> As of the 2000 census, there were 6,355,144 registered residents in the city. However, this figure does not take account of the many unregistered residents and daytime visitors from the surrounding metropolitan area. More than 50% of Bangkokians have some Chinese ancestry.
They are still Thai, they often don’t even speak Chinese, just ethnically Chinese (and then I guess it depends on how you count mixed ancestry).
England has a long and proud history of being invaded, colonised and overbred by the French. Anglo-Saxon isn't exactly an English pedigree. It isn't French either, but "French" doesn't have an etymology that originated in France.
So it is quite possible that the argument of Thai people being Chinese would parallel more strongly; English people don't just speak a bit of French, they have the same ancestors and may as well be French. Hopefully the ethnic Chinese entered Thailand under more rosy circumstances!
> has a long and proud history of being invaded, colonised and overbred by the French
That’s not really true though unless you take an excessively liberal interpretation of what it means to be French. The Celts weren’t French, the Danes weren’t French, the Romans weren’t French, the Saxons weren’t French, and even the Normans had only been in France for a century before invading, although they picked up the local language pdq. The only people to successfully invade after 1066 were the Dutch, and they would assure you they weren’t French.
50% is still close to a majority. Perhaps mostly is the wrong word exactly, but it isn’t far off. And I didn’t claim Chinese language was common in either way, just that Chinese ancestry was common, which has huge ramifications to culture. Like Toledo and poles.
Do you have a source for that because that has not been my experience?