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VII. Nature of the Claims of the Chinese.
It will be seen that the Chinese claims to country west of the watershed, which His Majesty's Government maintains to be the frontier, have narrowed down to small proportions, for the claims of the Tien Tan Headman to the line of the Shi Ngaw-- N'Maikha are altogether absurd and beyond discussion, and I do not think anything more will be heard of them. The claims to all villages beyond, .., on the right bank of the Ngaw Chang, or Little River, would appear to have been withdrawa; we have now, therefore, the following:-
1. On behalf of the Tien Tan Fu Yi, claims to three villages on the upper waters of the Chi Pwi, consisting, in all, of ten Lisa huts. There has been no payment of tribute to, or any act of control by, the Chinese for thirty-five years at least.
2. On behalf of Ming Kwang Headman or Fu Yi, named Tso and Yang, claims to Hparé Tzu Chu and certain villages along the Kan Sheng (Kun Ma or "Rolling Horse") River, a tributary of the Ngaw Chang, of which Taw Gaw, La Chang, La Mok, Pa Mia, with the addition of IIsich Chiang (Shi Jang) and Tsaw Lang, situated on the banks of a small stream flowing into the Ngaw Chang, between Pien Ma (Hpi Maw) and Kansheng Rivers, would seem to complete the list--in all, some twelve villages and bamlets, containing 200 families, at the most, of Lashi.
All these entirely deny that they are in any sense subject to Chinese control, and we find that in fact they are quite independent. No tribute is paid or has been paid in the memory of man, and the Chinese Fu Yi are not only obviously unable to enforce their claims, but are afraid to go into the country at all. Their pretensions are based on ancient official documents, which, in their turn, are probably based on mendacious statements by the ancestors of the present Fu Yi, and supported by occasional exchanges of trifling presents in virtue of the Treaty referred to above.
3. On behalf of the Ta Tang Fu Yi to one village on the Ngaw Chang, near the junction of the Shang Tawn River, between Hsich Chiang and Pien Ma, namely, Shang Lou (in Lashi Gaw Yawm); this contains some forty households, who, it appears, exchange presents once in three years with Ta Tang, "huang licn" being given in exchange for a buffalo, in virtue of some Treaty; but Shang Lou is in no sense under regular control by Ta Tang, though while we were at Pien Ma the Ta Tang Headman went to Shang Lou, and the people supplied him with transport.
4. On behalf of the Teng Keng Fu Yi, resident on the Salween, claims to Pien Ma, U Tung, Kang Fang, and a small tract of mountainous country near the left bank of the Upper Ngaw Chang, including some five villages, nine hamlets, and some 250 households of Lisu or Lashi. Here an irregular house fax is levied, mostly in kind, and a toll on timber is taken at Kang Fang. The total amount of the revenue is uncertain, but it is not over 300 rupees a-year, and owing to the disturbed condition of the country is often less. There is nothing of the nature of regular administration or control by the Teng Keng Fu Yi.
