The International Relations of Laos

L AOS, SOMETIMES KNOWN as the Country of a Million Elephants, has been described by one of its former Prime Ministers as a landbound island among more powerful neighbors-China, Burma, Thailand, Viet-Nam and Cambodia. A product of Thai ethnic stock and Indian cultural influence, Laos became a political entity in the 9th century A.D. and reached its cultural and political apex early in the i8th century. At that time, the Lao kingdom, then called Lan-Xang, included sections of Yunnan, of the Southern Shan States, of the Vietnamese and Cambodian mountain plateaus, and large stretches of present-day northeastern Thailand. Within less than a century, however, feudal rivalries fed from outside began to weaken the central government and Lan-Xang broke into two distinct kingdoms: Luang-Prabang in the north and Vientiane in the south.' The inhospitable mountain chains and forests of North and Central Viet-Nam for a while shielded Laos from the Vietnamese, but the low hills and open plains of the Mekong valley were an open invitation to attacks from the growing Siamese state. In i828, the kingdom of Vientiane was totally destroyed by the Siamese, and soon thereafter all of Laos was split into Siamese and Vietnamese spheres of influence, the former predominating in Vientiane and Champassak and the latter controlling most of Luang-Prabang's hinterland. The arrival of the French, who proclaimed a protectorate over the kingdom of Luang-Prabang on October 3, i893, was at first greeted with relief, but the French, largely through ignorance of the local situation, accepted the Mekong as the international boundary between Thailand and Laos with the result that the most productive parts of both Vientiane and Champassak became permanent parts of Thailand.2 This error was somewhat corrected by the Franco-Siamese boundary treaties of I902 and I907, which restored the provinces of Sayaboury and Bassac to Laos, but the remaining trans-Mekong areas of Laos have now become integral parts of Thailand. The French colonial administration maintained a dual relationship with Laos. The kingdom of Luang-Prabang, as a protectorate, remained a dis

Geography · International relations · Political science · Politics · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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