During The Last Ten Years Events In Central Asia And Burmah Have Drawn
England And China Much More Closely Together, And Have Laid The Basis Of
What It Must Be Hoped Will Prove A Firm And Durable Alliance.
If suspicion
was laid aside and candid relations established on the frontier, it should
not be difficult to maintain an excellent understanding with China, and at
the present moment every difficulty has been smoothed over with the
exception of that on the Burmese frontier.
It is to be hoped that not less
success will be obtained in this quarter than in Sikhim and Hunza, and Mr.
O'Conor's convention of Pekin in July, 1886, recognizing China's right to
receive a tribute mission from Burmah once in ten years went far to prove
the extent of concession England would make to China. It is divulging what
cannot long be kept secret, to explain the circumstances under which Mr.
O'Conor's convention was signed, and the unusual concession made by a
British government of admitting its liability to send a tribute mission.
The Chefoo Convention, closing the Yunnan incident, contained a promise
from the Chinese government to allow an English mission to pass through
Tibet. Years passed without any attempt to give effect to this
stipulation, but at last, in 1884, Mr. Colman Macaulay, a member of the
Indian Civil Service, obtained the assent of his government to requesting
the permission of the Chinese government to visit Lhasa. He went to Pekin
and he came to London, and he obtained the necessary permission and the
formal passport of the Tsungli Yamen; and there is no doubt that if he had
set off for Tibet with a small party, he would have been honorably
received and passed safely through Tibet to India. On the other hand there
is no doubt that such a visit would have presented no feature of special
or striking importance. It would have been an interesting individual
experience, but scarcely an international landmark, This modest character
for his long-cherished project did not suit Mr. Macaulay, and unmindful of
the adage that there may be a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, he not
merely delayed the execution of his visit, but he made ostentatious
preparations for an elaborate mission, and he engaged many persons with
scientific qualifications to accompany him, with the view of examining the
mineral resources of Tibet. The Chinese themselves did not like, and had
never contemplated, such a mission, but their dissatisfaction was slight
in comparison with the storm it raised in Tibet; and the Chinese
government was thus brought face to face with a position in which it must
either employ its military power to coerce the Tibetans, who made
preparations to oppose the Macaulay mission by force of arms, or acquiesce
in the Tibetans ignoring its official passports, and thus provoke a
serious complication with this country. Such was the position of the
Tibetan question when Burmah was annexed in January, 1886, and
negotiations followed with China for the adjustment of her claims in the
country.
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