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Japanese Influence in Siam
by Gareth Jones
May, 1935, Bangkok, Siam.
The recent Japanese invasion moves in North China have again
drawn the attention of observers in the Far East to plans of Japanese
expansion and the fear is often expressed that Japan is extending her
sway not only over parts of China, but over distant regions such as
Siam. It is a commonplace of club-room conversations that Japanese
influence is spreading so rapidly among the Siamese of the new
revolutionary regime as to endanger Britain’s control over the path from
the Pacific to Asia, and the old Kra Canal rumour, which the Japanese
are said to wish to build a canal through the Isthmus of Kra, thus
shortening by about two days the route between China and India and
curtailing the usefulness of Singapore.
This fear of a Siam dominated by Japan has even led the Times of
India to write on April 11th, 1935: “India has this great
interest - that the establishment of Japanese economic hegemony ever
Siam would bring a new international influence into an area which is
contiguous with the frontier of Burma. In the past India’s foreign and
defence policies have been dictated by considerations of the risk
attaching to the North West frontier, where first the Russian menace and
later, the Afghan unrest were present. Should a new militant power
establish itself on the eastern border of Burma India’s foreign and
defence policies will need radical revision.”
A problem, which is capable of changing the whole military and foreign
policy of India and of costing Britain many millions of pounds in
defence schemes, needs careful consideration. During a stay in Siam I
heard the views of the leading foreign and Siamese authorities on the
problem of Japanese influence and for the reasons I shall set down, I
came to the conclusion that Japanese control in Siam is a myth; that
Japanese penetration has been greatly exaggerated and that while there
are many signs of a rapidly growing friendship between the Siamese and
the Japanese, talk of building of the Kra Canal and of Japanese
domination of the route India is little more than sensational smoke room
gossip.
The nationalism, which inspires the present rulers of Siam, is not of a
type, which would allow them to abandon their control of affairs to
Japanese and for reasons of personal power and sensitiveness. They are
jealous of their grip over politics; “Siam for the Siamese is a far more
potent slogan than “Asia for the Asiatics”, and while there are some
supporters of “Pan Asianism” the vision of most young Siamese is still
limited to their own fatherland. Strategic reasons such as their
wedged-in position between British territory, British Malaya and Burma,
and French Indo-China prevent the Siamese rulers from placing too great
strategic stress on Japan many thousand miles away.
Within Siam there is a large Chinese population, powerful in its control
over business life, which would lead the Siamese to hesitate in adopting
too readily Japanese advice. In spite of’ the usual absence of national
feeling among Chinese and of their disregard of what happens away from
their own province, there was a considerable boycott of Japanese goods
by Chinese in Bangkok, and Chinese servants in some British and American
families were known break any Japanese crockery they found in their
master’s houses.
In informed circles alarm about the building of the Kra Canal is held to
be unjustified, and rather humorous. It would be impossible to raise
the capital in London or New York for such a great undertaking, while
Tokyo even if it were a great monetary centre has too many financial
problems at home and in Manchuria to be able to spare money for the
Canal. Should the unlikely occur and the Canal be built, the dues would
be so heavy that few shipping companies would use the Canal in order to
save two days voyage, and take a route which would make them lose many
valuable freights in the rich free-trade entrepot of Singapore. The Kra
Canal is thus dismissed with a gesture of amusement by reliable observes
in Singapore and Siam.
Finance is a final barrier to Japanese control over Siam. There have
been British financial advisers since 1896 and the Siamese currency is
linked to sterling. Siamese financing is centred in London and there is
little likelihood of the Siamese rulers exchanging the solid rock of
City support for the shifting sand of a Yen backing.
