東南亞華人研究在第二次世界大戰以前就已經開始。但是,相對於新加坡、馬來西亞與印尼等國家的華人研究,泰國華人研究明顯較少。近年來,隨著中國政經實力的崛起,及其致力於全球各地推展「軟實力」,海外華人的政經角色備受國際社會關注;再加上,全球各地興起的華人參政熱潮,都是促成華人研究蓬勃發展的主因。其中,泰國無疑是一個用來檢驗華人的社會經濟生活與華人政治的最佳個案之一,因為華人佔泰國整體人口比例已經超過10%。不過,關於泰國華人的研究多半集中在同化及經濟相關領域等方面議題,政治領域的研究相對缺乏。本文的主要目的,即是要探討泰國華人在國家認同上的變遷,及其在當代泰國政治中所扮演的角色。此一問題在中國崛起的今日,顯得更加重要。
Research on Southeast Asian Chinese had begun before World War II, however, compared to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, Ethnic Chinese Studies in Thailand significantly less. In recent years, Chinese research among scholars in various disciplines began to prevail. Among them, Thailand is undoubtedly one of the best cases used to examine the socioeconomic life and political role of the Chinese, because they accounted for the proportion of the overall population of Thailand has more than 10%. However, most of the Thai Chinese study focused on the national identity, as well as economic and other aspects related fields, aspect about political research is clearly insufficient. Over the past decade, regardless of whether high or low politics, Thai society has showed high acceptability to ethnic Chinese gradually. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to explore the political role of ethnic Chinese in contemporary Thai politics. The importance of this issue is especially important during the era of "China Rising".