Thai Canal built--how early, regional effects?

The Thai Canal across the Isthmus of Kra seems like a pretty logical thing to construct, since it doesn't look like the terrain is necessarily more difficult than Panama plus the distance is slightly shorter. And Thailand and its predecessor states have been apparently wanting to build it since the 17th century!

So, let's have a thread on the Thai Canal! I have two questions of interest to me.

First, how early could the Thai Canal feasibly be constructed? Obviously the earliest proposals are infeasible, but is it doable by the late 19th century? Is it doable before WWII? Or is this something that would have to wait until the Cold War or even the modern day?

Any second, what might happen if the Thai Canal is built? I know that it would change up WWII in Southeast Asia quite a bit. How stronger might Thailand get because of this, because now Thailand would be able to take a decent amount of the Strait of Malacca's traffic. How might this weaken Malaysia and play into Cold War geopolitics in the area? And how stronger could Thailand be with the canal in play?
 
The British were worried enough in the late 19th Century that they signed a treaty with the King of Siam guaranteed such a canal would not be built. They were concerned the French would build it and it would undermine Singapore's dominant position.

There is no reason it could not have been built in the late 19th or early 20th Centuries in terms of the technology of the time given that the Suez and Panama Canals were built then.
 
Building a canal does not necessarily make the nation where it is constructed stronger. The two great canals of the world, the Panama and Suez Canals, both were not boons for the local states. Panama does extract a great amount of revenue from the canal today, but in the short term they were not made into a stable and prosperous nation as far as I know; in Egypt the canal played a direct role into turning them into a colony. Egypt did extract a return on its investment into the canal that was something like 2.5% (it varies upwards somewhat, I have read a paper on the canal's costs I will quote for more precise statistics), but taking into account opportunity costs it was apparently a net loss to them. Furthermore, that 2.5% was over the entire lifetime of the canal, and includes the "revenue" of nationalizing it; taking into account the period before this, and things get even worse from the Thai perspective.

For the Egyptian government, however, the situation was radically different. In all our four alternatives-A, B, A', and B'-the internal rate of return was much lower than opportunity costs, from 2.4 to 5.1 percent against 11.2 percent. Nonetheless, this result does not quite conform to the picture of Egypt as a victim of imperialism, almost flayed alive. It is true that as compared with the British government, the French shareholders, and the canal itself, the Egyptian govern- ment was indeed relegated to the role of a Cinderella. But its rate of return was in all four alternatives positive and by no means negligible. That participation for Egypt stands out at a loss is due to its very high opportunity costs rather than to the low rate of return; had Egypt been capable of borrowing in the British market on the same terms as the British government, the internal rate of return would in three of our alternative calculations actually, with a small margin, have ex- ceeded opportunity costs. Since this result may cause surprise, it should be recalled that while we have included all Egypt's contribu- tions to the company, voluntary and not so voluntary, we have also, in alternatives A and B, included as revenue for Egypt until 1956 its 15 percent share of the canal surplus. We have, moreover, included as revenue for Egypt in 1956 the value of assets seized at the nationaliza- tion. It would, in our opinion, be wrong to exclude the value of assets seized because Egypt in any case had the right to take over the canal in 1968. The high opportunity costs for Egypt are partly the result of the very high loan rates charged by European bankers for Ismail's borrowing during the 1860s and 1870s -18 After the British occupation in 1882, Egypt's loan rates in London declined rapidly to the level of those of the British government; this was one of the advantages of becoming a British colony! The high loan rates until the mid-eighties were, however, also partly the consequence of Egypt's being a capital importer. It is in this regard that the comparison with the dollar calculation, to which we now pass, is illuminating.

The Profitability of the Suez Canal as a Private Enterprise, 1859-1956
Author(s): Bent Hansen and Khairy Tourk
Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Dec., 1978), pp. 938-958 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2118665


There is no reason to maintain that for Thailand the situation would be particularly different. Thailand's development model during the period was based on the colonial one, purposefully by the king, as explored in Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. They were emulating surrounding colonial nations, especially the Dutch. They granted a host of concessions - of course, many unwillingly - to surrounding nations, such as the French having a monopoly on alcohol in the eastern regions. Thailand is, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, in no position to maintain its sovereignty which is heavily undermined already; they aren't a Japan which has the military strength to defend itself, but instead relies upon clever diplomacy to maintain their independence. Building the canal will make it a target to be taken over by the surrounding nations, ie. Britain and France. Now, Thailand did prove very good at playing the French and the British off against each other, but this routinely came with costs. After the French defeated Thailand in 1893 and then extracted additional concessions around a decade later, the Thais signed an agreement with the British for their protection, but they had to cede away additional territory to the British as payment for this. Most likely, if the canal does get built - presumably by the French - then this battle of influence will be racketed up significantly, and this will have deleterious effects on Thailand, and rather than increasing Thai prosperity and power, would rather diminish it, as the imperialist powers steadily bite away to try to attain full control over the canal. This might result in the loss of their remaining southern territories, which have a separatist movement there today (having it be split off and geographically isolated in such a manner is no small consideration; makes a perfect border for any separatists to use); in similar conditions the British could try to transfer it to Malaysia if they won the battle of influence, or perhaps Thailand would simply become a British or French colony. Either way foreign influence stands a good chance of being increased, and not to Thailand's benefits.

Perhaps a better example could be Colombia than Panama; the effort to build a canal holds the potential of fracturing the nation due to international power politics. Even if the French succeed - and the labor situation should be better, plenty of Chinese coolies who were being imported en masse to Thailand anyway, and it is a region where they could plausible gain control over the strategic benefits - its has serious potential to make Thailand a place important enough to outright destroy their already fragile sovereignty over the region in the resultant disputes over the canal.

If everything goes right I guess they could benefit, but the examples of the other states - Colombia, Panama, and Egypt - paints to me a rather dreary picture of the effect of canals on weak nations vulnerable to foreign domination. Building it on their own would prevent some of the problems, but where are they going to get capital for that? The only people with capital is the British and the French, since the British don't want to build it the French have to, and that just opens up nasty battles for influence.
 

Deleted member 94708

As above. Frankly the same arguments apply to Thailand in regards to China's efforts to induce them to build one today.
 
That's interesting. I do believe I read that the Kra Canal could help out the Malaysian separatists in the south of Thailand. So could the ironic part of it be a program the Thai kings might think would help Thailand end up weakening it even further? I know certain elements in Thailand was pissed about losing all that land they lost to France and Britain, and here they'd be even more pissed, since there's no opportunity in sight to gain back that land with British India and French Indochina right next door.

So basically, the picture of the situation is you would need a France with even more influence in East Asia, and France might as well end up with a "Thai Canal Zone", possibly? Or alternatively, Britain ends up controlling one bank, France the other. Could this lead to a wholly colonised Thailand? And in the longer run, a stronger Malaysia?
 
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