Japan-Thailand relations

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Japan-Thailand relations
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Japan-Thailand relations span a period from the 17th century to the present. Contacts had an early start with Japanese trade on Red seal ships and the installation of Japanese communities on Siamese soil, only to be broken off with Japan's period of seclusion. Contacts resumed in the 19th century and developed to the point where Japan is today one of Thaland foremost economical partners. Thailand and Japan share the distinction of never having lost sovereignity during the Colonial period.

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[edit] First contacts

As early as 1593, Siamese chronicles record that the Siamese king Naresuan had 500 Japanese soldiers in his army when he defeated Phra Maha Uparaja, the Burmese Crown Prince, in a battle on elephant-back.[1]

In December 1605, John Davis, the famous English explorer, was killed by Japanese pirates off the coast of Siam, thus becoming the first Englishman to be killed by a Japanese.[2]

[edit] Red seal trade

A 1634 Japanese Red seal ship. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.
A 1634 Japanese Red seal ship. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.
Japanese portolan sailing map, depicting the Indian Ocean  and the East Asian coast, early 17th century.
Japanese portolan sailing map, depicting the Indian Ocean and the East Asian coast, early 17th century.

Around 56 Red seal ships to Siam are recorded between 1604 and 1635.[3]

A Japanese colony was established in Siam. The colony was active in trade, particularly in the export of deer-hide and sappan wood to Japan in exchange for Japanese silver and Japanese handicrafts (swords, lacquered boxes, high-quality papers). From Siam, Japan was interested in purchasing Chinese silks, as well as deerskins and ray or shark skins (used to make a sort of shagreen for Japanese sword handles and scabbards).[4]

The Japanese were noted by the Dutch for challenging the trade monopoly of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), as their strong position with the King of Siam typically allowed them to buy at least 50% of the total production, leaving small quantities of a lesser quality to other traders.

The king of Siam sent numerous embassies to Japan: in 1621, an embassy led by Khun Pichitsombat and Khun Prasert, in 1623 by Luang Thongsamut and Khun Sawat, and in 1626 by Khun Raksasittiphon.[5] Letters from king Songtham are known, praising the relationship between the two countries:

"The existence of a sea separating Thailand and Japan has made contact between our two nations difficult. However, merchant ships of both nations now ply regularly between our two countries, causing relations to become even closer. It is now apparent that you (the Shogun) have sincere affection for us, an affection even stronger than that of our immediate kin."

Letter by king Songtham.[6]

The Shogun responded in similar terms:

"The cordial relations between our two countries cannot be destroyed. Since we both have mutual trust, the existence of a sea between us is not of any significance."

Letter by the Tokugawa Shogun to king Songtham.[7]

[edit] Japanese community in Siam

The Japanese quarter in Ayutthaya is indicated at the bottom center ("Japonois") of the map.
The Japanese quarter in Ayutthaya is indicated at the bottom center ("Japonois") of the map.

The Japanese quarters of Ayutthaya were home to about 1,500 Japanese inhabitants (some estimates run as high as 7,000). The community was called "Ban Yipun" in Thai, and was headed by a Japanese chief nominated by Thai authorities. It seems to have been a combination of traders, Christian converts who had fled their home country following the persecutions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and unemployed former samurai who had been on the losing side at the battle of Sekigahara.

Padre Antonio Francisco Cardim recounted having administered sacrament to around 400 Japanese Christians in 1627 in the Thai capital of Ayuthaya ("a 400 japoes christaos")[8] There were also Japanese communities in Ligor and Patani.[9]

The Japanese colony was highly valued for its military expertise, and was organized under a "Department of Japanese Volunteers" (Krom Asa Yipun) by the Thai king.

Contacts with other communities were not always smooth: in 1614, men of the English East India Company killed eight Japanese in a fight in the city of Ayutthaya.[10]

[edit] Yamada Nagamasa (1612-1630)

Main article: Yamada Nagamasa
Portrait of Yamada Nagamasa c.1630.
Portrait of Yamada Nagamasa c.1630.

