with Thailand's traditional enemies the Vietnamese. The young king Rama IX, who returned to Thailand in 1951, was happy to co-operate with this project. The restoration of the Thai monarchy to its present elevated status thus has its origins in the politics of the 1950s.
The regimes of Sarit and Thanom were strongly supported by the U.S. Thailand had formally become a U.S. ally in 1954 with the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). While the Vietnam War was being fought between the Vietnamese and the French, Thailand (disliking both equally) stayed aloof, but once it became a war between the U.S. and the Vietnamese Communists, Thailand committed itself strongly to the U.S. side, concluding a secret agreement with the U.S. in 1961, sending troops to Vietnam and Laos and allowing the U.S. to open airbases in the east of the country to conduct its bombing war against North Vietnam. The Vietnamese retaliated by supporting the Communist Party of Thailand's insurgency in the north and northeast.
The Vietnam War hastened the transition of Thai society from traditional to modern. Bangkok became a major service and recreational center for the U.S. military, hugely boosting the city's economy but making it the center of prostitution it has been ever since. Thais were exposed to the full force of western culture via television and the movies. As the economy boomed, the middle class and the intelligentsia grew rapidly through the spread of higher education. The population began to grow explosively as the standard of living rose, and a flood of people from the villages to the cities, and above all to Bangkok, began and has continued ever since. Thailand had 30 million people in 1965: today it has 65 million. Bangkok's population has grown tenfold since 1945 and has trebled since 1970.
All this made the traditionalist ideology of the military regime increasingly obselete, and the suppression of democractic politics increasingly unacceptable. In 1968 Thanom had introduced another new constitution, and elections were held in 1969, but the military continued to rule behind a constitutional facade. In 1971 Thanom tired of even this and arbitrarily dissolved the National Assembly. Bangkok's large population of university students, particularly at Thammasat, influenced by the U.S. antiwar movement, launched their own movement for democratic change in 1972. In October 1973 enormous demonstrations were held in Bangkok, demanding the end of military rule. Thanom responded with force, and up to 70 demonstrators were killed in the streets - something not seen in Thailand for many years. This prompted the king to make his first intervention into politics by withdrawing his support for the military regime, and on October 14 Thanom resigned and left the country.
The triumph of democracy
The events of October 1973 amounted to a revolution in Thai politics. For the first time the urban middle class, led by the students, had defeated the combined forces of the old ruling class and the army, and had gained the apparent blessing of the king for a transition to full democracy, symbolised by a new constitution which provided for a fully elected unicameral legislature.
Unfortunately Thailand had not yet produced a political class able to make this bold new democracy function smoothly. The January 1975 elections failed to produce a stable party majority, and fresh elections in April 1976 produced the same result. The veteran politician Seni Pramoj and his brother Kukrit Pramoj alternated in power, but were unable to carry out a coherent reform program. The sharp increase in oil prices in 1974 led to recession and inflation, weakening the government’s position. The democratic government’s most popular move was to secure the withdrawal of American forces from Thailand.
The wisdom of this move was soon questioned, however, when the victorious communists took power in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in May 1975. The arrival of communist regimes on Thailand’s borders, the abolition of the 600-year-old Lao monarchy, and the arrival of a flood of refugees from Laos and Cambodia, turned public opinion in Thailand back to the right, and conservatives did much better in the 1976 elections than they had done in 1975. The left wing of the student movement did not accept this and continued to agitate for radical change.
By late 1976 the political situation in Bangkok had become ominous. Moderate middle class opinion had turned away from radicalism as the students, with their base at Thammasat University, grew more militant. The army and the right-wing parties fought back against the radicals though paramilitary groups such as the Village Scouts. Matters came to a head in October when Thanom Kittikachorn returned to Thailand to enter a monastery. Violent student protests were met by equally violent counter-protests. On 6 October the army unleashed their paramilitaries, and used the resultant orgy of violence, in which hundreds of students were killed, to suspend the constitution and resume power, with the apparent approval of the king.
The army installed an extremely conservative former judge, Thanin Kraivichien, as prime minister, and carried out a sweeping purge of the universities, the media and the civil service. Thousands of students and other leftists fled Bangkok and joined the Communist Party’s insurgent forces in the north and north-east, operating from safe bases in Laos. The economy was also in serious difficulties. The new regime proved as unstable as the democratic experiment had been. In October 1977 the army dropped Thanin and General Kriangsak Chomanand became prime minister, but he was overthrown in February 1980 by General Prem Tinsulanonda.
Under Prem, Thai forces had to deal with the situation resulting from the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. There was another flood of refugees, and both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces periodically crossed into Thai territory, sparking clashes along the borders. To strengthen the country’s security, Prem invited the U.S. back to Thailand, and also forged a tacit alliance with China. The Chinese government agreed to end support to Thaliand`s communist movement; in return, the Thai authorities agreed to give safe haven to the Khmer Rouge forces fleeing west following the invasion of Cambodia. Revelations of the crimes of the defeated Khmer Rouge also sharply reduced the appeal of communism to the Thai public.
