India and Tibet / A history of the relations which have subsisted between the two countries from the time of Warren Hastings to 1910; with a particular account of the mission to Lhasa of 1904

by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

Two days later they all came to return my visit, and after the usual polite conversation I said I would now redeem my promise, and I told the interpreter to commence reading a speech which I had prepared beforehand, and which Captain O’Connor had carefully translated into Tibetan. But before he could commence the Tibetans raised objections to holding negotiations at Khamba Jong at all. The proper place, they said, was Giagong. I told them that the place of meeting was a matter to be decided upon, not by the negotiators, but by the Viceroy and Amban. The Viceroy had selected Khamba Jong because of its proximity to the portion of frontier in dispute, and he had chosen a place on the Tibetan rather than the Indian side of the frontier because the last negotiations were conducted in India; and when, after much trouble a treaty had been concluded between the Chinese and British Governments, the Tibetans had repudiated it, saying they knew nothing about it. On the present occasion, therefore, the Viceroy decided that negotiations should take place in Tibet, and had asked that a Tibetan official of the highest rank should take part in them, in order that, when the new settlement was completed, the Tibetans should not be able to say they knew nothing of it.

The Tibetans then raised objections to the size of my escort. I explained that it was merely the escort which was becoming to my rank, and was even smaller than the escort which the Chinese Resident took to Darjiling and Calcutta at the former negotiations. They said they had understood that the negotiations were to be friendly, and so they themselves had brought no armed escort. I replied that the negotiations certainly were to be friendly, and that if I had had any hostile intentions I should have brought many more than 200 men, a number which was only just sufficient to guard me against such attacks of bad characters as had very recently been made upon the British Ambassador at the capital of the Chinese Empire.

My speech was then read by the interpreter. It recounted how, seventeen years before, the Viceroy proposed a peaceful mission to Lhasa to arrange the conditions of trade with Tibet. British subjects had the right to trade in other parts and provinces of the Chinese Empire, just as all subjects of the Chinese Emperor were allowed to trade in every part of the British Empire. But in this one single dependency of the Chinese Empire, in Tibet, obstacles were always raised in the way of trade. It was to discuss this matter with the Tibetan authorities at Lhasa, and to see if these obstacles could not be removed, that the then Viceroy of India proposed, with the consent of the Chinese Government, to send a mission to Lhasa in 1886. But when the mission was about to start, the Chinese Government at the last moment informed the Viceroy that the Tibetans were so opposed to the idea of admitting a British mission to their country that they (the Chinese Government) begged that the mission might be postponed; and out of good feeling to the Chinese Government, and on the distinct understanding that the Chinese would exhort the Tibetans to promote and develop trade, the Viceroy counterordered the mission.

Seventeen years had now passed away since the Chinese made the promise, and the British Government had just cause to complain that in all these years, owing to the persistent obstruction of the Tibetans, the Chinese had been unable to perform their pledge.

And the forbearance which the Viceroy had shown in countermanding the mission had met with a bad return on the part of the Tibetans, for they had proceeded, without any cause or justification, to invade a State under British protection. Even this the Viceroy bore with patience for nearly two years, trusting they would be obedient to the authority of the Chinese Government and withdraw. But when they still remained in Sikkim, and even attacked the British troops there, he was compelled to punish them and drive them back from Sikkim and pursue them into Chumbi. And in Chumbi the British troops would have remained as a punishment for the unprovoked attack upon them if it had not been for the friendship which existed between the Emperor of China and the Queen of England.

Out of regard, however, for that friendship, the Viceroy agreed to enter into negotiation with the Chinese Resident acting, on behalf of the Tibetans, and after some years an agreement was made, by which the boundary between Tibet and Sikkim was laid down, and arrangements were made for traders to come to Yatung to sell the goods to whomsoever they pleased, to purchase native commodities, to hire transport, and to conduct their business without any vexatious restrictions. It was also agreed that if, after five years, either side should wish to make any alterations, both parties should meet again and make a new agreement.

At the end of five years the Queen’s Secretary of State wrote to the Viceroy and inquired how the treaty was being observed, and the reply went back that the Tibetans had destroyed the boundary pillars which British and Chinese officials had erected on the frontier laid down by the treaty; that they had occupied land at Giagong inside that boundary; that they had built a wall on the other side of Yatung, and allowed no one to pass through to trade with the traders who came there from India; and, lastly, that they had repudiated the treaty which had been signed by the Resident and the Viceroy on the ground that it had not been signed by one of themselves.

When the Queen’s Great Secretary heard of the way they had set at naught the treaty which the Amban and the Viceroy had signed, he was exceedingly angry, and ordered Mr. White to go to Giagong to remove the Tibetans who had presumed to cross the frontier which the Amban and Viceroy had fixed. Mr. White had gone there and removed the Tibetans, and thrown down their guard-house, and reported to the Viceroy what he had done.

Now the Amban, when he heard what Mr. White had done, wrote to the Viceroy that, if there was any matter which needed discussion, he would send a Chinese officer and a representative of the Dalai Lama to settle it with a British officer. And the Viceroy had written in reply that he had sent a high officer with Mr. White to Khamba Jong to settle everything about the frontier and about trade; but as the Tibetans had broken the old treaty because they said they had known nothing about it, His Excellency had written to the Amban that there must be at the negotiations a Tibetan official of the highest rank, whose authority to bind his Government must be unquestioned. Mr. White and I had accordingly come, and as soon as I heard from the Viceroy that he was satisfied on this last point I was ready to commence negotiations.

The Viceroy, I could assure them, had no intention whatever of annexing their country, and it was possible, indeed, that he might make concessions in regard to the lands near Giagong, if in the coming negotiations they showed themselves reasonable in regard to trade. But I warned them that, after the way in which they had broken and repudiated the old treaty, concluded in their interests by the Amban at the close of a war in which they were defeated, they must expect that he would demand from them some assurance that they would faithfully observe any new settlement which might be made.