While the scare a Japanese grip over Siam may be dismissed as
sensational, there is no doubt about the growing friendship between Siam
and Japan. Young Siamese look with respect upon the achievements of the
rising Asiatic island empire and say: “We want to be the Japan of the
South.” A leading Japanese official in Bangkok said to me: “The Siamese
regard Japan as an elder brothers. To them Japan is an example of a
country that has freed itself and is progressing rapidly. We are,
however, not a leader but a mentor and it is right that we play a big
part among the Asiatic peoples. Thus the youth here say: “If only we
could do what the Japanese have done.”
In the last two years there has been an increase in the intercourse
between the Nations, due largely to the cheapness of Japan. A number of
students have gone to Japan to study and find that the travel1ing
expenses, university fees and the cost of living are lower than in
Eng1and. Thus a Siamese student can study for a year in Japan including
travel for rough1y £120, while a year’s study at a British University,
including travel, will cost at least £300.
The depreciated yen has been a most important link between Siam and
Japan leading to an increase of travel between the two countries. Japan
has received this year a Siamese parliamentary commission, while prison
experts from Bangkok and elsewhere have studied Japanese treatment of
criminals. Abandoning the tradition that Britain shall train the young
naval officers of Siam, the Siamese Government has this year sent a
number of naval cadets for training in the Japanese fleet.
Race and religion are other bonds between the two peoples, which are
both Buddhist. The Siamese, while first and foremost nationalistic,
are none the less growing conscious of being Asiatic, and the Siamese
Expeditionary Force witnessed in France during the War the spectacle of
a Europe of blood and. hunger. There has been a decline, therefore, in
the esteem paid to Europeans and a decrease in the Western experts. The
Siamese State railways, which formerly had many British experts and
foremen has today, I was told, only one British employee. Japanese
experts are increasing although there is no Japanese of the rank of
adviser. Japanese cotton experts have been engaged and there are
Japanese officers in the Siamese Army.
Another sign of friendship is Siam is that refrained from
the vote against Japan at the League of Nations meeting, which condemned
Japan’s action in Manchuria in March 1933. Siam was alone in her
refusal to vote. Moreover the news agency, which mainly supplies the
Siamese newspapers, is the official, Japanese agency, Rengo; a fact,
which tends to increase the stress laid upon Japan’s importance.
It is in trade, however, that Japan is advancing in Siam. Imports
direct from the United Kingdom declined from l22, 750,000 bahts
(approximately 11 bahts to a £) in 1932 to l0, 866,675 bahts in 1934,
while Japanese direct imports increased from 5,850,000, bahts in 1932
(the year of the Chinese boycott) to 14, 648,969 bahts in 1934. In
1929-30 British imports into Siam were more than double the imports from
Japan to Siam. By 1934 Japanese imports had exceeded British imports.
To illustrate the advance of the Japanese in textile imports the
statistics on singlets are revealing. In year 1932-3 Japan imported
1,725 dozen singlets, while the next year she imported 105,049 dozen
singlets into Siam. (These figures omit the Japanese goods imported from
Singapore and Hong Kong and from the Japanese owned mills in China.
Siamese trade figures are so complex, however, that it is dangerous to
rely too thoroughly upon them. The general fact stands out that Japan
is going ahead rapidly: has surpassed Great Britain as a supplier of
Siam and now is the main source of the imports of cotton goods, wireless
accessories, cement, bicycles, paper, artificial silk, silk and some
other goods. A store selling Japanese “Datsun” cars at a lower price
than the Austin Seven has been opened in the main street of Bangkok: a
sign that Japan is entering into the Motor car export trade, although
last year she imported only one car into Siam. Japanese bicycles
imported into Siam in 1932-3 numbered 947, while one year later they
numbered 5,246 compared with 469 British bicycles in the later year. A
few months ago Japanese contractors were given large orders for railway
bridges in the face of serious competition from number of European
firms.
Friendly though the social and trade relations between the two countries
may be growing it would be rash, however, to leap to the facile
conclusion that Japan dominates Siamese policy. The new nationalist
regime is not likely to throw itself into the arms of a foreign
government.
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