A Japanese adventurer, Yamada Nagamasa, became very influential and ruled part of the kingdom of Siam (Thailand) during that period. He settled in the kingdom of Ayutthaya (modern-day Thailand) from around 1612 and became the ruler of the Nakhon Si Thammarat province in southern Thailand.

The army of Yamada Nagamasa in Thailand.
The army of Yamada Nagamasa in Thailand.

Yamada became the head of the Japanese colony, and in this position supported the military campaigns of the Thai king Songtham, at the head of a Japanese army flying the Japanese flag. He fought successfully, and was finally nominated Lord of Ligor (modern Nakhon Si Thammarat), in the southern peninsula in 1630, accompanied by 300 samurai.

Yamada Nagasama's fighting ship, 17th century painting. This is the ship in which Yamada sailed from Siam to Japan.
Yamada Nagasama's fighting ship, 17th century painting. This is the ship in which Yamada sailed from Siam to Japan.[11]

After more than twelve years in Siam, Yamada Nagamasa went to Japan in 1624 onboard one of his ships, where he sold a cargo of Siamese deer hide in Nagasaki. He stayed in Japan for three years, trying to obtain a Red Seal permit, but finally left in 1627, with the simple status of a foreign ship.

In 1629, Yamada Nagamasa visited Japan with an embassy from the Thai king Songtham. Yamada Nagamasa soon travelled back to Siam, but became involved in a succession war following the death of the King Songtham.[12]

[edit] William Adams (1614 and 1615)

The English adventurer William Adams traded between Japan and Southeast Asia, including Siam.
The English adventurer William Adams traded between Japan and Southeast Asia, including Siam.

The English adventurer William Adams (1564-1620) who was based in Japan, led several trading ventures between Japan and Siam.

In 1614, Adams wished to organize a trade expedition to Siam in hope of bolstering the activities and cash situation of the English Factory in Japan. He bought for the factory and upgraded a 200-ton Japanese junk, renamed her the Sea Adventure, hired about 120 Japanese sailors and merchants as well as several Chinese traders, an Italian and a Castillan trader and the heavily laden ship left on November 1614, during the typhoon season. The merchants Richard Wickham and Edmund Sayers of the English factory's staff also participated to the voyage. The ship was to purchase raw silk, Chinese goods, sappan wood, deer skins and ray skins (the latter used for the handles of Japanese swords), essentially carrying only silver (£1250) and £175 of merchandise (Indian cottons, Japanese weapons and lacquerware). The ship met with a typhoon near the Ryukyu Islands (modern Okinawa) and had to stop there to repair from 27 December 1614 until May 1615 before returning to Japan in June 1615 without having been able to complete any trade.

Adams again left Hirado in November 1615 for Ayutthaya in Siam on the refitted Sea Adventure intent on bringing sappanwood for resale in Japan. Like the previous year, the cargo consisted mainly of silver (£600) and also the Japanese and Indian goods unsold from the previous voyage. He managed to buy vast quantities of the profitable products, even buying two additional ships in Siam to transport everything. Adams sailed the Sea Adventure back to Japan with 143 tonnes of sappanwood and 3700 deer skins, returning to Hirado in 47 days, (the whole trip lasting between 5 June and 22 July 1616). Sayers, on a hired Chinese junk, reached Hirado in October 1616 with 44 tons of sappanwood. The third ship, a Japanese junk, brought 4,560 deer skins to Nagasaki in June 1617 after having missed the monsoon.

[edit] Tenjiku Tokubei (1627-1630)

Tenjiku Tokubei, 17th century painting.
Tenjiku Tokubei, 17th century painting.

