larger regional groups.
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17.
The whole province of Yun-nan is at present governed by Marshal Tang Chi-yao, a Yunnanese,who was Chief of the General Staff in the Canton Government in 1918, but returned to Yurman in March,1922. The latest information which I have concerning him is contained in a despatch from Mr. G.A. Combe, His Majesty's Consul General at Yunnan-fu, dated the 12th June, and addressed by him to His Majesty's Minister at Peking. It appears that a representative of Marshal Tang Chi-yao returned recently from Loyang in Honan province with a message from Marshal Wu P'ei-fu requesting Yunnan to cooperate against the Cantonese Soviet. Marshal Tang was, it seems, agreeable to copperating, but had not decided whether he should invade Kuang-tung or merely preserve a benevolent neutrality. He put out in June at Yunnanfu a proclamation against Bolshevism, because he learned that four or five Cantonese Bolshevists had arrived in the province; and the issue of this proclamation synchronised with a rumour that Marshal Tang and Marshal Wu had come to terms. Anyway, the province of Yunnan is for the time being an independent regional group.
18.
35
I have made this brief historical recapitulation, because I desire to emphasize the fact that the policy of
maintaining the integrity of China and the’safeguarding E
British interests in China by means of diplomatic action at
Paking has become utterly impossible owing to the force of
circumstances, and because I earnestly hope that His Majesty's
Goverment will in view of the altered situation reconsider the
main lines upon which British policy in China should hereafter
be framed.
19.
The outstanding fact to my mind iis that, as things now are in China, there could hardly be a worse centre from which to direct British diplomacy in the Eighteen Provinces than Peking. It stands aloof from the main channals of Chinese
thought