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The unadministered tribal country lying between Burmah, Assam, Thibet, and Yunnan covers an area of some 15,000 or more square miles of jungle-clad and mountainous territory, imperfectly known and peopled sparsely by some of the inost primitive savages to be found, at the present day, anywhere on the face of the globe. Up till recently lack of enterprise on the part of our eastern neighbour has left this region to its primitive seclusion and barbarism, and it has formed, as it were, an impenetrable buffer state for Burmah.
The new era of energy and activity on her frontiers that has started of late in China, however, make the question of a defined frontier line between the British dominions and those of the Chinese Empire a matter of ever-increasing urgency, and delay in setting about it will not tend to make the solution casier.
The matter seem to resolve itself into a question of whether the expediency of a well-defined geographical and ethnographical boundary and consideration of the eventual welfare of the populations of the region are sufficient to justify Great Britain in resorting to force to obtain the best line possible, and the easiest to define, namely, the watersheds hounding the whole of the waters of the Irrawaddy basin, in face of certain definite evidences of Chinese control or suzerainty over portions of the territories enclosed therein (notably the part at present in dispute, near Pienma, and that which certainly will be claimed later, viz., the Chiutzu country, astride the upper waters of the 'mai Kha). A point to be recognised is that if we do insist on this best possible line we must be prepared to make good our claim to it, either by actual administration or well-defined suzerainty, involving recognition of responsi- bility for the good behaviour of the wild Kachins, Maru, and Lutzu, &e., situated within it. If the game is not considered worth the candle," then it is for consideration what definite points should forin a basis for negotiation before actually embarking on delimitation of some other frontier-line. I think our geographical knowledge is sufficient to warrant, at any rate, the following demands:-
1. That the whole of the head-waters of the Mali Kha right up to the Nam Kiu mountains must be considered as British territory. (Consequent on this an agree ment would have to be arrived at as to the point in the Lohit valley, on the other side of those Nam Kiu Mountains, where British territory ends and Chinese begins, and I think it might be taken that Sati-latitude 28° 1′ 3′′ north, and longitude 96° 54′ 2′′ east-is British and Walung, a few miles further up-stream is Thibetan, and that the frontier-line should cross the river at some convenient point, to be mutually agreed on, by boundary commissioners on the spot, between those two places. As regards this part of the border vide" Geographical Journal of October 1909, p. 373).
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2. That, unless China can adduce proof to the contrary, the Maru country, between the Lashi territory of Pienma and the Chiutzu country on the Upper N'mai Kha at its great westerly bend, west of Yei-chib (on the Mekong in latitude 27° 41′ north) must be reckoned as in British territory.
3. That in default of any satisfactory proof of Chinese control on the north bank of the Hsiao Chiang (it will be remembered that Taotai Shih admitted to Mr. Liitou, in 1905, that the tribesmen beyond, i.e., on the right bank of, this stream were "beyond the pale of civilised government"), the Chinese claim to territory on that bank cannot be admitted. Should it, however, be considered desirable to admit the Chinese claim to the actual Pieama group of villages, under the Teng-keng "fu-yu," the joint- examination by Messrs. Litton and Shih in 1905, justify us, at any rate, I think, in refusing to acknowledge the hold of the Minkuang "fa-yu" over the valley of the Kansheng Kha. A compromise might, therefore, be made by drawing the line of demarcation between the Pienma group and the Kausheng Kha valley and the geographical features appear to lend themselves fairly well to such a division.
The modified frontier line might then run roughly as follows:—
From Manung Pum (present northern-most point of the demarcated line) along the Irrawaddy-Shweli " divide" to the peak marked 12,800′ (6 miles cast of Lagwi, on the War Office map of 1906); thence down the spur shown as running nearly due north to the westerly bend of the Hsiao Chiang; across latter and north-west up spur to the peak marked 13,600'; and thence along the crest of the watershed enclosing the head-waters of the Hsiao Chiang till the main Irrawaddy-Salween " divide" is reached; then northward along that "divide” to the point where the Chinese- controlled Chintzu country begins, and perhaps the most convenient line of demarcation from this point would be the crest of the spur which forms the great westerly loop of the Nimai Kha (in latitude 27° 40') the frontier line crossing the
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