The Nation-state emerge at the end of the 18th century in Europe and was then propagated from the mid 19th century and during the 20th century worldwide. Nevertheless, other regions like Asia, India and China, in particular, were developing territorial states before European Colonization. Indeed, the imperial states of China, and later Vietnam, defined their linear boundaries long before the advent of domination by Western imperialism. The Great Wall and the landmarked and well mapped Sino-Vietnamese boundaries are legacies of this political world view. In South East Asia controlled ethnic diversity has long characterized the states in this region. Their territorial structures existed prior to Western colonialist imperialism and took the form either of an Indian mandala, of a Chinese type of centralized unitary empire, or of a city-state. Postcolonial nation-states have more or less been structured around these ancient models.
In the case of Thailand (former Siam), the socio-political structure of the territory was based in the so-called Mandala- state (research on that). From the end of the 13th to the 15th century, Ayutthaya (capital of the Mandala-state) had been a trading port, a city-state comparable to those on the Malacca Strait, and a trading partner with India and China. The hinter- land, much broader than that of the Malay Sultanates, allowed for the construction of an “agrarian state”, while still conserving its major commercial role. Siam became a hybrid state, maritime and rural, unparalleled by its neighbors.
Nevertheless, with the expansion of the European powers during the 18th and 19th century, the former way of ruling and organizing the society clash with the colonial borders imposed by the West. The current borders of Thailand, for example, were set from 1893 to 1909 through a series of treaties with France and England. Later, with the BOWRING Treaty (very important) in 1855, many concessions to the British were made. One of them was the extraterritoriality for foreigners that prevent Thailand to become a real state because was denying the rights to their own citizens. Later, King Chulalonkorn (1868- 1910) started many reforms in order to create a Western-type Nation-state, to implement a policy of administrative reforms, exchanging previous structures of the mandala-state for a standardized network of provinces (Thesapiban system).
The aforementioned Treaty could be related to the – 1842 Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties—granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to Britain, the opening of five treaty ports, and the cession of Hong Kong Island. The failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the Second Opium War (1856–60).[5] In China, the First Opium War is considered to be the beginning of modern Chinese history, since it meant a real historical turn, not only for China but for the economic dynamics worldwide. Indeed, he Nakin Treaty displace the ruling role of China in the world, placing it now in the English Empire. This affects the regions surrounding China, who were, during centuries, revolving around China in order to legitimize their mandala states. This was achieved through the so-called Chinese Tribute System.
reflect on the transition of older, traditional forms of territoriality in South East Asia – and in Thailand in particular, as it is an exceptional case – to the imported form of the Wester Nation-state.

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