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 1904Younghusband, Francis Edward, Sir
History
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
Younghusband, Francis Edward, Sir
British -- China -- Tibet Autonomous Region; India -- Foreign relations -- China -- Tibet Autonomous Region; Lhasa (China); Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- Foreign relations -- India
Tibet, the Bengal Government said, was a well-regulated country with
which our Hillmen were in constant communication. When Europeans went to
the frontier and tried to cross it, there was no display of violence or
disturbance. They were civilly turned back, with an intimation that
there were orders not to admit them. All the inquiries of the
Lieutenant-Governor led to the belief that the Tibetans themselves had
no objections to intercourse with us. The experiences of the great
botanist, Sir Joseph Hooker, who in 1849 had travelled to the Tibetan
border, and Blanford among the recent travellers, and of Bogle and
Turner in the past, were singularly at one upon this point. The
Commandant of Khamba Jong, who had met Mr. Blanford on the frontier in
1870, assured him that the Tibetans had no ill-will to foreigners, and
would, if allowed, gladly receive Europeans. The fact appeared to be,
the Lieutenant-Governor said, that “the prohibition to intercourse with
Tibet is part of the Chinese policy of exclusion imposed on the Tibetans
by Chinese officials and enforced by Chinese troops stationed in Tibet.”
He fully sympathized with the Chinese desire to keep out foreigners in
China. “But,” he said, “in Tibet there is not wealth enough to attract
many adventurers; there is room only for a moderate and legitimate
commerce;” and among a people so good and well regulated as the Tibetans
there would be no such difficulties as existed in China. If the road
were opened, it would be used only by fair traders and by responsible
Government servants or travellers under the control of Government.
In seeking to press the Chinese for admittance to Tibet, he said, the
most emphatic declaration might be made that, having our natural and
best boundary in the Himalayas, we could not, and would not in any
circumstances, encroach on Tibet, and we might offer to arrange that
none save Hillmen or classes domiciled in Tibet should be allowed to go
in without a pass, which would be given under such restrictions that
Government would be responsible for the conduct of the holders.
The Lieutenant-Governor adduced as a further reason for entering into
formal relationship with the Tibetans that, if we had an understanding
between us, we should together be able to keep in order the wild tribes
inhabiting the hilly country between British territory and Tibet. And he
instanced the case of the Mezhow Mishnies, who for murdering two French
missionaries in 1854 were punished both by us and by the Tibetans, and
who, in consequence, ever after had “a most salutary dread of using
violence.”
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