CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 166

Enclosure 5 in No. 1.

Note by the Military Attaché, Peking, dated March 7, 1911, on Despatch No. 7, dated January 31, 1911, from His Britannic Majesty's Consul-General, Yünnun-fu, for- warding a Despatch (regarding the line of the frontier) from the Administrator of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, Yünnan-fu.

The little map showing the line claimed by China (which accompanies Mr. O'Brien-Butler's despatch), the outcome of his investigation of maps with Mr. Hsia, shows the line, in the main, as claimed by the Wai-wu Pu, except that it concedes as British territory the whole of the basin of the Chipway Kha, whereas the line claimed in Prince Ch'ing's despatch of the 30th August, 1906, as well as the line proposed by Taotai Shih crossed that river instead of skirting its basin. The several lines proposed are shown on the sketch map which I attach to this note.

It must be noted that the map now sent by the consul-general was made by him, and is not signed or in any way vouched for by Mr. Hsia.

Enclosure 6 in No. 1.

Memorandum by Lieutenant-Colonel Willoughby.

A POINT worthy of note is that the maps produced by Mr. Hsia were the War Office map of Yunnan of 1906 (compiled by Major Davies) as well as a Chinese map; from which it is evident that the Yunnan authorities were well aware of Pienma being within the boundary claimed by Great Britain.

Another point, however (and perhaps a somewhat unfortunate one), is that the War Office map in question shows (and I think fairly and with reason) a very consider able stretch of the Irrawaddy basin, further north, viz., some 55 miles of the head waters of the N'mai Kha itself (latitude from about 27° 38′ to 28° 23′ north) in the neighbourhood of Chamutong, as well as the sources of the Meh Kha, its eastern large affluent, in the Chiutzu country (Khanung), as being within Yunnan, i.e., on the Yunnan side of the as yet undelimited frontier (marked only by a dotted line). I think it will be found that the Chinese claims to this Chiutzu region will, later on, when the question comes up for discussion, be found to be at least as strong as those put forward with regard to Pienma. In this connection. I would draw attention to the report of M. Gaston Péronne, mentioned in consul Rose's despatch No. 15, dated Tengyueh the 11th May, 1910. M. Péronne's head-quarters had been for the past year at Atuntzu, "which is now the centre of activity for the Chinese along the north section of the Yunnan border." One of His Excellency Chao Erh Feng's agents was then at Atuntzu on special duty; said to be a man of cousiderable intelligence and activity and believed to be pioneering the proposed "Third Province" (comprising parts of Szechuan, Yunnan and Thibet) in an endeavour to include territory as far south as the Atuntzu district, which would strengthen the hold of the Chinese on the tribal lands dividing China from the sphere of British administrative control.

He went with a considerable escort into the inner country" in the autumn of 1909 and remained three months. "There seems little doubt that he penetrated at least as far as the Hkamti Shans.' Since his return he had been busy making the Atuntzu- Chamutong road, and there were many evidences of the intention of the Chinese to push forward their influence in these regions, which until the last few years were entirely beyond their control. They were sparing no pains to restrict lama influence: establishing schools at the larger centres, and insisting on a regular return of presents from the tribespeople, who include "black Lisu," Lutzu and Chiutzu, in addition to the Thibetan groups. From other sourecs Mr. Kose learnt that deputies sent out by the sub-prefect of Wei Hsi crossed to the Chiutzu country on the west bank of the Salween and collected tribute during the autumn of 1909; also that two companies of Likiang troops were under orders for the Wei Hsi district (one to be stationed on the Salween and one at Atuntzu).

**

It is satisfactory to know that Mr. Barnard's expedition to Hkamti (at the head- waters of the Mali Kha) started from Kamaing on the 10th December, to confer a "sanad" (patent of rulership) on the present Sawbwa of that State. Here, at any rate, we are on quite firm ground, as there is ample documentary evidence in support of British suzerainty over Akamti. As far back as 1892 the then chief was in

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possession of a document from the deputy commissioner of Bhamo acknowledging his right to the protection of the British Government, and proclaiming his territory to be part of the district controlled by the deputy commissioner of Bhamo.

