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Thailand Boundaries
Thailand in the late 1980s shared boundaries with Burma,
Malaysia, Laos, and Cambodia. Although neither China nor Vietnam
bordered Thailand, the territory of both countries came within
100 kilometers of Thai territory
(see
fig. 2). Many parts of
Thailand's boundaries followed natural features, such as the
Mekong River. Most borders had been stabilized and demarcated in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in accordance
with treaties forced on Thailand and its neighbors by Britain and
France. In some areas, however, exact boundaries, especially
along Thailand's eastern borders with Laos and Cambodia, were
still in dispute in the late 1980s.
Disputes with Cambodia after 1950 arose in part from
ill-defined boundaries; the most notable case was a dispute over
the Preah Vihear Temple area submitted to the International Court
of Justice, which ruled in favor of Cambodia in 1962. During the
years that the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, was controlled by
the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot (1975-79), the border disputes
continued. In the early 1980s, the People's Republic of Kampuchea
and its mentor, Vietnam, made an issue of boundaries in Prachin
Buri Province in eastern Thailand. In contrast to these
incidents, which attracted international attention, boundary
disputes with Malaysia and Burma were usually handled more
cooperatively. Continuing mineral exploration and fishing in the
Gulf of Thailand, however, were sources of potential conflict
with both neighbors. Adding to general border tensions were the
activities of communist-led insurgents, whose operations had been
of paramount concern to the Thai government and its security
forces for several decades. The problem of communist insurgency
was compounded by the activity of what the Thai government
labeled "antistate elements." Often the real source of border
problems was ordinary criminals or local merchants involved in
illegal mining, logging, smuggling, and narcotics production and
trade
(see State of National Security
, ch. 5).
Data as of September 1987
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