In 1981 extreme right-wing officers tried to overthrow Prem’s government, but were foiled when the king refused to accept their coup. This episode raised the prestige of the monarchy still further, and also enhanced Prem’s status as a relative moderate. A kind of compromise was therefore reached. The insurgency ended and most of the ex-student guerillas returned to Bangkok under an amnesty. The army returned to its barracks, and yet another constitution promulgated, creating an appointed Senate to balance the popularly elected National Assembly. Elections were held in April 1983, giving Prem, now in the guise of a civilian politician, a large majority in the legislature.
Prem was also the beneficiary of the accelerating economic revolution which was sweeping South-East Asia. After the recession of the mid 1970s, economic growth took off. For the first time Thailand became a significant industrial power, and manufactured goods such as computer parts, textiles and footwear overtook rice, rubber and tin as Thailand’s leading exports. With the end of the Indo-China wars and the insurgency, tourism developed rapidly and became a major earner. The urban population continued to grow rapidly, but overall population growth began to decline, leading to a rise in living standards even in rural areas, although the north-east continued to lag behind. While Thailand did not grow as fast as the “Asian tigers” like Taiwan and South Korea, it achieved sustained growth.
Prem held office for eight years, and remained personally popular, but the revival of democratic politics inevitably led to a demand for a more adventurous leader. In 1988 fresh elections brought former General Chatichai Choonhavan to power. But Chatichai proved both incompetent and corrupt. By allowing one faction of the military to get rich on government contracts, he provoked a rival faction, led by Generals Sunthorn Kongsompong and Suchinda Kraprayoon, to stage a coup in February 1991. The military brought in a civilian prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, who was still responsible to the military in the form of the National Peacekeeping Council with General Sunthorn as chairman. Anand's anti-corruption measures proved popular, but in March 1992 the military strongman General Suchinda, stepped in and took power himself, breaking a promise he had make to the king.
But the Thailand of 1992 was not the Siam of 1932. Suchinda’s coup brought hundreds of thousands of people out in the largest demonstrations ever seen in Bangkok, led by the former governor of Bangkok, Chamlong Srimuang. Suchinda brought military units personally loyal to him into the city and tried to suppress the demonstrations by force, leading to a hideous massacre in the heart of the city in which hundreds died. The navy mutinued in protest, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war. In May the king intervened. In a televised confrontation, he reprimanded Suchinda, who promptly resigned. The pestige of Rama IX was thus even further heightened, and the king was elevated to his current semi-divine status among the mass of the Thai people.
The king re-appointed Anand Panyarachun as prime minister until elections could be held in September, which brought the Democratic Party under Chuan Leekpai to power, mainly representing the liberal voters of Bangkok. Chuan was a competent administrator who held power until 1995, when he was defeated at elections by a coalition of conservative and provincial parties led by Banharn Silpa-acha. Banharn’s government was derailed by the 1997 Asian economic crisis. As first the currency and then the economy collapsed, Banharn’s government fell and was succeeded by one led by Chawalit Yongchaiyudh.
Chawalit’s attempts to deal with the crisis were ineffectual, and in November Chuan returned to power. Chuan came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund which stabilised the currency and allowed the economy to begin to recover. What was remarkable about these events was that they did not lead to a military coup, as a crisis of this dimension would certainly have done in earlier years. The events of 1992 seemed to have cured the military of its taste for direct power, and also to have pursuaded the king that the only way to solve Thailand’s problems was through the processes of democratic politics, no matter how unsatisfactory these might be.
Instead of a coup Thailand experienced the formation of a mass populist party, "Thais Love Thais," led by a mobile phone millionaire, Thaksin Shinawatra. Chuan’s second government was as competent as his first, and Chuan deserved great credit for the rescue of the Thai econony, but he was no match for Thaksin’s demogogic appeal to the mass electorate. Thaksin campaigned effectively against the old politics, and also against corruption (despite being himself far from above suspicion in this respect), and in January 2001 he had a sweeping victory at the polls, winning a larger popular mandate than any Thai prime minister has ever had in a freely elected National Assembly.
In power, Thaksin had the good fortune to preside over the rapid recovery of the Thai economy, for which he naturally claimed credit. By 2002 Thailand, or at least Bangkok, was once again booming. As low-end manufacturing moved to China and other low-wage economies, Thailand moved upscale into more sophisticated manufacturing, both for a rapidly expanding domestic middle class market and for export. Tourism, and particularly sex tourism, also remained a huge revenue earner. As the AIDS epidemic became more threatening, Thaksin made some effort to crack down on Bangkok’s burgeoning sex industry, but the power of the economic vested interests were too powerful even for him.
Thus by 2004 Thai democracy and prosperity seemed firmly established, but the dominance of Thaksin, whose rule was highly personalied and in some ways authoritarian, was seen by many as an unhealthy development. Thailand’s stability depends to a large extent on the personal authority of the king, who will turn 77 in December 2004 and is not in good health. The heir to the throne, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, has little of his father’s popularity. The real test for Thai democracy will come when Thaksin’s dominance in challenged and Rama IX is no longer present to arbitrate political conflict.