The History of the Thai-Chinese and the Chinese-Thai w/ Sittithep Eaksittipong
How Thailand and China solved their nation building dilemma
Beneath the Winds is a series from the Monitor about the impact of the U.S.-China rivalry in Southeast Asia and the international record of both powers throughout the region.
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Thailand’s nationhood begins in the crucible of colonial Southeast Asia as one of the sole countries not to be formally colonized by Europeans. In this environment, it reckoned with its survival and its relationship to the diverse peoples within its borders, including the Chinese population that has inhabited the land for nearly 700 years. But according to historical myth, the Thai people ultimately originated in the land that is now China. Many remain under the names of Sui, Zhuang, and Dai, still speaking languages intelligible with Thai, and while each nation has integrated their respective populations into their national identity, the question remains as to who they are now.
Sittithep Eaksittipong (Hong Wenfa) is a lecturer at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities at Chiang Mai University. He earned his PhD in History from the National University of Singapore with the support of the Harvard-Yenching Institute-National University of Singapore Joint Doctoral Program and was a research fellow at the institute during his 2016-2017 academic year. Sittithep’s research interests include transnational contacts between China and Southeast Asia, and he is the author of the book The Rebellion of the Chinese Commoners on Phlapphlachai Road. In addition to his book, he is currently researching the relationship between the United States, Thailand, and China during the Cold War and the conception of Thai nationhood among the Bangkok Sino-Thai middle class. His academic profile and publications may be found here.
Henry Rory O’Connor: Who is the Chinese population of Thailand? What does the rest of the country’s ethnic composition look like?
Sittithep Eaksittipong: In a sense, it can be problematic to talk about the ethnic composition of Thailand, particularly when you focus on the Chinese population in Thailand. When you look online and see that Thailand has the largest ethnic population of Chinese in the world outside of China, how did they count that? If you look at me, you see that I am ethnically Chinese, but if you look at my registration and ID, it says Nationality: Thai, Race: Thai. This is true in my case and even for my parents. If you assimilate into Thailand, then you become Thai, regardless of your ethnicity. If we then think about race from the American point of view, it’s always the color of your skin, but for us, it’s hard to distinguish.
In Thailand, the majority is, of course, the Thai ethnic group, followed by Chinese, then Malay, and finally Cambodian, as well as many small ethnic groups in the northern part of Thailand, which connects to Myanmar, Laos, and eventually to the southern part of China. Some scholars, like James Scott, call this region Zomia. In Zomia, we have a large number of ethnic groups scattered between Yunnan, Guizhou, and northern Southeast Asia.
HRO: Tell me more about the Chinese population of Thailand. When did they begin migrating into Southeast Asia, and did they maintain ties with their homeland?
SE: Chinese migrants started coming into Southeast Asia during China’s Song dynasty, when maritime trade was increasing between the two regions. Chinese traders began to scatter around in many countries with port cities like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. By the late Qing dynasty, the number of immigrants increased drastically due to the political turmoil, but because the policy of the Chinese state was not to recognize overseas Chinese, they had no chance to go back home, where they would be seen as traitors. Even then, the revolution that toppled the Qing involved a lot of overseas Chinese who were sympathetic to Chinese nationalism.
This event was a significant turning point in the sense that the dynastic state began to think in terms of a nation-state. Nationalism came into play, and they wanted the overseas Chinese to help develop the Chinese state and develop Chinese nationalism. The Tongmenhui (the nucleus of the Kuomintang), led by Sun Yat-sen, tried to encourage this in Southeast Asia among the Chinese. It was at that point that the relationship became problematic for states in Southeast Asia and for China as well.
HRO: Did the Chinese population of Thailand play a political role in Thailand? What exactly was problematic about that relationship?
