[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[11928]
6.6
[April 1.]
19607
SECTION 2.
REC2
&
REG? 16 JUN 11
No. 1.
Acting Consul Rose to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received April 1.)
(No. 1. Confidential.) Sir,
Tengyueh vid Bhama, Upper Burmah, February 25, 1911.
I HAVE the honour to enclose duplicate of a report, which I have to-day addressed to His Majesty's Minister at Peking, on the events of the Burmah--China frontier for the open season 1910-11.
Enclosure in No. 1.
I have, &e.
ARCHIBALD ROSE.
Report by Acting Consul Rose respecting the Burmah-China Frontier for the Oper
Season 1910 to 1911.
(Confidential.)
General Situation on North-East Frontier.
THE history of the north-east frontier during the past twelve months has been unusually full of interest, events succeeding one another in rapid succession, a mani- festation of Chinese activity being everywhere apparent, and leaving as its result the practical reality of a Chinese neighbour along the whole of the 3,000 miles of India's frontier from Cashmere, past Nepaul, Sikkim, Bhutan, Assam, and Upper Burmah, until we reach the Mekong and Toaquin. In attempting to realise the scope and trend of this forward movement from the Yunnan base there would appear to be evidence of a political sequence, an ordered and organised scheme directing the course of events, and it may be of interest to try and trace the effect of the greater episodes of the year in their bearing on the situation which now exists on the Burmah-China frontier.
It is but a few years ago that the Szechuan army was a negligible quantity, and that the troops of Yunnan were held up to ridicule by every passing traveller. Szechuan has suddenly sprung to the front in military activity, and Yunnan in the course of the past three years has created an army which is regarded by experts as inferior certainly to that of the metropolitan province or of Szechuan, but of a higher standard than is met in the majority of the richer and more populous provinces of China. Remembering that China has not usually shown a desire for active aggression it is impossible to watch this military progress in the Far West, where a grant from wealthier provinces is annually necessary in order to meet the ordinary expenses of administration, without speculation as to the ultimate purpose of this new and costly movement. Szechuan has certainly shown a constant and a sturdy independence in its relations with Peking; Yünoan has been famous for its internal struggles; its people have suffered perhaps more heavily than any others from the sudden suppression of opium; it is bounded both by Britain and by France, and the latter has just completed a railway independently of China, which penetrates as far as the provincial capital. It is not strange, therefore, that the hurried gathering of a modern army in Szechuan and Yunnan should have been regarded with interest, and attended with much anticipation as to its future developments.
No sooner, however, was the internal position assured in the two western provinces than a campaign of activity was inaugurated under the energetic guidance of Chao-Ehr-feng, the Imperial commissioner for the western frontier districts, and his brother Chao-Ehr-sen, the Viceroy of Szechuan, and their first aim appears to have been the extension of the administrative frontier of the Chinese Empire to the limits of their political boundaries. The Horba States, Derge, Chamdo, and the whole of the semi-independent country around Litang and Batang, was effectually absorbed from Batang a party pressed south as far as A-tun-tze, the Mekong and Salween were
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