In World War II, in order to show that it was liberating Asia and jointly fighting against the white colonizers, Japan once gathered representatives of the governments of Asian countries and held the Greater East Asia Conference. The participants in the meeting were basically Japanese-backed puppet governments, such as China's Wang Jingwei. But there is also a legitimate government, which is Thailand.
Compared to other Asian countries, Thailand is an outlier and one of the very few Asian countries that maintained national independence before World War II. In addition to the lack of strategic resources, the Thai government's own flexible response is one of the main factors in sustaining national independence.
The earliest Thai regime was the Sukhothai Dynasty established in 1238, and if you go further, you will find that the Thais originally migrated from China, they originated in Yunnan, China, and share the same ancestors as the Dai people in China.
Yunnan is the birthplace of many ethnic minorities, which has both high mountains and wide basins, forming a situation where multiple ethnic groups live together. During the Tang Dynasty, the ethnic minorities in Yunnan began to have their own regimes, and nanzhao, because it was dependent on the Tang dynasty, unified the Yunnan-Guizhou region and established the nanzhao state.
As a vassal state of the Tang Dynasty, Nanzhao was also a buffer between the Tang Dynasty and Tubo. As a result, Nanzhao often oscillated between the two great powers and clashed with the Tang Dynasty. When Nanzhao and Tubo joined forces and invaded the border, the imperial court could no longer sit idly by and sent a large army south to conquest.
The State of Nanzhao was defeated, and a large number of people fled to the tropical jungle further south, these people are the ancestors of the Thais. After hundreds of years of recuperation, they finally re-established a new dynasty, which China called Siam.
Siam has always been a vassal of the Central Plains, and has successively submitted to the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. When Zheng He went to the West, he also crowned the King of Siam and granted a golden seal. Every time the fleet went to the West, it would dock in Siam to replenish fresh water and supplies, and many Chinese lived here.
Modern Thailand belongs to the Rama dynasty established in 1782, when fleets from Europe had already arrived in Thailand. The King of Thailand quickly adapted to this change and actively developed a relationship with the Europeans. By the time of Rama IV, he saw that the Qing Dynasty had declined and that only by establishing good relations with European countries could he avoid becoming a colony.
Thailand's geographical location is actually not very good, the east is French Indochina, the west is British Burma, is enclosed in the middle of Southeast Asia, the sea mouth does not face any ocean. It is precisely because of this that Thailand has not been annexed. The British and French colonies needed a buffer zone, and Thailand itself was poor in resources, and no one wanted to go to great lengths to invade the country.
Rama IV adopted a flexible foreign policy and opened its markets to Britain and France, making Thailand a member of the international community. Thailand is the only independent country in East Asia besides China and Japan, and it has to be said that the Thai royal family at that time did have two brushes.
However, it is also this wall-to-wall grass style that makes Thailand an accomplice of Japan. After Japan crushed the colonial order in Europe and the United States, Thailand signed an alliance treaty with Japan and became one of the de facto Axis powers.
Thai politics was dominated by a military junta headed by Luang Phibun Som Kham and renamed Siam Thailand. This junta not only joined the Axis powers, but also declared war on the United States and Britain. At the instigation of the Japanese, the Thai army launched an attack on French Indochina and seized some parts of Cambodia. Even 200,000 troops were dispatched to attack Yunnan and return to Nanzhao's hometown. Later, the Japanese army was defeated in the Asian battlefield, and the Thai army immediately stopped the pace of the attack and gave up.
After being tied to the Japanese chariot, Thailand did not give up its contacts with Britain, the United States and other countries, and secretly established the "Free Thai Movement" to show the Western countries that they were still in Han in Caoying. So, at such an important juncture, what is the King of Thailand doing? Do nothing, the victory and defeat have not yet been divided, and no statement will be made.
Thai support for the Japanese jihad was considerable, and Japan squeezed a lot of supplies and money from Thailand, whether voluntarily or not. After a few years, the Japanese saw that it was no longer possible, and Thailand began to turn again. The ouster of Luang Phibun Som Kham in 1944 meant the end of the pro-Japanese Thai government.
After the large-scale rout of the Japanese army, Thailand immediately made its new attitude to the United States, Britain and other countries, denied the treaty of alliance with Japan, and joined the anti-fascist side. The United States endorsed Thailand's claims and thus gained an important foothold in Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, most of the US warplanes took off from Thai military bases, and Thailand's importance to the United States is evident.
After World War II, Thailand also received 12 billion yen in compensation from Japan to compensate for the Thai goods plundered by Japan. As for the pro-Japanese Luang Phibun Somkan, he re-served as Thailand's prime minister for a decade in 1948 and became Thailand's ambassador to the United States in 2006.
It is said that Italy is the king of the team, and both major wars changed sides in time to escape the punishment of the defeated countries. But Italy also paid a great price, the African colonies were lost, and the homeland was reduced to a battlefield. Compared with Italy, Thailand is the real winner, and whichever side prevails, Thailand will introduce a corresponding government to ensure its greatest interests.