The Japanese adventurer and writer Tenjiku Tokubei (1612- c.1692) (Jp:天竺徳兵衛) visited China, Vietnam and Siam onboard a Japanese Red Seal ship. He would stay for some time in Siam and again visit the country onboard one of the ships of the Dutch adventurer Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn.[13][14]and returned with great wealth and numerous stories to tell.[15]

[edit] Interruption of relations between Siam and Japan

Following Yamada's death in 1630, the new ruler and usurper king of Siam Prasat Thong (1630-1655) sent an army of 4000 soldiers to destroy the Japanese settlement in Ayutthaya, but many Japanese managed to flee to Cambodia. A few years later in 1633, returnees from Indochina were able to re-establish the Japanese settlement in Ayutthaya (300-400 Japanese).

From 1634, the Shogun, informed of these troubles and what he perceived as attacks on his authority, refused to issue further Red Seal ship permits for Siam.

Desirous to renew trade however, the king of Siam sent a trading ship and an embassy to Japan in 1636, but the embassies were rejected by the Shogun thus putting an end to direct relations between Japan and Siam. Japan was concomitantly closing itself to the world at that time, essentially to protect itself from Christianity, initiating the "Closed Country", or Sakoku, period.

The Dutch took over the lucrative Siam-Japan trade from that time on.

Japanese communities however remained in Siam, and numerous refugees from the persecutions of Christians in Japan also arrived in the country after the promulgation of Ieyasu's interdiction of Christianity in Japan in 1614.[16] The famous Maria Guyomar de Pinha, wife of the Greek adventurer Constantine Phaulkon, who became one of the most influencial men in Siam in the end of the 17th century, was half-Japanese.

More embassies would be sent by Thailand to Japan, in 1656 during the reign of King Chaiyaracha and in 1687 during the reign of King Narai.[17]

[edit] Resumption of contacts (19th century)

Relations resumed in the 19th century, with the establishment of the Declaration of Amity and Commerce between Japan and Siam in 1887. Numerous Japanese experts were dispatched to Thailand to help modernize the country, in areas such as law, education and sericulture.[18]

[edit] World war II ally

Siam was allied with Japan during World War II.

[edit] Modern times

Japan has become again a key trading partner and foreign investor for Thailand.[19] In 2007, a Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement was signed, aiming at free trade between the two countries after a transition period of 10 years.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs [1]
  2. ^ Stephen Turnbull, "Fighting ships of the Far East (2), p 12, Osprey Publishing
  3. ^ According to Boxer (p.264) 37 read seal passports are known for Siam, plus a few other ones for the states of Patani and Pahang.
  4. ^ Boxer, p.293
  5. ^ Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs [2]
  6. ^ Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs [3]
  7. ^ Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs [4]
  8. ^ Ishii Yoneo, Multicultural Japan
  9. ^ Boxer, p.297
  10. ^ Turnbull, p.12
  11. ^ Turnbull, p.12
  12. ^ Turnbull, p.13
  13. ^ Kansai Kippo News Vol.11 No.490 Wednesday, February 23, 2005 [5]
  14. ^ "When he was fifteen years old, in 1626, he was employed by a trading company in Kyoto worked in Siam (Thailand) and Magadha (India). After that, in 1630, he went to India again in a Dutch ship, with Jan Joosten, a Dutchman, and traded there." Takasago City website [6]
  15. ^ Kabuki; the Popular Stage of Japan - Page 187 by Zoë Kincaid 1965 "Tokubei sailed away on unknown seas to India and returned with wealth greater than that of a daimyo, many strange tales to relate..."
  16. ^ Boxer, p.297
  17. ^ Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs [7]
  18. ^ MOFA [8]
  19. ^ MOFA [9]

[edit] References

  • Boxer C.R., The Christian Century in Japan, Carcanet Press Limited, 1993, ISBN 1857540352
  • Ishii Yoneo, Multicultural Japan Cambridge University Press 2001 ISBN 0521003628
  • Stephen Turnbull, "Fighting ships of the Far East (2), Osprey Publishing ISBN 1841764787