SE: During the late Qing dynasty, most states in Southeast Asia were colonies except for Siam, as Thailand was called then, which was a crypto colony. It had limited political independence and had to rely on the Chinese to broker economically around Southeast Asia and deal with Western countries. So, the Thai monarchy began to integrate the Chinese into their political entity by essentially emasculating their political and economic potential that could be used to challenge the Thai monarchy. By using shame, they allowed this immigrant population to retain their Chinese traits to a certain extent, but forced them to give up much of their culture and pledge allegiance to the Thai monarch. Only then could a Chinese immigrant thrive in Thai society and become a Thai official or a Thai bureaucrat.
The Thai monarchy’s position was that although at home, they may wear Chinese clothing, use chopsticks, and speak some dialect, they must appear Thai in public and always be loyal. This is the starting point of the symbiotic patron-client relationship that came about in Thailand, which continues even today. You can see it in how the elites of Thailand relate to the Chinese. The Thais of Chinese ancestry evolved politically and economically with the Thai elites, military, and politicians.
HRO: Was integration a largely peaceful process for the Chinese in Thailand? What did that process look like?
SE: It was okay for the Chinese who were willing to relinquish their political and economic potential to challenge the Thai elites to integrate into Thailand, unlike other places in the colonies. For others, there was conflict. The year that King Rama 6 succeeded the throne, the first mass strike in Thai history happened; it was initiated by the Chinese. Then, in 1912, there was a failed palace coup led by ethnic Chinese military officials who were inspired by Sun Yat-Sen’s three principles of the people. That alarmed the Thai elites, who increased their insistence on Chinese assimilation and shame. Rama 6 and Thai intellectuals portrayed the Chinese as an other to the Thai and an enemy of the nation. They could be accepted, but only as Thai, and only if they cling onto Thai values and loyalty to the monarchy.
If you compare this to America and the American dream, there are many similarities. If you can adopt the American dream and cling to American values, you can become Asian-American, and only then can you thrive in society. Often, we don’t see that the situation is like the two sides of the same coin. In America, when you think about what American-ness is, you have to think about what Asian-ness is in America as well. So in the case of Thailand, when you consider Thai-ness, you have to think about Chinese-ness too.
But when Thailand sided with the Japanese while they subjugated the Chinese all around Southeast Asia, there was a lot of anguish in the Chinese community. So when China became a major power and a member of the UN Security Council in 1945, dissent and pride rose among the Chinese that culminated in a major riot in Bangkok’s Chinatown. In fact, just one year before Thailand established diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1974, there was another riot in Bangkok’s Chinatown. People began to take pride in being Chinese and demand what they lost during the decades-long Thai military government. In the 1980s and onwards, Chinese culture began to be displayed in public places again.
HRO: Who are the Thai people?
SE: First, Thai has to be understood in its political context. As nationalism took hold in the late 1920s onwards, Thailand looked to Italy, Europe, and China and saw those trying to promote strong constitutional regimes and fascism as a model for a strong nation. In this context, Siam changed its name to Thai, meaning free. According to Thai historical myth, the Thai people originated from the Altai Mountains and were constantly at war with the Chinese, who pushed them southwards through history. Emphasizing Thailand as a land of the free allowed Thai nationalism to insist on a national history as a peace-loving nation that can fight if pushed.
After the reform and opening up era in China, China allowed Thai scholars to visit the southern part of China, and they had a kind of self-discovery. When we think about Thai people, we think of Thailand, but when the Thai began to study China, they found a scattering of Tai language speakers in southern China who are part of the Thai ethnic group. Tai, being the language family that Thai is a part of. The Zhuang in Guangxi, the Lao people, the Tai people of northern Vietnam and Cambodia all belong to the same group and speak largely mutually intelligible languages. Upon making contact, the Thai people saw the Tai people in southern China as the origin of Thainess, who were isolated in time. Meanwhile, their country, Thailand, followed the American modernization model and became a capitalist country. There was a palpable nostalgia for the Tai ethnic minorities in China.
