Thailand’s Non-aggression Pacts with Britain, France and Japan(04)

Thailand’s Non-aggression Pacts with Britain, France and Japan(04)

Crosby based this conclusion on three main assumptions: (1) Phibunsonggram had pressed for the pact with the British in the hope of forcing the hand of the French, (2) he was very anxious to gain kudos at home and abroad by making Thailand the first country in the Far East to sign a non-aggression pact with another Power, and (3) he was at the same time genuinely interested in taking a step which would help to establish the international situation in South-East Asia.

Despite its suspicion of the Thai game of playing off the French and the British against each other, The British Foreign Office did not think that there was much harm in the French being pressed to be reasonable about the adjustment of boundaries along the Mekong River.

It decided to inform the French government that Britain would be prepared to negotiate an agreement with Thailand irrespective of the outcome of the latter’s negotiations with France over the Mekong issue.

The Thai government took advantage of Britain’s sympathetic attitude. It went so far as to agree with Josiah Crosby to set February 1940 as time limit for negotiations with France.

At the same time the Thai government put pressure on the French Minister in Bangkok by informing him that if a favorable decision about the Mekong was not reached by the end of February Britain would be prepared to negotiate separately with the Thais.

On March 12, 1940, for fear of being isolated, the French government in Paris and the government of French Indo-China agreed in principle on two main points: (1) negotiations on the issue of the islets and islands in the Mekong River based on administrative and navigational convenience, and (2) negotiations on the remaining unsolved matters (including the problems of the river patrol police, the fishing and navigation in the Mekong River, as well as a lease of forestry and the problems of French subjects residing in Thailand).The French government agreed to send high ranking officials from Paris to negotiate with the Thai side on these two points.

Negotiations with France and Britain on the non-aggression pacts came to fruition in April 1940. The Anglo-Thai and Franco-Thai pacts contained five and six articles respectively; the gist of which was more or less identical.

In Article 1, each contracting party undertook not to resort in any case either to war or to any act of violence or of aggression against the other, either alone, or in concert with one, or more than one, third Power, and to respect the territorial integrity of the other contracting party.

Article 2 stipulated that if one of the contracting parties was the object of an act of war or of aggression on the part of one,  or more than one, third Power, the other contracting party undertook not to give, either directly or indirectly, aid or assistance to the aggressor or aggressors for the duration of the present treaty.

The second part of this article also stipulated that if one of the contracting parties committed an act of war or of aggression against a third Power, the other contracting party should have the right to terminate the present treaty immediately without notice. France in particular badly needed this provision as a deterrent against Thai ambitions in Indo-China.