| Thailand is considered as a popular destination to immigrated Chinese of Southeast Asia. Chinese can successfully survive in local society and the majority of them had obtained citizenship of Thailand. And there is an upword trend in intermarriage between Chinese and Thai. Today, these Thai with Chinese descent are playing an important role of"bridging"the Thai-Chinese relationship with Mainland China effectively. Since the advent of Chinese in the Kingdom of Thailand in ancient times, they have been continuously contributing to all aspects of the Thai society. In other words, the large Chinese immigrant community are improving or even shaping the whole Thai society in almost every field. Therefore, it would be a meaningful study to pursue the life track of Thai-Chinese and investigate their contributions to ThailandNowadays, the research about Chinese in Thailand had gained remarkable achievement, but the non-solved questions still exist. Most research achievement came out as separate articles, synthesized studies are seldom seen. Meanwhile, foreign scholars can hardly use Thai language to do their research. Most researchers prefer to study politic problems that caused by Chinese in Thailand and the government's policies to make Chinese consistent with Thai people in the early 20th century. However, before the 20th century, little research had been done upon the subject of Chinese in Thailand. Due to the missing part, this study not only used Chinese and English documents but also used large amount of Thai documents. The time range of this research is from the 19th century to early 20th century, during the reign of King Rama III to King Rama V. The reason of choosing this era is: first, it was at this time the Rattanakosin Dynasty established and consolidated; second, during this period, a huge number of Chinese immigrated to Thailand. The great contribution these Chinese people done helped a lot to the development of Thailand. Then why Chinese had to evacuate to Thailand during this period? What policy did the Thai government adopted? What happened when they carried it out? How about the relationship between China and Thailand? These problems will be solved in this study.This dissertation has seven chapters. Chapter one is introduction, including the meaning of this study, the review of past research, construction and methodology, and explanation of some concepts appeared in this study.Chapter two makes a brief review of the China-Thailand relationship and the basic situation of Chinese immigrats during the early stage of Rattanakosin Dynasty (Sukhothai, Ayuttaya and Thonburi). It also introduced the condition of Thailand emissary present tribute to Chinese government. Besides, it also mentioned that the Thai government issued many preferential policies to Chinese immigrates, made them enjoy the same rights as native Thai citizens, remitted some kinds of taxes and military service, and the right to work freely in the country. These policies are considered as an important reason of the immigration.Chapter three explains the changes of Chinese society during King Rama III to King Rama V of the Rattanakosin Dynasty. Under this situation, the author reviewed the connection between the distributions of Chinese people in Thailand population, their descent and their career, as well as their relationship with local people. Based on the former data, the author analyzed that the main reason of large amount of Chinese immigrates might be the policy issued by Thailand government to allow the intermarriage between Chinese and local people. This policy made it much easier for Chinese people entering the Thai society. This might explain why the assimilation level of Thai Chinese people is much higher than in other Southeast Asia countries. Chapter four mainly analyzes the important position Chinese obtainded in Thailand economic development. Setting the Bowring Treaty(signed with England in 1855) as a borderline, the author discussed the evolution of business activities of Chinese in Thailand.Chapter five analyzes the Chinese influence upon Thai culture and points out that consciously or not, Chinese immigrates brought their own culture to Thailand. The author believed that Chinese culture had affected Thailand literature, arts and language a great deal, which became the main communication form between China and Thailand.Chapter six discusses the political influence of Thai-Chinese. The influence can be divided into two parts: the Thailand government pay tribute to Chinese government and the policy Thailand government made to settle Chinese immigrates. The article first analyzes why Thai government stopped tribute to China during the reign from Rama III to Rama V, then discussed the problem of Chinese people in Thailand, which includes: the Chinese Ang Yee problem, the Chinese western nationality problem and the Chinese labors problem.As a conclusion, chapter seven discusses the influence brought by Chinese immigrates through out the reign from King Rama III to King Rama V of Rattanakosin Dynasty, which also leads to the conclusion of this dissertation and presumes the possible direction of future study.
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