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>Thailand had to give up lot of their land to British/France/etc to stay independent
>the only reason the Thais didn't get colonized is because France and the UK could not agree how to split Thailand between themselves
All of that is true, but it wasn't only diplomacy and great powers rivalry that allowed Thais to stay independent. They were also willing and able to use force if necessary to protect their independence (under the right circumstances) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Thai_War
That's remarkable for a non-Western nation during that time. Only Ethiopia (until 1936) and Japan (before they became a colonial power themselves) could compare