I would say more so. To the point of virtual economic slavery.
A few hundred Chinese/Thai families exploiting the traditional indigenous inhabitants, especially the Lao/Thais who are the most recent addition to the family of Thai citizenship.
And the saddest thing is that the whole population generally accepts it, as current generations have never known anything different.
Times are a changing though, and such is the reason for the political unrest we are starting to see of late.