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crossed, and news has recently been received that an outpost has been established as far west as Rima, the actual limit of that shadowy border-land which has been dimly outlined as the possible boundary which shall eventually divide Thibet and China from the British outposts of Assam and Upper Burmah. In the course of this advance the sovereignty of China was so definitely asserted in Thibet, that the Dalai Lama abandoned his capital early in the year, and an immediate attempt was made to pursue a similar policy along the whole frontier to the very southern limit of Keng- Hung. Two active and capable young lieutenants of the brothers Chao were then ordered to Yunnan, one Keng Pao-kuei as tuotai of the western marchies at Tengyueli and one to the little town of A-tun-tze, in that corner of the province of Kam, now generally known as Thibetan Yunnan, whilst a third was sent from Yunnan-fu to the Sipsong Panna or Souther Shan States of China, thus completing the chain of officers who could be trusted to pursue a forward and consecutive policy in all matters which affected China's western frontier.
It will be remembered that, as Szechuan was divided from Thibet by a series of semi-independent States under their own kings, princes, or "tussu," so Yunnan is flanked by a band of tribal States inhabited by Lisus, Kachins, Was and Shans, the last of whom are numerically most important, and, although in a degenerate condition, are the relies of the old and powerful Nanchao Kingdom still holding a chain of fertile and prosperous valleys adjoining the Shan States of Burmah now under British rule. It will be remembered also that, of the 600 miles of actual frontier between Burmah and Yunnan, little more than half has actually been accepted by the Chinese Government, about 150 miles of still undelimited boundary lying to the north of Manung Pum along the clearly-marked though partially unexplored range of mountains known as the Irrawady-Salween divide, whilst the southern unrecognised tract lies to the east of the Wa country from Nalawt-Pangsang to the Namting River, After a joint examination of the northern undelimited stretch by the late Consul Litton and the Taotai Shih Hung-shao, in which it was found that the Chinese bad not at any time carried their administration to the west of the great range, Sir Ernest Satow informed the Wai-wa Pu that His Majesty's Government would consider the Irrawady-Solween divide as our actual and natural frontier, though they were willing to compensate two Chinese families which claimed certain small tolls on the coffin-wood brought from the country to the west of the divide. The wisdom of this decision has been proved by the events of subsequent years, for it is now clear that the Chinese idea of peaceful penetration and purely money-making administrative efforts are a real monace to our Burmah subjects on the northern stretch, whilst their endless quibbles in regard to the arbitrary frontier in the Shan States have caused much unnecessary expense and an infinity of trouble to the Government of Burmah.
On the southern section Sir George Scott, finding his Chinese colleagues on the boundary commission of 1899-1900 unwilling to reach any finality in the delimita- tion of the border, proceeded to demarcate the frontier alone in accordance with the terms of the convention of 1897, the result of his work being known and generally accepted as "Scott's Line," though to this day the Chinese Government has withheld its acceptance of the line laid down.
For some years the frontier as thus delimited has proved satisfactory in its practical working, but at the commencement of the present year the new activity of the Chinese precipitated events which threatened the tranquillity of the whole border-land. Under instructions from Tengyueh, the Chief of Tengkeng, on the Upper Salween, raided and buined the village of Hpimaw ("Pien-ma") to the west of the divide; information was received shortly afterwards that the officer on special duty at A-tun-tze had penetrated to and received tribute from the Khamti Long, a Shan State well within the Burmah frontier, whilst the Chinese deputy from Yünnan-fu entered the southern Shan States known as the Sip Song Panna, and, after killing the Shan chief or "Sawbwa" of Mong Se and a considerable number of people in this and the neighbouring States, firmly established the nucleus of direct Chinese administration in that district, which was, undoubtedly, one of the most lawless and dangerous in Yünnan. Nearer to Tengyueh the taotai has pursued with energy a similar policy in the northern group of Shan States. Chenkaug, the most unruly centre, has been definitely placed under the rule of a Chinese sub-prefect. Frontier deputies have been installed and have made considerable progress in the direction of Lisu and Shan affairs in the districts immediately adjoining the frontier, regular troops (under the old banner and known as Isun Fang Tui) have recently arrived to garrison the Shan States of Nantien, Changta, and Kangai, further
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reinforcements have left within the last few days for the border States of Lungchuan and Mengmao, five forts have recently been constructed along that section of the frontier adjoining the Burmah district of Myitkyina, and 1,000 men of the modern- drilled army, which had previously advanced no further west than Talifu, have just arrived to strengthen the garrisons at Tengyueh and Yung-chang Fu.