These claims--all of which represent rather family affairs of the Chinese Headmen than the political rights of the Yunnan Government--are so trifling that, in view of the obvious advantages of the watershed frontier to both parties, the matter would be settled in ten minutes if we had a civilized Government to deal with; but the point of view from which Chinese officials look at a question such as this is altogether different from ours. Facilities for good and easy administration of frontier tribes, convenient ethno- graphical or geographical divisions, are matters about which none of them know or care anything. It is therefore a mistake to take them too seriously. To the Mandarins the matter is a purely personal one. Each of them who has to deal with the affair of the frontier asks himself: "How can I get out of this without letting myself in for impeachments and accusations of giving away Celestial land and truckling to the foreigner?" Every Boundary Commission has been followed by its crop of impeach- ments of this kind, and though the officials accused may mauage to escape without loss of their buttons, feathers, or official position, they have had to give heavy bribes to right themselves. The result is that none of them will take any responsibility. However unreasonable and unsubstantiated claims may be, the local official will never venture to say a word which might be held to cast any doubts on their validity, or to suggest the advisability of abandoning them. So long as he sits perfectly still and does nothing, he is in a position of safety, but directly he makes a move towards definite action for settling the frontier, he finds himself in a land of pitfalls and quagmires. The Taotai
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now clearly understands what we mean by the watershed frontier. Though he seems to recognize that it is the natural frontier, that the adoption of any other line would involve his Government in the future in constant and expensive boundary disputes, that his Fu Yi have no control whatever over on the N Maikha side, and that the Yunnan Government would never go to the expense necessary to obtain such control, it would none the less be as much as his place is worth to recommend anything inconsistent with "They would be the wording of the musty documents which have been put forward. down on me," he says. The Fu Yi and my own clerks would be writing behind my back to Yunnan-fu all sorts of secret accusations. I cannot take the responsibility of doing anything of the kind,"
I wish to dwell strongly on this point, for it is the chief, if not the only, obstacle to a speedy settlement. I have pressed upon the Taotai the view that he may, without committing himself to any definite recommendations, state the facts of the case as he himself admits them to be, and also mention that I have, on behalf of the Government of Burmah, offered compensation on a liberal scale for the personal rights of the Teng Keng Fu Yi, and that there is a precedent for such a settlement in the case of the Meng Mao Triangle (Möng Wan assigned tract). I am continuing to urge this view upon him, and am not without hope that he may be induced to take action somewhat on these lines, but I hardly expect to obtain a definite statement from him before the end of this month (May); when I do, I will inform the British Legation by telegraph. If the Taotai agrees to report to the Yunnan Government in the above sense, and if the Chinese Government is pressed strongly and simultaneously by His Majesty's Minister and the Consul-General, I am of opinion that an immediate settlement may be reached, especially if the Chinese Government can be made to understand that no other frontier will ever be accepted by Burmah,
Even this, however, is doubtful; as the Taotai is afraid of his colleagues at It is Yunnan-fu, so the provincial officials at Yunnan-fu are afraid of the censors. unfortunate also that Chen, the former Boundary Commissioner, is now in a position of influence at the capital as Judicial Commissioner, for he is a notorious obstructive. I rather anticipate that we shall be met by the proposal that as the N'Maikha basin belongs to nobody at present, "face" requires that it shall be equally divided between the two Governments. In my despatch to the Taotai, therefore, of which copy is attached, I have dwelt on the fact that the frontier proposed by us will in fact be a division of the wild tribes, all the Kachins falling to Burmah, and all the Lisu and Lu Tzu of the Salween falling to China.
I may remark that the local gazetteers know nothing of these claims to country beyond the N'Maikha divide. The Chinese map of Yunnan published by the Shan Hou Chi (Board of Reorganization) at the provincial capital shows the frontier to all intents and purposes as we claim it. The Tengyueh gazetteer speaks of the three "ai,” or narrow passes, by which are indicated the heads of the Tien Tan, Ming Kwang, and Ta Tang Valleys, as the frontier.
VIII.
The result of the present expedition has been to confirm in all main points the opinious previously submitted to His Majesty's Government. In details we have to make some corrections; the claims of the Ming Kwang Fu Yi are much more flimsy, and those of the Teng Keng Fu Yi rather more substantial, than I had anticipated, but on the whole we have only to repeat the conclusions and recommendations which have already been considered and approved by His Majesty's Government, the Government of India, and Sir Ernest Satow,
1. We find that, as a matter of fact, there is not now, and is not in the least likely to be in the future, any sort of effective control or administration by the Chinese beyond the watershed. We find more particularly that the claims of the Ming Kwang Fu Yi to Tzu Chu and Hparè, on which the Chinese Government has shown itself recently inclined to dwell, are all nonsense. We therefore recommend, in the first place, that no other line but the watershed should be accepted.
2. We find that, from the geographical and ethnographical point of view, the line proposed by us is not only a convenient, but may be called an ideal, frontier as far north as the confines of Thibet. It is a conspicuous and unmistakable range of mountains only passable at wide intervals, and both sides of the crest of the range are entirely
* Article II, Treaty of 1897.
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