[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[19942]
No. 1.
323
[June 4.]
SECTION 2,
220858
RECE Rref 8 JUL 10,
Acting Consul Rose to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received June 4.)
(No. 7. Confidential.) Sir,
Tengyueh, April 30, 1910. I HAVE the honour to forward duplicate of a report, which I have to-day addressed to His Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Peking, on the subject of a journey undertaken for purposes of enquiry into the recent armed raid by the Chinese Sawbwa of Tengkeng, on the Upper Salween, into the unadministered territory lying to the west of the undelimited north-eastern frontier of India.
I have, &c.
ARCHIBALD ROSE.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Report by Acting Consul Rose on the Undelimited North-East Frontier.
Consul's Tour of Enquiry into facts of Armed Raid by the Chief of Tengkeng into the Unadministered Territory West of the Salween.
History of Undelimited Frontier.-During the month of January 1910 news was received at the most northerly outpost in Burmah of an armed raid made from China by the Lisu Chief of Tengkeng, on the Upper Salween, into the unadministered territory to the west of the Irrawady-Salween watershed, which has been claimed by Great Britain in various despatches addressed by His Majesty's Ministers to the Wai-wu Pu at Peking. A column of exploration under Mr. H. F. Hertz, C.I.E., penetrated into this country during the open season of 1899-1900, and, although met by a Chinese force from the Lisu district of Mingkuang, they succeeded in obtaining information that a continuous range of mountains stretched from Manung Pum, the northernmost point of the delimited Burmah-China frontier, eastwards to the main range forming the Irrawady-Salween watershed. In the spring of 1905, the late Mr. Litton and the Taotai Shih Hung-tao, as representatives of Great Britain and China, made a further examination of this country, and it was found that the Government of China exercised no administrative control west of the great Divide, though the Tengkeng chief claimed certain tolls as a family right from the five Fashi villages in the neighbourhood of Pienma (Hpimaw). It was then proposed by the Government of India to extinguish the claims of Tengkeng, which were purely financial in character, by a fixed annual payment, in order to secure the acceptance as a frontier line of such a range of mountains as would obviate the danger of constant international disputes and raids in a country which is inhabited by lawless tribesmen, where geographical and ethnographical features render a zig-zag frontier impossible, and where the unchecked advance of the Chinese would entail a heavy military expenditure in defending the upper sources of the Irrawady. The Wai-wu Pu was therefore informed "that the British Government intended to regard the watershed as the frontier, and that, failing the acceptance of their terms, the Government of Burmah would be instructed to occupy and administer the country without further negotiations." (Ref. Sir Ernest Satow to the Wai-wu Pu of the 1st May, 1906.)
For nearly four years after the joint examination of the country by Mr. Litton and Shih Taotai the question remained in abeyance, and neither country made any attempt to advance their line of administrative control into the N'Maikha Valley. During the summer and autumn of 1909, however, the Provincial Government of Yunnan suddenly evinced an active interest in all questions affecting the British frontier line, and, possibly considering that the vigilance of Great Britain had somewhat relaxed in regard to this outlying region, they devised plans for establishing
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