Word: thailand
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...THIS FOR A SIGN OF political maturity: blood runs in the streets as soldiers repeatedly fire into crowds of protesting citizens intent on forcing government changes. In most countries those events would be interpreted as a sign of catastrophic breakdown. But in Thailand they signal that the country no longer consists of a mass of illiterate peasants who meekly submit to military rule. That may have been true for most of the past six decades, but now a five-year economic boom has created an urban, affluent, well-educated middle class that is demanding a voice in politics...
...seems unlikely that Thailand will go back to the political past. The violence in the streets showed just how much the country has changed; until then, Bangkok was the last place anyone would have looked for riots and bloodshed. Since the fall of the absolute monarchy in 1932, the country has experienced 10 successful coups, a number of failed ones and 14 constitutions. But only occasionally did violence occur in the so-called Land of Smiles. An old joke is that when a coup is attempted, usually both sides drive all their tanks into the street and then stop...
...1980s, Thai society changed rapidly. A boom spurred largely by Japanese and Western investment in chemicals, textiles, consumer electronics and other industries gave the country one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, averaging around 11% from 1987 through 1990 and slowing only to 7.5% in 1991. Thailand, a nation of more than 55 million people, is the world's largest rice exporter, a leading producer of seafood and one of Asia's top tourist destinations. Living and educational standards have expanded enormously: in 1965 only about 16,000 Thais were attending college; today the number is perhaps...
...made in Asia. According to Sandhu, by the year 2000, Asia's gross national product is expected to match Europe's; this year Hong Kong's gnp per capita will pass New Zealand's. Nine out of the 10 fastest-growing economies last year, including South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand, were Asian. Taiwan now has foreign currency reserves equal to more than two-thirds of Australia's $145 billion foreign debt...
Last week the first 527 refugees from camps in Thailand moved back to Cambodia to start a new life -- the first step in the repatriation of some 375,000 people driven from their country by a 13-year civil war. But the homecoming cannot go much further until U.N. peacekeeping troops, who will soon number 16,000, are able to defuse a battle in Kompong Thom province between ^ government forces and heavily armed Khmer Rouge units...