Swan, William L
Description
This study traces the course of Japanese economic relations with Siam from the
late 19th century, when Japanese began going to Siam for economic purposes follow -
ing the end of the Tokugawa Bakufu, to the beginning of the Pacific war, when Japan
was at the apex of its power in Southeast Asia and had formulated a new economic
policy towards Siam, one which dealt with Siam as a member of the Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere. During the decades before the Pacific war, Japanese...[Show more] capital
investment in Siam remained negligible and trade was the most important feature of
economic relations between the two countries. This trade fell roughly into three phases:
ihe first and longest lasted until the onset of the Depression and was a period of gradual
trade growth, when Japanese products began to establish themselves in the Siamese
market; the second phase ran from around 1932 until 1937 during which Japan's
exports to Siam experienced an extraordinary expansion, a result of the Depression
which reduced Siamese purchasing power making low-priced Japanese products very
attractive and which made Japan Siam's preeminent trading partner; the third phase
started with the outbreak of the "China Incident" in mid 1937 and continued until the
outbreak of the Pacific war in December 1941, a period when political and military
factors began to affect Siam-Japan economic relations until by 1941 these factors, most
importantly the growing Japanese confrontation with Britain and the United States, were
able to completely reorient Japan's trade relations with Southeast Asia. This reorientation
took Siam from the position of an unimportant Southeast Asian trading partner with
Japan to one of the most if not the most important by 1941. The events of the months
surrounding the outbreak of the Pacific war are dealt with at some length as these make
up a period of great significance in Siam-Japan relations, culminating as it did in Siam's
alliance with Japan and finally its declaration of war on Britain and the United States.
Strong evidence is set forth from contemporary Siamese, Japanese and English
sources showing that the Siamese were not the reluctant Japanese ally as has come to
be commonly accepted since the war. In chapters nine through twelve, which discuss
this important period in Siam-Japan relations, a critique is made of the now accepted
postwar interpretation of Siam's relations with Japan at the time the Pacific war began.
It is argued that important postwar Siamese memoirs and reminiscences have not been
forthright in their rendering of events with Japan at the beginning of the war, and that the
Siamese government, especially Phibun, was ready to commit Siam totally to the
Japanese side by the second day of the war. This study ends with an investigation of
aspects of Japan's wartime economic relations with Siam. One was the introduction of a
wartime Japanese money system into Southeast Asia; a second was the negotiations
that took place during much of 1942 over the lending of baht to the Japanese to pay for
their expenditures in Siam during the war, both show that Japan recognized Siam as an
independent nation and an ally and accorded it distinctly different treatment from that
given to its occupied areas. Another aspect of wartime relations looked at is the intro -
duction of a new Japanese economic policy for Siam which was to pave the way for that
country's economic integration into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The
approach taken in formulating this policy and its thrust followed the pattern that the
Japanese had employed from the time they began building their colonial empire in
Taiwan and Korea. For this reason it provides an indication of Japanese intentions for
Siam-Japan economic relations had the war gone in Japan's favour.
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