Thai Chinese

Thai Chinese (also known as Chinese Thais, Sino-Thais) are people of Chinese descent in Thailand. Thai Chinese are the largest mixed group in the country and the largest overseas Chinese community in the world with a population of approximately 9.5 million people, accounting for 11–14 percent of the country's total population as of 2012. It is also one of the oldest and most prominently integrated overseas Chinese communities, with a history dating back to the 1100s. Slightly more than half of the ethnic Chinese population in Thailand trace their ancestry to Chaoshan, proven by the prevalence of the Teochew dialect among the Chinese community in Thailand as well as other Chinese languages. The term as commonly understood signifies those whose ancestors immigrated to Thailand before 1949.

The Thai Chinese have been deeply ingrained into all elements of Thai society over the past 200 years. The present Thai royal family, the Chakri dynasty, was founded by King Rama I who himself was partly Chinese. His predecessor, King Taksin of the Thonburi Kingdom, was the son of a Chinese father from Chaoshan. With the successful integration of historic Chinese immigrant communities in Thailand, a significant number of Thai Chinese are the descendants of intermarriages between ethnic Chinese and native Thais. Many of these descendants have assimilated into Thai society and self-identify solely as Thai.

The Thai Chinese are well-established in the middle class and upper classes of Thai society and are well represented at all levels of Thai society. They play a leading role in Thailand's business sector and dominate the Thai economy today. In addition, Thai Chinese elites of Thailand have a strong presence in Thailand's political scene with most of Thailand's former Prime Ministers and the majority of parliament having at least some Chinese ancestry. Thai Chinese elites of Thailand are well represented among Thailand's rulers and other sectors.

Thailand has the largest overseas Chinese community in the world outside Greater China. 11 to 14 percent of Thailand's population are considered ethnic Chinese.

Thailand's longstanding policy was not to regard Thai Chinese as a separate ethnicity, based on the principle of considering all Tai groups living in Thailand as part of the Central Thai people. By endonym, with partial success, now Thai Chinese refer themselves as chao thai (Thai: ชาวไทย, IPA: [tɕʰaːw tʰaj]), however, the term often creates ambiguity among the various Tai groups in the country, especially the Central/Southern Thai who also call themselves the same, these groups Thai Chinese refer as khon pak klang (Thai: คนภาคกลาง, lit: Central Thai people) or khon tai (Thai: คนใต้, lit: Southern Thai people).

In cases where details are required, Thai Chinese people refer to themselves as khon thai chuea sai chin (Thai: คนไทยเชื้อสายจีน, lit: Thai of Chinese origin), or sometimes may refer to the ancestral lands as khon krung thep (Thai: คนกรุงเทพ, lit: Krungthepian, Bangkoker) or khon chon bu ri (Thai: คนชลบุรี, lit: Chonburian), which well known that the Central Thais (Siamese) and Mons were not indigenous to these two provinces but recent internal migration, Bangkok and Chonburi. The term Krungthepians still pinned a resentful connotation towards Central Thais, when Krungthep accent is considered as prestige dialect of Central Thai language, while the Central Thai language of Central Thai people is considered an inappropriate language, known as ner (Thai: เหน่อ).

For assimilated second and third generation descendants of Chinese immigrants, it is principally a personal choice whether or not to identify themselves as ethnic Chinese. Nonetheless, nearly all Thai Chinese solely self-identify as Thai, due to their close integration and successful assimilation into Thai society. G. William Skinner observed that the level of assimilation of the descendants of Chinese immigrants in Thailand disproved the "myth about the 'unchanging Chinese'", noting that "assimilation is considered complete when the immigrant's descendant identifies himself in almost all social situations as a Thai, speaks Thai language habitually and with native fluency, and interacts by choice with Thai more often than with Chinese." Skinner believed that the assimilation success of the Thai Chinese was a result of the wise policy of the Thai rulers who, since the 17th century, allowed able Chinese tradesmen to advance their ranks into the kingdom's nobility. The rapid and successful assimilation of the Thai Chinese has been celebrated by the Chinese descendants themselves, as evident in contemporary literature such as the novel Letters from Thailand (Thai: จดหมายจากเมืองไทย) by Botan.

Today, the Thai Chinese constitute a significant part of the royalist/nationalist movements. When the then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is Thai Chinese, was ousted from power in 2006, it was Sondhi Limthongkul, another prominent Thai Chinese businessman, who formed and led People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement to protest the successive governments run by Thaksin's allies. Mr. Sondhi accused Mr. Thaksin of corruption based on improper business ties between Thaksin's corporate empire and the Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Group. The Thai Chinese in and around Bangkok were also the main participants of the months-long political campaign against the government of Ms. Yingluck (Mr. Thaksin's sister), between November 2013 and May 2014, the event which culminated in the military takeover in May 2014.