It was the first time Meisun sae Chao, a descendant of a Chinese soldier in the Kuomintang army, had felt true happiness.
The woman, who was born and lives on the mountain of Doi Mae Salong, had just become a Thai under the government’s naturalisation scheme.
Sharing the happiness in a ceremony to take an oath of allegiance which was held on Doi Mae Salong last month were the other 220 ethnic Chinese, also descendants of Kuomintang fighters who fled southern China in the 1940s. With the help of Thai authorities, the Kuomintang soldiers and their families took refuge in 13 villages in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son in 1970.
- Extracted from “Reborn Thai“, The Bangkok Post, 14 June 2008. The Post also has a profile of Lei Yu Tian, a former Kuomintang officer, who settled in Thailand in 1969. Well worth a look.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Blaster Bates // Jun 16, 2008 at 12:17 am
No point in being too copyright correct with the Bangkok Post. Copy the whole article before they delete it is best.
2 Links 16 June 2008 - David on Formosa // Jun 16, 2008 at 10:22 am
[...] New Mandala on the former KMT soldiers in Thailand becoming Thai citizens. [...]
3 Stephen // Jun 16, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Without intending to take this discussion away from the important and interesting issue of ex-KMT soldiers in Thailand (Nicholas, I couldn’t seem to get through with the links you posted here), but regarding the issue of nationalisation of foreigners in Thailand more generally, does anyone know what’s behind the current registration and granting of 10-year-residency permits to Burmese migrants which began on Saturday? This is not nationalisation like that of the ex-KMT decedents, as such, but ten years is quite a long time. There is apparently no cost for these residency permits, they are not work permits (i.e. the holders are technically not legally allowed to work), and some Burmese have told me that they think that they will be allowed to temporarily travel outside of the border area (to Bangkok, for example) with no-cost written permission slips from local Thai authorities! There also does not seem to be any cap on the numbers. So far, none of my Burmese friends are quite sure why this has come about. There were earlier work permit registrations a couple of months ago, which cost about 4,000 baht. This is clearly different. If this document can serve as a get out of jail (get out of bribe) free card, then I suspect quite a few local Thai policemen won’t be too happy. Some have speculated that it’s an act of HMK Bumibol’s benevolence or alternatively an effort to document just how many migrants from Burma are actually in Thailand. But none of these seem particularly convincing. I have heard of earlier Thai nationalisation cases of particularly wealthy individuals from Burma, but nothing on this scale. And this, of course, isn’t nationalisation, just extended residency. Perhaps I missed something in the news over the last couple of days. If anyone has information, I’d be interested to hear it. Also, more specifically with Thai nationalisation like that of the ex-KMT descendants like Meisun sae Chao, is there much precedence for such nationalisation, especially in the case of those from Burma?
4 Nicholas Farrelly // Jun 16, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Sorry Stephen,
The Post kills its links after a few days. As Blaster Bates noted, I should have just taken the full text for posterity. Next time.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
5 Tim Maddog // Jun 17, 2008 at 3:06 am
Interesting stuff.
The articles can still be found via Google’s cached pages. Here are TinyURLs for the two cached articles:
http://tinyurl.com/6dxa8f (Reborn Thai)
http://tinyurl.com/5hz4zm (Last KMT general still wants democracy in China)
Tim Maddog
6 Nicholas Farrelly // Jun 17, 2008 at 3:46 am
Thanks Tim,
I have updated the links in the original to reflect these very helpful cached pages. Brilliant.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
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