For all the talk of Japanese exceptionalism and how they were the only Asian state to avoid being colonised there was one much Asian State which managed to avoid this state and establish a relatively modern, constitutional state- Siam (modern day Thailand).
Although we don't praise it since it has stayed poor and unlike Japan, the military continues to interfere with politics.
So what went wrong in Thailand?
Australoid genetics.
>avoided colonization
I dunno post-ww2 Japan seems alot like soft colonization to me.
The only good states in Asia are the ones with exceptionally high levels of western influence in their history.
The Thais did that as too. They sent students and politicians to study the West and then brought what they learned back home to modernise.
That isn't enough.
The best option is to have the country directly ruled by a western power.
Note that if the western power is the French, you're shit out of luck.
At a minimum, the state should depend on the west for their continued survival, like South Korea and Taiwan did when they made the transition from shithole to nice place.
>The best option is to have the country directly ruled by a western power.
That's why the birthrates in Japan are so low, because they have been ruled by white cucks who tried to import their doctrine of importing people from the third world rather then increase their own native birthrates?
Literally every country in Asia has higher birthrates then Japan.
Japan was settled by Portuguese migrants before colonial epoch, their descendants formed local high class which was competitive against colonial empires.
19 century was overpassed due to anti-european activity of USA.
Thailand is in the tropics, it lacked highly productive agricultural land like the Kanto plain, disease a problem in urban areas and the humid environment was bad for the kind of machinery available in the 19th century.
Actually Siam was doing fine in the 19th Century. But what happened after 1950s was cold war red scare from Vietnam and China up North which increased the power of abusive Military Juntas.
The Monarchy- which had the complete and utter respect of the Buddhist Clergy & Thai subjects- was the only thing keeping abuses in Check.
Thailand was a buffer zone.
Thailand isnt bad at all if you look at its neighboors.
Thailand was a buffer state between French and British sphere's of influence in the region.
So pure luck they weren't colonized.
Bullshit. Japan was already great nefore WWII and at the time hadn't been ruled by a western power.
Now look at the countries that actually had been ruled by a western power :
Former indochina (Ok you mentioned the french) = Shit tier
Indonesia = A fucking islamic republic
Malaysia = irrelevant shithole, except for sexual tourism
Philippines = Do i need to say more ?
The only exception being Singapore.
>lacked highly productive
>Thailand is the world's largest exporter of rice
Might want to check where your rice comes fro next time.
So you mean to tell me every last of the Samurai clans were in fact Portuguese?
Was the Military Juntas destined to happen?
In Japan, the Cold War experience led to a weird democratic state where the leftist opposition is extremely weak and helpless.
Isn't Singapore basically the independently run financial capital of Malaysia and the rest of SEA? It's basically a bunch of London bankers telling the rest of England and the EU to politically fuck off so it can rule itself, but makes money off of everyone else.
How does being a major exporter of rice in the 21st century prove Thailand was as productive as the Kanto plain in the 19th century?
>Thailand is in the tropics, it lacked highly productive agricultural land like the Kanto plain
WTF is this logic. Rice (OR FUCKING ANYTHING) is easiest to grow when you only have summer as a default fucking climate.
Asians fucking depended on the goddamned crop. China's population blew up when they conquered the South fully and not have to rely on Northern Wheat anymore- the victim of Temperate climates and winterns. The hell does the Tropics do anything to fuck up the growth of crops, holy shit. My god. Holy fuck.
The Thai and Japs are sitting on the same piece of land they were sitting on in the 19th century. Even if we assume the Thais did not export as much as they did today doesn't mean the land they were sitting on back then was not highly fertile and capable of supporting a large population and large scale agriculture.
>The hell does the Tropics do anything to fuck up the growth of crops, holy shit. My god. Holy fuck.
crops grow best in an inner continental climate, you need 4 seasons
there's tons of rains in the tropic, washes away humus, the soil isn't black and black soil is the best soil for crops
Germany's birthrate was lower than Japan's until recently when it overtook Japan (due to immigration). Japan's birthrate isn't particularly low if you compare to native-born European birth rates.