On general principles there would appear to be every advantage to us in this west- ward advance of Chinese administration, for the direct responsibility of Chinese officers and of the Yunnanese provincial Government is certainly preferable to that of a horde of dissipated and degenerate Shan Sawbwas, who have little realisation of their neigh- bourly duties and no power to enforce their orders, even though their intentions may be of the best, and there can be little doubt that Chinese administrative aspirations would meet with the most sympathetic response from the Government and the frontier officers of Burmah as long as they were conducted on friendly lines. It is to be regretted, however, that there has been an apparent lack of any desire for friendly understandings and an inclination to disregard the most obvious duties of neighbourly intercourse with their British colleagues on the part of some of the officers who have been chosen as instruments in the Chinese scheme of administrative expansion, nor have they confined their efforts to that territory and to those affairs which fall legitimately within their sphere of influence. Reference to the Tengkeng raid and the Khamti incident have already been made, and the Taolai Kong has adopted throughout the year a most unfriendly and unconciliatory attitude at Tengyuch. The year commenced with the destruction of a British supplementary boundary pillar; a regular frontier pillar (No. 38), on the section already definitely accepted by the Chinese, was at a later date defaced by his orders, and would have been destroyed but for the action of his delegates; the position of a number of British pillars on the middle and accepted section has been called in question; the interpreter who accompanied me into the unadministered territory in the spring has been thrown into prison by him; the attempts of the Burmah Government to define the rights of transfrontier cultivators-a task undertaken at the direct request of the Yunnan Government and carried out at considerable expense-were hedged throughout the year by persistent difficulties, and the efforts of the British frontier officers and of this consulate to settle cases of murder and robbery between the frontier subjects of Burmah and Yunnan were constantly met by him in a discourteous and obstructive spirit.
As the year drew to a close there still remained the hope of effecting settlements of outstanding cases and disputes at the annual frontier meetings, and I shall submit a report of these functions in a subsequent paragraph. In the meanwhile, various expe- ditions set out from the British side of the frontier to extend the administrative sphere of the Burmah Government, and to gather further information in regard to the little known tracts lying to the extreme north and east of Upper Burmah. A column under Mr. W. A. Hertz, deputy commissioner of Myitkyina, has visited the uuadministered territory, and advanced as far east as the Irrawady-Salween divide in the neighbourhood of Hpinaw (" Pien-ma"); a small party has also visited the Khamti Long, whilst an expedition from Assam has advanced eastward from the Naga hills and entered some of the unexplored tracts lying to the extreme north of Burmah. These parties have not yet returned, but the results of their journeys will be of the deepest interest, as they will throw fresh light on that mysterions corner of our great north- eastern frontier which has been but dimly outlined by the travels of the late Consul Litton, of Mr. Errol Grey, and Mr. Noel Williamson. Mr. Litton believed that he saw the main range of the Irrawady-Salween divide sweep round to the west in a line of snow-clad peaks at about latitude 28°, near Chamutong on the Salween River, and his observations would appear to substantiate the theory of those Indian geologists and explorers who believe that the central axis of the Himalaya extends towards this point. If these facts could once he definitely established, we should have the satisfaction of knowing that the whole of the north-east frontier is circled by a mountain belt at once clearly defined and difficult of passage, for our experiences along the middle section of the Burmah-Yunnan frontier, where the boundary follows an imaginary line through irrigation channels and changing paddy-fields, and recent events in the unadministered territory indicate that on every ground, political, administrative, and commercial, it is iu the Lighest degree inadvisable that we should be dependent on a zigzag and indefinite line marked only by shifting river beds and artificial boundary pillars. I hope to deal with the question of
the existing frontier under a separate heading, but, in view of the recent Chinese objections to our standing pillars and of their general activity along this border line, it
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