The perception that Chinese were useful as trading middlemen, city builders, and tax farmers was not confined to the colonial powers, nor were the European colonies the only Southeast Asian regimes to employ Chinese as middlemen. Uncolonized kingdoms—including Siam, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma—allowed Chinese privileged places in their commercial systems. Rulers of these native kingdoms needed reliable agents to collect revenue from foreign trade and from their domestic populations, agents wise in the ways of commerce but without political ambitions. For these regimes, Chinese were perfectly suited.