A point of considerable importance in connection with the question of the upper (waters of the Irrawaddy is brought out by a journey made by Mr. E. C. Young from Yünnan through Pienma and Hkamti to Assam in the winter of 1905-6 (vide "Geographical Journal" for August 1907). According to his diagrams, the volume of the N'mai Kha considerably exceeds that of the Salween, in about the same latitude, and both are much bigger than the Mali Kha. The measurements are so remarkable that they leave room for doubt as to the sources of the N'mai Kha being within such reasonable distance as to admit of our claiming the whole of the head- waters of the Irrawaddy basin as being in Burmah, and so in British territory. Unfortunately our knowledge of the geography of the upper waters of the Nmai Kha is very limited, but, at any rate, it would seem to be impossible that its source can be north of a point somewhere in the latitude of Meukong, as the Indian explorer Krishna (A. K.),'iu crossing to Rima from the Salween, not far north of Menkong, seems to have found no other large stream in his path, but "proceeded up a small affluent of the Salween, over a 'divide by the Ti La pass (16,100'), and finally down an affluent of the Zayul or Lohit till he reached Rima without much difficulty. We thus possess certain information that between the head of the Assam valley and the Salween there is but one pass."-(Sir Thomas Holdich's "Thibet the Mysterious," p. 213.) No such doubt exists with regard to the head-waters of the Mali Kha, the bigh snowy barrier of the Nam Kiu mountains, which separates them from the Lohit basin, precluding any possibility of any of the taking their rise farther north. This snowy range seems obviously indicated as the boundary line between Upper Barmah and Thibet along the north of the Hkamti State.

To revert to the question of the delimitation of the boundary from the southern end of the undelimited portion: I anticipate the most strenuous resistance on the part of the Wai-wu Pu to admitting the Irrawaddy-Salween divide" as the boundary northward--at any rate, of the southern confines of the Chintzu country, about latitude 27° 35' north (for the reasons I have given above, and other reasons set forth below); and it is possible that they may even be able to put forward reasonable claims (that we as yet know nothing of) to some measure of control over portions of the intervening Mara country between the Khanung aud Pienma.

The eastern branch of the head-waters of the N'mai Kha (the Chiu-chiang) appears, as I have mentioned above, to rise in the Tsarong district of Thibet, some- where near Menkong (on the Salween, in latitude 28° 35′ north), and for three marches up-river from Tulong the inhabitants of the valley (Chiutzu) pay tribute to the Yei-cbih "mokua " (in the Wei Hsi sub-prefecture of Yunnan), and northward of that point they are tributary to Tsurong (Thibet). (See "From Tonkin to India," by Prince Henri d'Orleans, pp. 413, 414.)

I think, therefore, it must be recognised that we may be unable to claim the whole of the waters of the Irrawaddy basin-in fact, that it may be necessary to recognise the "southern confines of Thibet (mentioned in Sir F. Satow's despatch of the 1st May, 1906, to the Wai-wu Pu) as being somewhere about the latitude of Chamutong, i.e., approximately latitude 28 north (so far as the head-waters of the 'mai Kha are concerned). Furthermore, as below that point proceeding down-river to at least the Chiu Chiang Telo confluence the inhabitants are tributary to Yeichih and Wei-Hsi) at Tulong, in 1895, Prince Henri d'Orleans found a deputy from the Wei- Hai sub-perfect), it would seem, perhaps, the simplest plan to consider that point, viz., the confluence, as a suitable point of departure of the frontier line west-wards from the river Nmai Kha.

Duma on the Reun-nam (which is apparently the most easterly affluent of the Mali Kha) also appears from Prince Honri's narrative to be tributary to a Lisu chieftain subject to Yunnan, but this claim, at this rate, ought, I think, to be contested or compounded for by a payment or some compensation elsewhere. The Reun-nam (affluent of the Mali Kha (?)) is separated from the Telo (affluent of the N'mai Kba) by a very few miles only, and by a single mountain ridge, and it is along this ridge that a suitable frontier line might perhaps be found. From the top of this ridge Prince Henri remarks "in the west a high white range running north-east and south- west was identified by us as the alps of Zayul, on the other side of which lies the basin of the upper Brahmaputra in Thibet. This high white range," the Nan Kiu mountains is not more than about 50 miles distant, in a straight line, from the Chiu chiang (Nma'i Kha)-Telo confluence.

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