Research & Article

This paper does not interpret the contacts between Korea and Siam at the end of the fourteenth century as having developed into diplomatic relations. Rather, it considers the possibility of the Siamese “envoys” who came to Korea as having been not the diplomatic delegates dispatched by the Siamese court, but Ayutthayabased Chinese merchants who passed themselves off as such, and the possibility that the party of envoys sent to Siam by the Korean government was not given an audience by the Siamese court. Two reasons are suggested to explain why the contacts did not develop into long-lasting commercial or diplomatic relations. Firstly, there was the danger of Japanese pirates on the sea route from Nanyang to Korea; secondly, Chinese merchants in Ayutthaya may not have found any profit in trading with Korea.