Siam To-day

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23053, 22 June 1940, Page 10

Siam To-day

The conclusion of non-aggression pacts between Thailand (Siam) and France, Great Britain and Japan, reported last week, points to the instability of international relations in the Far East. While the grave military situation on the Western Front has tied the hands of Britain §nd France, the German occupation of the Jletherlands and the gravitation of American interest towards the European conflict have all removed traditional immobilising factors

supporting the status quo in east Asia. Nonaggression pacts with Thailand probably amount to no more than an attempt to stabilise affairs in the southern Pacific by placing another legal obstacle in the way of Japan’s newly-found freedom. The urgency of this was shown the following day when a Japanese naval spokesman warned Britain and the Netherlands about alleged troop movements in the East Indies and the United States about her attitude to Japanese aims in China, and threatened France with drastic action unless alleged concealed transport of munitions to the Chungking Government ceased. Bordering French Indo-China on the south, Thailand has already been profoundly affected by the SinoJapanese war. The first enthusiasm for complete independence from her neighbours, which followed the revolution of 1932, when the King was deposed, has been tempered by suspicion of Japanese aims and dislike of the methods of their realisation. Early in 1939 Thailand denounced all the old foreign treaties which had circumscribed her jurisdictional and fiscal autonomy. New agreements were negotiated with Britain and France on the basis cf equality; the strengthening of Singapore was approved; and boundary disputes with the French along the Mekong river, recurring sources of irritation, were settled on Siamese initiative. This closer understanding between Thailand and the surrounding British and French controlled territories has been regarded as an encouraging sign, because Japan is popularly supposed to have increased her influence over Siamese policy in recent years. While there are no real grounds fdr supposing this, the possibility of Japan promoting a canal through the Kra Isthmus to link the Pacific with the Indian Ocean has been widely discussed. Were such a canal to be cut it would no longer be necessary for ships sailing west from the China seas to pass through the Straits of Malacca or the Straits of, Sunda, and Singapore would lose much of its strategic importance. The Isthmus of Kra, however, is rough, hilly and broken, and does not lend itself to easy canal building.' The Siamese themselves do not consider the construction of such a canal feasible. Of the several foreigners who act as advisers to the Government, only one, an economic expert, is Japanese. The adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is traditionally an American, while the adviser on finance has' always been brought out from London. Nearly all technical experts in the Government service are Americans and there is still a certain amount of British and French influence in the law courts. The Siamese Government has kept its currency and treasury reserves in British securities; and approximately 85 per cent, of Thailand’s exports go to Singapore, Penang and other British ports, whereas only 3.5 per cent, go to Japan. Moreover, British sources supply more than half of her imports, selling Thailand nearly twice as much as Japan. Economically, a break with the British Empire would be to Thailand’s disadvantage. ’