Here’s an interesting snippet regarding the 300,000 Chinese who were resident by the1850s. The government of the day tried to control them using tried and trusted methods of absorbing community leaders into the bureaucracy and making these leaders responsible for their conduct. Unfortunately this didn’t appear to work:
“Several times during the 1840s and 1870s, troops had to be sent to the sugar tracts east of Bangkok to restore order. The southern town of Ranong was ‘almost lost to the government’ during a miners riot in the 1870s. When a gunboat was sent to restore order,
the mob reacted by burning and looting Phuket. "
"The ability of striking workers to paralyze the Bangkok port gave the rulers nightmares about a Chinese takeover of the city.
In 1889, rival Chinese gangs fought a pitched battle in the center of the capital for three days.”
