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Summary
Before colonisation, Cambodia spent centuries under Siamese suzerainty — from before Naresuan’s reign to that of Rama V — and kept its cultural identity intact.
France applied divide and rule: separating Cambodia from Siam while opening fractures between classes, between town and country, and between the Western-educated and everyone else.
Independence in 1953 arrived without strong institutions to carry it. Instability followed immediately, then civil war, then the Khmer Rouge.
Key points
Under Siam did not mean absorbed
Khmer language, religion and culture survived the period intact — unlike the European colonial pattern.
Divide and rule is the real inheritance
The fractures deliberately opened outlasted the colonial power that opened them.
Independence arrived ahead of readiness
In 1953 the country got its own flag without institutions able to carry the weight.
The road to the Khmer Rouge starts much earlier
A catastrophe that killed over 1.2 million people did not begin in 1975.