Japanese economic relations with Siam : aspects of their historical development 1884 to 1942

Abstract

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 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.