The other secret is to be West Asia, not Southeast Asia.
No way around that one.
Thailand can grow coffee and rice. Both make dollars. Thailand is one of the largest producers of coffee in Asia.
Of course, coffee is also expensive to grow at any acceptable quality.
declining birthrates are a symptom of prosperity and a high standard of living. when childhood mortality goes down and health care and education standards improve people choose to have fewer children. that is true everywhere and it is not a symptom of "cultural decline" (whatever that is), if anything it means that the country is doing well.
on the map you can see that the least developed countries are the most fertile.
the transition period in which population numbers decline may be somewhat difficult for particular countries economically but eventually populations will probably stabilize and everyone will be better off
*East
Here is a story.
My grandma is Thai. Recently ( few years a go) her mother died, yeah she was really fucking old.
Anyway. My Grandma went to Thailand to have a buddhist ceremony, during this time the coup was happening. And apparently at the ceremony there was a navy captain, I don't know the full story, apparently he and my great grandmother were friends or something.
My great grandmothers final wish was for her ashes to be scattered across the Mekong river, which the navy captain was happily able to oblige, in the midst of a military coup.
My grandmother has photos, of just her and the captain + crew on a big navy vessel scattering her mothers ashes. Was quite bizarre when she came back with these stories, apparently she is red. What ever that means.
>crops grow best in an inner continental climate, you need 4 seasons
>Dies of winter.
>Dies of drought
>development
>good
What if its just part of the 6th great extinction we're living in
pol pot pls go
>apparently she is red.
There are two broad political groups in Thailand: The Reds and the Yellows. The Reds are the more urban and wealthier part of the population centered around Bangkok and the south, the Yellows are the poorer and more rural part of the population especially centered in the northeast.
You'll hear about it more in the coming years, since ethnic conflicts in Thailand will very likely flare up again, since the urban-rural divide, as in the rest of the world, is only increasing, and because the new king is unpopular, contrary to his venerated father who was very important for reconciling between the two groups.
Japan had the geographical advantage of being mostly not-worth-the-risk to effectively colonise, being a bunch of islands with a united culture and not a direct route to China. Japan also got a head start in the game of industrialisation compared to Thailand. The first one to come knocking on Japan's door were the US, one of the western powers the least interested in direct colonisation.
Thailand had its first real taste of the West with the conquest of Burma by the British in a way that was much more brutal than Perry's boats. The main reason why it didn't get colonised is because they managed to negociate themselves into being a buffer zone between England and France. It's also worth pointing out that Thailand didn't have Japan's strong national and cultural unity, something the Thai leaders were aware of and tried to construct in the late 19th to early 20th century. While both needed to be careful in their negociations with the West, the Thais needed to make extra sure never to upset too much either France or England, with which they shared land borders. Japan, in comparison, had a much larger margin to set up an imperial policy during the Meiji-Taisho-Showa era and become a world power, up until WW2 fucked them up.
After WW2, Japan got colonised-ish by the US, but that meant they got money sent to them to not turn communist like China/North Korea. The americanisation of Japan also made sure their new system couldn't turn militaristic again, something that didn't happen in Thailand even though they did have fascist-leaning tendencies with during WW2. The decolonisation conflicts in Southeast Asia surrounding Thailand from 1945 to the 1990s didn't help stabilise the region, unlike Japan who got no war close to it post 1953.
TL;DR Japan is uninteresting islands, Thailand is stuck negociating between empires. Japan had room to turn 19th century imperial, not Thailand. Cold War helped Japan, didn't help Thailand.
t. Brit
It's the funny thing about Thailand. The urban classes (or at least the elites) would rather a military dictatorship over giving any money to them unwashed peasants.
Okay post with a full house get. Why no replies?