49
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.] C O
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[27649]
No. 1.
20847
[July 30 Ec
Re 16 SEP 10
SECTION
Sir,
India Office to Foreign Office~(Received July 30.)
India Office, July 30, 1910. I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India to forward, for the consideration of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, copy of a telegram from the Government of India regarding the visit of a Chinese official to the Ikamti-Löng country, which formed the subject of Mr. Consul Rose's despatch of the 11th May last, enclosed in your letter of the 25th June.
Although this subject is not immediately connected with the frontier dispute in the neighbourhood of the 26th parallel, it cannot be altogether separated from it. As Sir E. Grey is aware, the Burmah-China frontier has been demarcated up to (approximately) 25° 35', and it has never been thought necessary to investigate its exact course further north than 26° 15', though in the draft article placed before the Wai-wu P'u on the 9th March, 1906, it is described as following "along the watershed 13 But the between the Irrawaddy and Salween basins up to the confines of Thibet.' Chinese appear now to have crossed the watershed at about 28°, and a serious position would be created if they were to assert and maintain claims which would bring them into the neighbourhood of the border of Assam and admit them to the upper valleys of the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy, from which it is the object of our policy to keep
them out.
The Hkamti-Löng were subject to the former Kingdom of Burmah, and their most powerful sawbwa has at least once sent down a representative to do homage to the British Government.
In these circumstances Viscount Morley would propose to agree in principle to the Government of India's proposal, but to ask for further details regarding the scale of the expedition and the exact procedure contemplated. He trusts that Sir E. Grey will agree that no reference to the Chinese Government is necessary.
I am to enclose draft of a telegram which, with Sir E. Grey's concurrence, Lord Morley accordingly proposes to send.
I am, &c.
R. RITCHIE.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Government of India to Viscount Morley.
July 25, 1910.
(Telegraphic.) P.
SEE my telegram of the 29th May, as to Burmah-China frontier. Detailed report has now been sent in by Government of Burmah, by which previous information as to visit to Hkamti of Chinese official with military escort is confirmed. Some discrepancy exists as to actual date on which visit took place, and as to whether the Chinese officer professed that he had come to assert a claim to a portion at least of the State of Hkamti, in the N'Maikha Valley, or merely to arrange matters of trade. Main facts, however, tally with information furnished to His Majesty's consul at Tengyueh by M. Peronne (sec correspondence forwarded with letter dated the 14th instant, from Secretary to Government of India, Foreign Department).
This is in direct defiance of British Government's formal claim to regard Irrawaddy-Salween watershed as frontier between Burmalı and China up to confines of Thibet, and, taken in conjunction with similar activity by Chinese in Yunnan, places in jeopardy the entire frontier north of administered portion of Myitkyina district. So far as we know, no formal claims to [?] Hkamti, which ever since annexation of Upper Burmah has been regarded as subordinate to British Government, have been asserted by Chinese. Allegiance to British Government has been acknowledged by the principal sawbwa, who has sent tributory offerings to Burmah on several occasions.
In order to forestall designs of Chinese, lieutenant-governor recommends that a
[2827 gg-1]