Previously, the national story of the Thai people migrating southwards and establishing the Nanzhao kingdom in modern day Yunnan played an important role for Thailand, which was on the opposite side of the Cold War from the PRC. But as the Thai people, scholars, and elites went to see for themselves, they slowly began to realize that the Thais inside and outside Thailand were actually very different from one another. This opened their eyes to think about Thainess and their own minorities in Thailand.
The Chinese and the Malay here in Thailand pay allegiance to the king, eat Thai food, speak standard Thai, and the Chinese now mostly follow Thai Buddhism. Even the Malay, who are Muslim, but in a different way from those in the Middle East, have a Thai Islamic uniqueness to them. It helped us think that Thainess can be open and incorporate the Chinese, the Malay, the Cambodians, and even the few minority tribes. This was a golden opportunity for many people to rethink what it means to be Thai.
HRO: Do the Tai in Southeast Asia consider themselves kindred with the Thai in Thailand? Is there a similar feeling from the Chinese in Thailand towards China?
SE: In the big picture, there is a cultural connection between the Thai people in Thailand and the Tai-speaking people in southern China, the Zhuang in Guangxi, and even the Tai in Myanmar’s Shan state. The cultural connection binds us together, but if we think in an extreme way, what would their national loyalty be? Politically speaking, they grew up in those countries, were socialized in that education system, and are politically loyal to their host country, and I would say the same for the Chinese in Thailand as well.
But even then, when Thai scholars wanted to go to Sichuan, Dali, or other parts of southern China, it set off alarm bells for the Chinese state. To make the diplomatic relationship peaceful, they needed to reorient the past and tell the Thai of Thailand that they have no connection with the Tai of Yunnan (called Dai by the Chinese) and instead point them towards the more distant and politically palatable Zhuang ethnic group in Guangxi where scholars then began to produce more works about the particular cultural and linguistic connection between the Zhuang and the Thai in Thailand. China took a historical puzzle piece and tossed it away to find a new one that almost, but not quite, fit. It worked to a certain extent, and we don’t have animosity between the Tais in Yunnan who could be traced back to Nanchao and the Sipsongpanna, two Tai kingdoms in southern China, according to historical myth.
HRO: What was the integration of the Tai into China like? What was the Cultural Revolution like for the Tai peoples?
SE: The Cultural Revolution left a great scar among the Tai ethnic minorities. Temples were burned, monks were beaten, and the palace of the Chiang Rung (Jinghong in Chinese) was burned to the ground. If you trace the history of the Tai and the last king of the Sipsongpanna, he tried to escape from Yunnan, but unfortunately did not succeed, while his brother reached the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai, changed his name into Thai, and took up a Thai ID card. I have another article about this, but I haven’t had time to translate it into English.
In terms of their national incorporation, the Han officials couldn’t speak Tai languages, so they had to recruit speakers from the returned overseas Chinese community from Thailand. Prior to 1949, when the Republic of China called for overseas Chinese to return to build the nation, many Chinese who had suffered during WWII answered the call. However, when the PRC took over, they became trapped in the country. They would be considered 5th columnists if they returned to Thailand, and so had no choice but to live and work in China instead. But it was unavoidable for the PRC to see returning overseas Chinese as agents to connect the Tai minority groups with Chinese nationalism and seek them out. The returned Chinese from Thailand went on to play major roles in the ethnic classification project to convince Tai-speaking people that they are a part of the Chinese nation. Their languages were similar enough that they could communicate, but the scars between the Tai and PRC were deep and would take many decades to heal.
HRO: What about the modern Chinese diaspora? What is their relationship with the Chinese of Thailand?
