At the best the claims are rather hereditary claims of the families of the Chinese headmen to a nominal suzerainty, rather than claims to a definite possession of the land by the Chinese Government, which appears to know little or nothing of the nature and extent of its headmen's alleged jurisdiction.
I think that the claims, such as they are, are far from being frivolous or, from the Chinese point of view, wholly invalid; before Burmah has done with them, they will probably give far more trouble than they are worth. On the other hand, I am strongly confirmed in what I previously reported, i.e., that the jurisdiction of China does not de facto go beyond the watershed. We know what Chinese headmen are, and we know what Kachins are. The headmen of Ming Kwang, Teng Keng, &c., are utterly without any administrative force or military power; they personally are like Falstaff's soldiers, "exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly"; what kind of a control are they likely to exercise over Kachin villagers distant from them two mountain stages!
I would suggest that, perhaps, the best means of dealing with this question would be to make a strong effort to induce the Chinese Government to admit, at least, the broad principle that the watershed is the boundary, and that any bona fide claims to the villages over on the N'maikha side will be equitably considered and adjusted locally. Territorial concessions in other places, e.g., the Wa country, would not, I think, meet the case, as the claims we have here to deal with are rather the family claims of certain Chinese Chiefs than the pretensions of the Chinese Government itself. Further, these Chiefs are suffering from chronic deficiency of ready-money, and might possibly be bought off for a reasonable sum, a course which it would be very well worth the while of the Burmah Government to adopt.
I believe that the "Duwa" of Hparé has an 8th grade Chinese military button, with the brevet title of "pa tsung" (sergeant), and perhaps others have like titles; this kind of thing will make a settlement more difficult. But in any case, I am strongly confirmed in my opinion previously expressed and approved by the Government of Burmah that it would be most inadvisable to consent to join the Chinese in a large Boundary Delimitation Commission of the same character as those by which other parts of the frontier were demarcated. The only probable result of such a Commission would be that Burmah would have to foot a long bill; it is most unlikely that any agreement would be come to.
There are only two possible frontiers; either the watershed (subject possibly to unimportant local exceptions) must be the line, or it must be the N'maikha. There is no chance of India accepting the latter, and no chance that a Chinese Commissioner in the field would accept the former; not that he would really care a brass farthing whether few wretched Kachin villages belonged to Teng Yuch or Mytkina, but because, by consenting, he would be laying himself open to destructive accusations of selling celestial ground to a foreigner. On the other hand, if he sat still and argued, and agreed to nothing, he would run no risk of official censure. The point of view from which a British official would look at the matter, i.e., that the country being valueless in itself, the chief desideratum is to get a settled frontier of a nature to facilitate good frontier administration, is not comprehensible to a mandarin, good administration of wild men on the frontier being one of the very last things which would excite his interest.
There is yet another point; after many conversations with all sorts and conditions of men on the China side of the Bhamo frontier, I came to the conclusion that one of the chief reasons for the obstructive tactics of the Chinese Commissioner, General Lin, during the first season's work was that he required time to operate the "squeezing of the frontier 'sawbwas'," a matter much nearer to his heart than the delimitation of the frontier.
Kangai paid the Chinese Commissioner at one time and another no less a sum than 12,000 rupees, and the other "sawbwas" were paid pro rata. In the Ming Kwang, Ku Tang, and Ta Tang valleys a mandarin who knew the business (and which of them does not) would find very good pickings; and while financial operations of that kind were going on, a Chinese Commissioner would sit near the frontier for any length of time, and would discuss with the British officials any subject, from boundaries to radium, or the length of cows' tails. Meanwhile, Burmah would be doing all the survey work, and would have to get supplies up from Mytkina at heavy expense. It is highly probable, too, that there would be fighting with the Kachins, which would be greatly to be regretted from every point of view. The water-divide is at from 8,000-10,000 feet high, and the descent to the level of the Nimaikha, which is but a few hundred feet high, is abrupt, precipitous, and consists of complicated systems.
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