I think they had been used by Laos instead to kill French and Americans. Laos was not powerful enough to unseat the French, and the Vietminh was the only potential candidate for that. As you know, during Indochina war, the brutal killings were Cambodians against Cambodians, Cambodians against Viets and Viets against Viets then Viets against Americans and Americans had killed over a million Viets and maimed over millions. After the war was ended in 1975, Laos was peacefully turned to communism without a shot of single bullet. Not to mention that Laos encouraged the Americans to use Hmongs as their true fighters to kill the Viets and the Viets also had killed so many of them. Indeed, Laos and Thailand had used Americans during the war until the end of the war. Most Thai soldiers who were sent to fight in the war was not in accordance with the agreement that Thailand had with America because they were all rural peasants volunteerily recruited by the government, being trained for a month then shipped to Laos, to South Vietnam with a minimal compensation. The real army was never sent to war. As a result, saved Thailand millions of dollars, but the funding from Americans were so huge. I think they spent less than a quarter percent of what they received from U.S.
The current deputy prime minister of Laos is ethnic chinese or laotianese. He had successfully lobbied the government to forge closer relations with china and a handful of pro-viets were powerless and most of them are too old already. By the way, please don't assume that bony ugly vietnamese girl would get my Laotiane Love. I hate their feature for god sake.