King Rama III and Thailand’s Foreign Policy

Thailand’s modern contacts with the West began during the reign of King Rama III (1824-1851).

These modern contacts demonstrated remarkably Thai fears and suspicions of the West. Experience during the late Seventeen Century made the Thai rulers feel that diplomatic or trade relations with European powers would jeopardize their control over the country.

But the motivation of the Thais in their policy towards the West remained the same. Their aim was to maintain national independence and the integrity of the kingdom. Their strategies and tactics were to maintain a state of equilibrium between contending outside  forces.

They also engaged in playing off one power against the other.Among the Western nations, Great Britain was regarded by the Thai rulers as the most threatening power of Thailand’s security.

Unlike in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Great Britain’s policy in South-East Asia was to trade with a gun in one hand. Great Britain had already nibbled away at the edges of the Thai Empire.

In 1785 it was Penang, in 1800 Province Wellesley. The power of this colonial state became manifestly clear in the British victories over Burma in 1826. As a result of the Anglo-Burmese war, Great Britain took the provinces of Martaban, Tavoy, and Tesserim, which both Burma and Thailand claimed.

The Thai government of King Rama III desired to keep this power at as great a distance as possible without antagonizing it. The makers of Thai foreign policy thought that the only way to achieve this goal was by compromise.

A policy of compromise was conducted by King Rama III in 1826, when he signed a treaty of commerce with the English East India Company.

Captain Henry Burney was sent to Bangkok by the Governor-General of India, to negotiate and conclude this treaty. In granting trade concessions to the English, the treaty permitted English merchants to buy and sell as they pleased without interference by the Thai king.

Prior to this period, the foreign merchants were not allowed to sell to private individuals the cargo they imported,  nor to purchase return cargoes.

The king claimed the exclusive rights of purchase and sale in both cases. By that treaty, the East India Company also secured an understanding that the Thais would respect the independence of Perak, and would not” go and obstruct or interrupt” commerce in Kelantan or Trengganu, while the company promised not to “go and molest” those states.

But the Thais denied the Company a satisfactory agreement over Kedah which remained a source of friction for many years.

The Thai rulers had granted trade and territorial (Malaya) concessions in Burney’s Treaty because they believed it politically expedient to do so.

They seem to have viewed the treaty as a political necessity. The agreements represented nothing more than what they thought had to be conceded in order to preserve  the country’s independence. One Thai scholar recalls this concession with bitterness:

In 1826 a certain Captain Burney came to Bangkok bringing the credentials of the British East Company to which were added conditions and requirements in the peaceful form of a drafted treaty drawn up ready for the King to sign. In itself it was an ultimatum for Thailand to accept, or else face war. Rama III was expert enough in handling foreign affairs. He saw no alternative but to embrace the lesser danger in order to escape the graver one.

After granting commercial concessions to the English, the Thais feared the political implications of exclusive relations with Great Britain, and they wished to use other powers to counterbalance Great Britain.

They inherited a policy of playing off one power against the other which was pursued by King Narai in the Seventeen Century. The makers of foreign policy in Bangkok were receptive to such an approach. It was observed by the United States envoy to Thailand, Edmund Roberts:

The present king (Rama III) is very desirous of encouraging commerce to enter his ports, and the perplexities and endless changes which formerly annoyed them, are now removed. As long as the present king lives, this wise policy will be pursued.

The Thais turned to the United States as a source of counterbalances against Great Britain. This attendant prospect was signaled in a report from the American consul at Batavia to the States Department.

The report made it clear that King Rama III” expressed wishes to increase the American trade with Siam, and a willingness to yield all facilities to that end.”

The Thais were in favor of the Americans because the latter rarely came to Thailand and had no colonial empire in the Far East.

When Edmund Roberts was sent to Thailand in 1833, Thailand’s policy to use the Americans to counteract the British showed some prospect of achieving its objective. In that year Thailand signed a “treaty of Amity and Commerce” with the United States.

The Thais did not fear the political implications of relations with the United States. The United States President made it clear to Edmund Roberts that the sending of his mission to Cochin-China, Thailand and Muscat, was for “the purpose of effecting  treaties which should place our commerce in those countries on an equality with that enjoyed by the most favored nations.”  

Given this American attitude, King Rama III and his advisers, as Edmund Roberts wrote in his memoirs, “openly expressed such gratification, that an American man-of-war had arrived with an envoy, for the purpose of forming a treaty of amity and commerce.”

Thai friendly disposition towards the Americans was further indicated, when the king  who preferred the Americans to any other foreigners, ordered Thai officials to provide the American envoy with extraordinary accommodation.

This encouraged the America envoy to exclaim that”…no embassy from a foreign country ever had so favorable and honorable a reception as ours, marked at the same time with the most extraordinary dispatch ever known.”

The king also ordered Phra  Kklang, the Thai Minister of Commerce and Foreign Affairs, to facilitate the speedy conclusion of the Thai-American treaty.

With this comparatively favorable attitude by Thailand, Edmund Roberts took only twenty two days before signing the treaty of amity and commerce with Thailand.

The time spent for negotiating this treaty was shorter than that for the Burney’s treaty of 1826. The latter treaty was concluded after a long negotiation of seven months.

The Thai rulers wished to bring not only the United States but also France into the game of the balance of power in Thailand.

In opting for this decision, The Thais seem to have forgotten the time of the revolution in Ayutthaya in 1688, when French intrigue resulted in the banishment of the Europeans.

The Thai  approach to France was evident in 1840, when the Thai government made its view explicit to the French consul in Singapore that Thailand would be eager to see the development of French commerce in Thailand.

France did not send any envoy to Thailand. After the French were expelled from the country in 1688, they had sought to preserve religious and mercantile interests in Vietnam but not in Thailand.

With the presence of American and English commercial interests in Thailand, the balance of power was believed to be maintained. Each sought to prevent the other from gaining a dominant position.

Accordingly, the government of King Rama III succeeded in meeting a new and apparently great external threat from Western powers.