Thailand

**Thailand**, officially the **Kingdom of Thailand**, formally **Siam**, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. It shares land borders with Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia as well as maritime borders with Vietnam, Indonesia and India.

## History

### Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century

In 1932, a bloodless revolution carried out by the Khana Ratsadon group of military and civilian officials resulted in a transition of power, when King Prajadhipok was forced to grant the people of Siam their first constitution, thereby ending centuries of absolute monarchy. In 1939, the name of the kingdom, "Siam", was changed to "Thailand".

During World War II, the Empire of Japan demanded the right to move troops across Thailand to the Malayan frontier. Japan invaded Thailand on 8 December 1941, in co-ordination with attacks throughout Asia, and engaged the Thai Army for six to eight hours before Plaek Pibulsonggram ordered an armistice. Shortly thereafter, Japan was granted free passage, and on 21 December 1941, Thailand and Japan signed a military alliance with a secret protocol, wherein Tokyo agreed to help Thailand regain territories lost to the British and French.

Subsequently, Thailand declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom on 25 January 1942, and undertook to "assist" Japan in its war against the Allies, while at the same time maintaining an active anti-Japanese resistance movement known as the Seri Thai. Approximately 200,000 Asian labourers (mainly romusha) and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the Thailand–Burma Death Railway.

After the war, Thailand emerged as an ally of the United States. As with many of the developing nations during the Cold War, Thailand then went through decades of political instability characterised by a number of coups d'état, as one military regime replaced another, but eventually progressed towards a stable, prosperous democracy in the 1980s.

In 2014, the military overthrew the caretaker government in a coup d'état and established a military junta. The junta introduced a new constitution and was eventually dissolved in 2016, leading to the restoration of proper democracy.

## Government and Politics

The politics of Thailand is currently conducted within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government and a hereditary monarch is head of state. The judiciary is supposed to be independent of the executive and the legislative branches, although judicial rulings are suspected of being based on political considerations rather than on existing law.

### Administrative Divisions

Thailand is divided into 76 provinces, which are gathered into five groups of provinces by location. There are also two specially-governed districts:

* Bangkok (the capital)
* Pattaya.

Bangkok is at provincial level and thus often counted as a province. Each province is divided into districts and the districts are further divided into sub-districts. As of 2006 there were 877 districts and the 50 districts of Bangkok.

### Foreign Relations

Thailand participates fully in international and regional organisations. It is a Major Non-NATO Ally and Priority Watch List Special 301 Report of the United States. The country remains an active member of ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Thailand has developed increasingly close ties with other ASEAN members: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam, whose foreign and economic ministers hold annual meetings. Regional co-operation is progressing in economic, trade, banking, political, and cultural matters. In 2003, Thailand served as APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) host. As part of its effort to increase international ties, Thailand has reached out to such regional organisations as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Thailand has contributed troops to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

## Economy

Thailand is a tourism hotspot and low to medium cost manufacturing nation. By 2030, Thailand had moved more into high tech manufacturing along with China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. The completion of the Kunming-Singapore HSR Line in 2024 and the Kolkata-Bangkok HSR Line in 2028, linked Thailand to the Pan-Asian High Speed Rail System and made Bangkok the HSR hub of Southeast Asia. These projects also increased two way exports between Thailand and China, Bangkok's largest trading partner, as well trade between Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Chinese contractors helped Thailand complete the Kra Canal in 2029, providing an alternative to the Strait of Malacca that made Thailand a competitor to neighboring Malaysia for control over international shipping lines. The canal along with HSR projects on land made Thailand a crucial hub in the Eurasia wide transportation and trade network China envisioned as part of the New Silk Road Project.