Why did Thailand fail to modernize?

Anawrahta

Banned
Thailand began modernizing earlier than Japan having started in 1851 under King Rama the third, but the program was not as successful as those of South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. Why did the country simply did not spectacularly take off?
 

Anawrahta

Banned
In fact Spain and Portugal started far later with less vigour and yet are now developed First world countries.
 
Thailand began modernizing earlier than Japan having started in 1851 under King Rama the third, but the program was not as successful as those of South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. Why did the country simply did not spectacularly take off?
Foreign meddling g perhaps?
 
Why didn't they modernize? They did! Rama III's reformed were continued, and by the 1900s, Thailand was a fairly centralized state, with a strong enough military to avoid being colonized (unlike all their neighbors) and Western-educated monarchs, with Western-style science and education slowly expanding to the rest of the population.

Why didn't they spectacularly take off? Out of the countries you mentioned, only Japan spectacularly took off all on their own, and Japan had five times the population of Thailand, a much more centralized and efficient government even before Westernization, and natural defenses that made them less of a target for colonization. South Korea (or just Korea in general for the time period) didn't modernize at all in the 1800s, was colonized by Japan, and remained one of the poorest and least-developed countries in the world until the 1950s. Singapore, too, didn't modernize at all in the 1800s, was colonized, and remained a third world country until the 1950s. Why have South Korea and Singapore (and Hong Kong and Taiwan) so rapidly modernized in the 20th century? ...that's outside the scope of this forum.

In short: why didn't Thailand go from marginalized to world power as quickly as Japan? For the same reasons no one else but Japan did. Japan was very unique, and compared to similar nations in Southeast Asia, Thailand's modernization went quite well.
 
Thailand began modernizing earlier than Japan having started in 1851 under King Rama the third, but the program was not as successful as those of South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. Why did the country simply did not spectacularly take off?
Thailand/Siam was nestled between the French and British Empire possessions in French Indochina, and British India/Burma. Her modernization may not have been so advanced as say Japan, because of the two great European Powers on both sides of her. Japan looked to expand against weaker nations, Korea, later China, and did not have to worry about the Europeans, save Russia which Japan waited until she was stronger, thanks to resources taken from Korea, and her Chinese possessions (Formosa/Taiwan) to strengthen her industrial and military might before challenging the Russians in 1904-1905. Thailand/Siam was simply never in a position to challenge either Britain or France, so why spend so much in that area of modernization when they would have never been able to expand either east or west?
 
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