Cambodia and Thailand relations

Lwin Lwin Aung, 2016, IUJ

Introduction

            In the past three decades, the relationships between Cambodia and Thailand sometime are good and bad due to domestic politics of these two counties and the border and the Preah Vihear temple issues between them. Cambodia and Thailand are situated in Southeast Asia region and ASEAN member countries. These two countries are neighboring countries and also ASEAN member countries. The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between Cambodia and Thailand since 1953. This paper cannot provide information of historical events before 1950s. Instead, it focuses on the significant events after post-World War II era. In 1953, Cambodia gained independence from France. After getting Cambodia’s independence, Cambodia firstly started the diplomatic relations with Thailand. And also, Thailand was the first country to recognize Cambodia as an independence state.

Bilateral Relations between Myanmar and Thailand

Introduction

Both Myanmar and Thailand are situated in Southeast Asia. Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia which never to have been taken over by a European power unlike Myanmar. In both countries, the military has been involved in politics. After the overthrow of a democratically elected government in recent years, Thailand has had several coups since the 1930s. Historically, coups in Thailand and Myanmar / Burma are different, in Thailand the army always gave back the power, while in Burma the coup of 1962 meant decades of tyranny.[1] The relations between Thailand and Myanmar have been distinguished by mutual criticism, border troubles and suspicion. The long complex history remained between Myanmar and Thailand because both countries are neighbours with each other. With the fall of Ayudhya, Myanmar was seemed as a devilish nation by Thaialnd. In 1569, Burmese troops invaded Ayudhya and occupied it for 34 years before the Siamese King Naresuan won the decisive battle in Nong Sarai and retook the capital city from Burma.[2] However, the Burmese King Bayinnaung scoured Ayudhya in 1767 again. The city fell again down to Burma after a protracted fight. This event has been etched in the memory of Thai and became the bitter history. In this essay, I would like to focus on “Whether the relations between Myanmar and Thailand is stable or not?” by examining the government to government relations after Myanmar gained her independence. Then, I will move on to the relations of both countries within ASEAN because of both countries are members of ASEAN.