(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.)
SOUTH-WEST CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
No. 1.
87
January 31.
SECTION 1.
Sir E. Satow to the Marquess of Lansdowne.~(Received January 31, 1904.)
(No. 415.) My Lord,
Peking, December 5, 1903.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your Lordship's despatch No. 300 of October 9, instructing me to make a further communication to the Chinese Government respecting the question of the boundary between Burmah and China in the N'maikha region.
Before proceeding to make a formal communication in writing, it appeared to me, after careful study of the previous correspondence, desirable to discuss the subject with the Foreign Board, in order to ascertain what likelihood there might be of inducing the Chinese Government to accept amicably the proposal they had rejected in so uncompromising a manner in the spring of 1900. It is difficult to resist the impression that their attitude at that time was influenced by the hostile sentiments they then entertained towards foreign Powers in general, which shortly afterwards manifested themselves in the Boxer outbreak against foreigners and the sieges of the Legations at Peking, and of the Settlements at Tien-tsin. The affray at Hpare in the N'maikha Valley, when Mr. Hertz's peaceful exploring party had to fight for their lives, and the attack on members of Sir George Scott's Boundary Commission at Meng Tum, when two officers were murdered and Mr. Litton nearly lost his life in February of the same year, appear to be attributable to the same cause. I thought that, under the altered circumstances of the present time, it might be possible to induce the Chinese Government to take a more reasonable view of the proposal to adopt the eastern watershed of the N'maikha as the permanent boundary between Burmah and China in that region.
It appears from the correspondence that the Government of Burmah, while anxious to prevent further extension of Chinese control into the valley of the N'maikha, are not desirous of immediately undertaking any administrative responsibilities in the territory which they claim as belonging to Burmah, and that, provided the Chinese Government will abstain from crossing the watershed, they are not disposed to take any active steps at present to establish control there either.
The language in which I am instructed to address the Chinese Government, which is in accordance with the terms of the telegram to the Indian Government of the 24th July, agreed to between Sir Hugh Barnes and myself when I was at Rangoon, implies that His Majesty's Government intend to regard the watershed as the actual boundary, unless and until a settlement is arrived at. I concluded that this leaves still an opening for discussion between the two Governments, though at the same time it seemed to me undesirable to employ the term "provisional boundary." The word "provisional" appears to have been first used in Sir Claude MacDonald's note of the 29th November, 1898, to the Chinese Government, and I am not sure that it was intentionally inserted.
In the course of the discussion between Captain Townsend, the Deputy Commissioner of Myitkina, and the Sub-Prefect of Teng-yüeh, held at Erhtaipo on the 17th May, 1900, the latter said that he was prepared to produce documentary evidence in the shape of native annals and Imperial orders issued to the hereditary Chiefs of the tracts of country subject to Mien-kawng-ai (which is east of the watershed), in order to show that the Chinese Government had for 250 years at least administered the territories as far west as the N'maikha, and in the Note of the Tsung-li Yamên to my predecessor of the 3rd March, 1900, a claim is made that Tz'uchu, Pai-lai (Hpare), and several other posts are situated in Chinese territory. Mr. Adamson, in his Report of the 23rd May to the Government of Burmah, approves Captain Townsend's refusal to examine the evidence, as he had no means of testing it. Mr. Adamson goes on to say that we are able to prove that the Chinese have never governed the tract in question, but that the evidence on our side had not been fully collected, and was not available at the meeting. It might be useful if the evidence here alluded to were communicated to His Majesty's Legation, for use hereafter, if required.
The strong point in our favour is the omission of the Chinese Government to claim...
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