A Study On Political Participation Of Chinese Thais At The Background Of Patronage Culture

Overseas Chinese have migrated to Thailand a long time ago, which can date back to the Sukhothai Dynasty. At that time, there are explicit historical data on Chinese immigration to Thailand. Since then, the Thai royal family has adopted a relatively modest policy of encouraging Chinese to immigrate to Thailand, and accelerated the pace of Chinese assimilation. For this reason, the overseas Chinese have become the major ethnic group in Thailand, at the same time, the assimilation of overseas Chinese in Thailand is the highest of the world. As an important ethnic minority in Thailand,Chinese-Thai actively absorbed into the local people when they entered the Thai society.Chinese-Thai have obtained tremendous achievement in Thailand's economy, politics and culture, and played an important role in Thailand's society especially since Thailand opened the door in mid-19th century and advanced the modernization.Among Southeast Asian countries, Thailand is the only country that didn't suffer from colonial rule. For this reason, it has a complete development course. The clientelism,which was established in traditional societies and characterized by personal attachment,was also preserved. With the development of the democratization of Thailand, the clientelism gradually integrated into the modern party politics, and formed the clientelism politics. As an important ethnic group in Thailand, the overseas Chinese inevitably were under the influence of the clientelism politics. So how did overseas Chinese live and participate in the politics with the clientelism? This thesis, which based on the historical cases as the point-cut, attempts to analyze the causes, forms and influences of the overseas Chinese participation in politics under changing forms of clientelism in different period. Meanwhile, it discusses how overseas Chinese gradually involved in the political with the client network at the beginning of the 19th century. In addition, it explores the characteristics of the political and economic participation of the overseas Chinese with clientelism.As for the main content, this thesis analyzes the characteristics of political participation by overseas Chinese in case of clientelism in three periods and three different ways. The first chapter is the introductory part of the paper, which gives an overall introduction of the ethnic chinese in Thailand and analyzes the origin and characteristics of the traditional clientelism of Thailand. The second chapter discusses the influence of traditional forms of clientelism on political participation by overseas Chinese during the period of autocratic monarchy in Thailand. The third chapter mainly introduces the economic development of overseas Chinese in the period of authoritarian rule in Thailand and the political participation mode, which was characterized by political and commercial cooperation and established by overseas Chinese and Thai military and political circles. This chapter uses the specific cases--the Chinese merchants of the Bangkok business center and local "chao phow --to analyze the impact of this political participation model on Thai society. The forth chapter introduces the forms of political participation of party politics in Thailand through the modern clientelism system during the period of democratization. Based on the summary of the previous chapters, the conclusion lays special stress on analyzing the influence of overseas Chinese participation in the clientelism politics, and makes an outlook for the future of Chinese Thai participation in politics.