SE: We do need to clarify what we mean by Chinese here. In English, we just have the one word, but in Chinese, we also have Zhongguoren, Huaren, and Huayi, which all signify slightly different concepts. The first term, Zhongguoren, identifies with the Chinese nation, while the other two are an identification with Chinese culture, regardless of nationality. In Thai, we also have Khonjeen for the Thai of Chinese ancestry, Jeensayaam for Chinese Siamese, and Luukjin, which literally means Chinese son. The first term, Khohnjeen, is an umbrella term that includes both the new and old Chinese migrants, while the other two only signify Thai-born Chinese. When you talk about the Chinese in Thailand, they can be divided up by when they came to Thailand before, say, 1960, and then after 1980. The former is usually referred to as Old Chinese or the Chinese of Thailand, and the latter is new Chinese migrants.
This new group of Chinese migrants is different from before. China has become a strong country and needs human, financial, and technical resources, which can now be utilized among the overseas Chinese, be they in Southeast Asia, America, Europe, or Australia. Before, Chinese migrants and their descendants would take root in society. Now, the new group of migrants comes and then returns to China or other countries, but retains their sense of belonging to the Chinese nation. The PRC government has started to look at overseas Chinese with a new kind of long-distance nationalism. This makes it very hard to establish a sense of belonging for new Chinese migrants, a process that also disrupts the relationship between these migrants and the Chinese of Thailand, who distance themselves from the new Chinese migrants. In a sense, we can candidly say that the arrival of the new Chinese migrants makes the Chinese of Thailand more Thai by juxtaposition, while becoming a competitor to the Old Chinese who have already established their economic and political element in Thailand.
HRO: Does China see the old Thais of Chinese descent and the new Chinese immigrants differently? Does it court them economically or politically?
SE: From the official Beijing perspective: yes. However, when focusing on public diplomacy, things become hard to distinguish. High positions in Chinese associations in Thailand are mostly occupied by the Chinese of Thailand, so if you are a Chinese official, you can’t easily tell who the Chinese of Thailand are and who the new migrants are. When Chinese officials deliver speeches for Chinese associations here, they use Putonghua (Standard Mandarin) and talk about Zhonghua Minzu, a term for Chinese nationalism that focuses on civilization and culture. This may encourage nationalism from the outside perspective and for the new Chinese, but what about the Chinese of Thailand, who have been here for centuries and whose mother tongue is not Chinese? At most, the Boomer generation grew up speaking Chaozhou, Hokkian, or Hakka. It just doesn’t work. They mostly listen to the Chinese officials’ speeches through Chinese-Thai interpreters.
Even among Thailand’s new generation who are electing to learn Chinese in school, it's because of the same reasons that Americans and Europeans are learning it. It isn’t the long distance nationalism or sense of belonging that Beijing promotes.
HRO: Does Thailand pay attention to or court Tai groups outside of its borders? Do they play a role in diplomacy?
SE: In the same way that China tries to promote Chinese culture, the Thai state promotes Thainess, language, and culture abroad as well. There are scholarships for international students, which also draw those Tai-speaking people from the southern part of China to study in Thailand, and every year, there is a Thai festival in Beijing to promote Thailand and Thai culture in China. Thailand has also started promoting teaching Thai as a foreign language (TFL) in universities and in northern Thailand. Of these TFL students, 80-90% are often Chinese from Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong. Once you dig deeper, you find that some students are actually Thai-speaking, and most were already familiar with Thailand. For instance, if you look at the Chinese ambassadors to Thailand, you’ll even find Zhang Jiuhuan. Dig deeper into his background, and you’ll find he’s actually from the Guangxi-Zhuang autonomous region, a major Tai-speaking area in China.
Henry Rory O'Connor is a former intern for The Carter Center's China Focus and a recent graduate of Georgia Tech.
The views expressed in this article represent those of the author(s) and not those of The Carter Center.
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That’s all from Atlanta. Y’all be good.
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Beautiful interview. As a Chinese person I can almost guarantee you that most Chinese people in China nowadays don't even know that there is a difference between Thai Chinese and Thais. Perhaps because of many years of 'assimilation' the Thai Chinese have slowly but surely and fully developed Thai-ness.