[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
SOUTH-WEST CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
No. 1.
[October 28.]
SECTION 1.
Acting Consul Litton to the Marquess of Lansdowne.-(Received October 28.)
(No. 15. Confidential.) My Lord,
IN continuance of my previous despatch, I have the honour to submit, under flying seal, through the Government of Burmah, copy of a further report on the lama disturbance in North-West Yünnan which I have to-day addressed to Sir Ernest Satow.
Ta Li-fu (for Tengyuch), September 10, 1905.
I have, &c. (Signed)
G. LITTON,
(Confidential.} Sir,
Inclosure in No. 1.
Acting Consul Litton to Sir E. Satou.
Ta Li-fu (for Tengyueh), September 9, 1905. REFERRING to my previous reports on the lama revolt in the region of the Upper Mekong, I have the honour to report that I have now had the opportunity of several long conversations with Mr. Forrest and the French missionaries who escaped from Tseku; with several merchants who have business houses at Wei Hsi and Atentse; and with the local officials here who are in constant communication with Wei Hsi,
Cause of the Disorders in Thibetan Yünnan-After weighing as carefully as I cau the various statements which I have heard, and which agree in the main, it appears to me that the trouble, though serious enough, is of merely local importance; is only quite indirectly connected with recent events in Thibet and at Batang; does not point to any general political movement on the part of the Thibetans; and was directly caused by the misconduct of the Chinese on the spot, and still more by the incompe- tence and negligence of the Yunnan Viceroy.
It is no doubt true that, if the British expedition had never gone to Lhassa, the Chinese would never have conceived the idea of converting the Thibetan dependencies of Yunnan and Szechuan into a separate province under ordinary Chinese juris- diction-a scheme which seems to have greatly occupied their minds. If they had not taken up this idea, the Vice-Amban Feng would not have established himself at Batang last spring; if he had not established himself there, there would have been no rebellion at Batang and no incursion into Yunnan and Atentse by the Batang insurgents; if there had been no such incursion, the Wei Hsi Sub-Prefect and the Chinese troops would not have gone to Atentse in May; and if they had not gone to Atentse, there would have been no revolt in Yünnan and no attack on the Tseku Mission.
The area of the disturbance at present is bounded by the Mekong-Salween divide on the west, by the Chin Sha, or Upper Yang-tsze, on the east, and extends to about latitude 27° 50', or just north of the Yetehe, on the Mekong, to the south. It is fully confirmed that in April, when there were only thirty Chinese troops at Atentse, the Atentse and Tung Chu Lin lamas and Headmen altogether declined the solicitations of the Batang lamas to join in the revolt. It is also certain that in the Tsarong and Kham districts to the north-west of Tseku, which are under Lhassa, and in Chung Tien to the east of the Chin Sha River, where is the powerful Kuei Hua Ssu lamasery, there has been no rebellious movement; nor have Chinese troops been sent to those districts. Rebellion and disorder occurred only at the time and in the place where Chinese mandarins and Chinese soldiers made their appearance.
Accustomed as I am to the comic-opera appearance of the Imperial forces in Yunnan, I have never witnessed such a ludicrous and disgraceful performance as I have seen during the last few days, which I spent travelling on the same road as the Yung Chang and Tengyueh contingents on the march to Wei Hsi. The recent
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