CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 467

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government)

AFFAIRS OF CHINA.

6.6

CONFIDENTIAL.

19697

REC

[17269]

RES 16NJUN 11

462

[May 8.]

SECTION 3.

(No. 166.) Sir,

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received March 8.)

Peking, March 17, 1911. I HAVE the honour to transruit to you herewith copy of a note which I addressed to the Wai-wu Pu on the 10th instant in accordance with the instructions contained in your telegram No. 66 of the 4th April.

It appeared to me that I should carry out the spirit of your instructions with better effect if I delivered this note in person to the Wai-wu Pu and took an opportunity not only of emphasising its contents by verbal representations but also of impressing upon them as the course of the discussion offered the other considerations to which you had made reference in your telegram.

The note was accordingly handed to the Grand Secretary Na Tung and the other Ministers of the Wai-wu Pu at an interview which I had with them on the 14th instant, as reported to you in my telegram No. 100 of the following day.

After perusing the note, the Grand Secretary remarked that it was little more than a reiteration of our previous contentions against which the Chinese Government had already protested.

I said that this was naturally the case as our recent examination of the country had fully confirmed the view we had consistently urged since 1906, that the watershed was the natural frontier between the two Empires, and that the claims of China to the west of that line were confined to the villages mentioned in my note. The indirect and nominal nature of the Chinese claims was fully established and the proposed settlement by means of a monetary compensation to the chiefs at Teng Keng fully met the equitable requirements of the case.

I was willing, however, to entertain any other suggestion which their Excellencies might have to offer for satisfying the rights which Tong Keng had acquired in the three groups of villages to the west of the main divide.

The Grand Secretary deprecated the action of the British Government in sending troops to the unadministered region before any delimitation had taken place. He and his colleagues maintained that the claims of China extended to many districts to the west of the watershed and that these claims were attested by records of "mu k'o," or wooden tallies, issued to the various chieftains which were to be found in the archives of the western intendancies in Yünnan.

A list of these districts would be furnished in the board's reply to my note. His Excellency Hu Wei-tê suggested that it was now the Chinese turn to examine the disputed region and establish by investigation of the actual circumstances the validity of the claims which they had put forward.

I rejoined that we had made arrangements to administer the country up to the watershed and that any attempt on the part of China to hold an independent examination of the region could hardly fail to provoke a collision for which his Excellency must be prepared to accept the responsibility. Our troops would continue to move into or out of the country as climatic conditions permitted or circumstances required.

The Ministers declined to admit this point of view, and argued that our action had placed them in a very difficult and delicate position.

The people of Yunnan were deluging the board with telegrams protesting against the action of Great Britain, and they could not afford to ignore public opinion in these days of provincial assemblies, newspapers, and other means of influencing the central Government.

A general discussion and repetition of previous arguments ensued, but it was evident that the Ministers, more especially Na Tang, took no real interest in the question, and I found it impossible to extract from them any offer or suggestion which would tend to facilitate a settlement.

Three days before this interview took place the War Office had, according to the correspondent of the "Times," informed the Japanese that we had withdrawn our troops from the Pien-ma district, and the statement has since been widely published

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