🌍🌍Steem Geography facts 4: Thailand, perhaps the only country that was never conquered.
Hello Steem geography community. I am back again with another geographic post, this time about Thailand which is a country in Southeast Asia bordering Myanmar Cambodia, Laos, and Malaysia. What is so special about Thailand is that it has never been conquered by occupying forces. In fact, Thailand's name is not accidental, Thai means Free => the land of the Free, and the country's populace is very proud of that. But how they did it and never been conquered;
As you might be aware, European empires had colonies on all continents, not just Africa. You've probably heard of the "British Indians," i.e. the British Empire's colonies in Asia (mainly India and surrounding areas). But have you ever heard of "French Indochina" (the current states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), which was the French colony in Southeast Asia before World War II? All these countries have ceased to be colonies ONLY for the last 5-6 decades!
map made with mapchart.net/
The most amazing thing is that present Thailand (formerly Siam) NEVER BECAME A EUROPEAN COLONY! How Did This Happened?
The Kingdom of Thailand found itself squeezed between the British and French empires, and the safest thing for these two major forces who *would not prefer * to fight was for Thailand to remain neutral (something like a buffer zone)
From the Thai side, there was very good management. They knew that the pretext of the great powers for invasion was almost always to "bring civilization" to places that had different organization and structures from themselves, so the "government" of then Thailand decided to make the kingdom as "western" as they could so that the Europeans won't pre-empt about their civilization and go to conquer them. Indeed, they made many changes to make the country look more western, and surprisingly it worked!
Thailand was not as strategically and geopolitically important as the surrounding areas because it did not have any "back door" access to China like the surrounding areas (via rivers, passages, etc.), so control over it was not necessarily required. So Thailand remained free forever and economically, is growing rapidly through the years.
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I will close my post today with a piece of information that I personally did not know and discovered today. The old flag of Thailand had an elephant on it, which is the national symbol of the country !! I KNOW THAT NO ONE ASKED ME BUT I DO NOT AGREE AT ALL WITH THE CHANGE, BRING BACK THE ELEPHANT!