The McMahon Line- a Century of Discord

by J J Singh

  The eminent scholar Heather Spence, with reference to the Chinese ‘forward policy’ from 1905 to 1911, quoted from the Saturday Review of 5 March 1910, under the heading ‘Chinese “Reforms” in Tibet’:

  The military occupation of Lhasa by the Chinese, with the deposition and flight of the Dalai Lama, is clearly the opening move in China’s avowed policy of ‘reform’ in Tibet, in other words her annexation of that country. This movement, fraught with fresh danger to our Indian Empire, has unhappily been contributed to in no small measure by our own blundering policy (emphasis added) in Tibet.44

  The Grand Lama had remained in exile from 1904 to 1909, at first escaping to Mongolia to avoid falling into British hands, and later prolonging his absence from Tibet on one pretext or the other, even though the Manchu court had granted him permission to return in 1908. All the while, the Chinese armies were subjugating the eastern frontier of Tibet—the Marches in Kham and Amdo and the contiguous areas of Pomed and Zayul in southern and south-eastern Tibet. The main reason for the Dalai Lama’s refusal to return to Lhasa from his exile was his uncertainty about his own safety. He suspected the Chinese had an ulterior motive—a grand strategy to turn Tibet into a regular province of China. During the absence of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, the Chinese had indeed gradually taken over the running of the state. Therefore, while at Urga, Kumbum and Wutai-Shan, the Dalai Lama desperately tried to seek the help of various foreign powers to restrain the Chinese from advancing into Tibet proper. Apparently, his pleas fell on deaf ears. He therefore sought an audience with the emperor and the dowager queen to have his titles and the status of Tibet restored before returning to Lhasa. His meetings with the royalty helped to buttress his standing amongst his people, and amongst the Chinese too.

  During our visit to Beijing in 2014, I was keen to see the chamber in the vast summer palace where the Chinese emperor was imprisoned by his mother, the dowager queen. It was probably the place where he died in mysterious circumstances a day prior to the death of the queen herself. Ironically, it was to the humiliated Dalai Lama that the Manchu court had to turn for performing the final rites for both of them at the Yung-ho Kung. These tragic events cast a shadow over the last Ch’ing emperor’s assumption of the throne, which was witnessed by the Dalai Lama. Realizing that it was futile to stay in Peking any longer, the avatar of Chen-re-zi decided to leave for Lhasa on 21 December 1908. He returned, not along the active and disturbed eastern road called the ‘Janglam’ that connected Peking to Lhasa via Chengdu and Batang, but by the more secure northern route via Sining, Kumbum and Nagchukha. He was given a warm farewell at the railway station and was seen off by the ‘Manchu and Mongolian princes and other nobles’.45 He travelled partly by train, and the rest of the journey on camel or horseback. Curious to learn more about this region, we travelled to Sining and also paid obeisance at the famous Kumbum monastery during this visit to China in 2014. (See Figure 15.)

  Figure 15: The author at the Kumbum monastery near Sining, China, 2014

  Unsure of the situation in Lhasa, the Grand Lama did not wish to make a dash to his destination. Accordingly, he moved deliberately from one monastery to the next while remaining in constant touch with developments in Peking and Lhasa. His sojourn in the sacred Kumbum monastery (Kumbum literally means ‘one lakh images of Buddha’) was a fairly long one, and he involved himself in setting right the administration and discipline there. As he moved on, he did the same at the other high-ranking monasteries he stayed in. The people of Tibet were eagerly looking forward to the Chen-re-zi’s return to Lhasa after his absence of five years. As a mark of respect, the people contributed money to make a golden seal, which was presented to the Dalai Lama on his arrival at Lhasa. The inscription in Tibetan and Sanskrit on the seal read: ‘Seal to Spokesman of Buddha’s Words, Master in the Three Realms, Benevolent Leader of Buddhism, Knowledgeable Lama, Wish-fulfilling King Worshipped by All People.’

  Very soon the Dalai Lama had to flee his palace again, this time to India, when Chao Erh-feng’s best troops easily cut through the disorganized and confused resistance put up by the Tibetans, and the gates of Lhasa were once again forced open by an alien army. Having learnt the lesson that it was suicidal to leave the back door to Tibet open, the Chinese reaction of gearing up its administration and control over central Tibet was no surprise. The most direct and convenient route to the heart of Tibet was through the Chumbi Valley. Lhasa is much closer to Jelep La on the Sikkim border than is Kolkata. As a result of the Younghusband mission, the route from Kalimpong to Lhasa was transformed from a mule or yak track to a fairly good cart road, except for a few difficult patches. Even a disassembled mini Peugeot and a Clement car were physically carried across the Jelep La and assembled in the Chumbi Valley in 1907, to be driven the rest of the way to Shigatse for presentation to the Panchen Lama. (These were the first automobiles in Tibet!) Fortunately for the Chinese, the British themselves facilitated the Chinese consolidation in central Tibet by giving up the Chumbi Valley after receipt of the third and final instalment of the indemnity from the Chinese in 1908, a sum of 8,33,333 rupees, 5 annas and 4 pice.46 Hypothetically speaking, had the period of the indemnity remained as originally decided in the Lhasa Agreement of 1904 and it was paid back in seventy-five instalments, India might have been in possession of the Chumbi Valley until 1979 or 1980! The impact of this even to this day on the geostrategic scenario along the boundary between Tibet and Sikkim, and on Bhutan, can be imagined, specially now with the Doklam stand-off of 2017 having taken place in the same area.

  In 1906, without much loss of time after the return of the Younghusband mission, the Chinese sent an imperial commissioner, Chang Yin-tang, via Calcutta and the Chumbi Valley to take charge of the administration of Tibet and put it in order. He was also charged with the responsibility of investigating the allegations of mal-governance, corruption and treasonous conduct on the part of the Amban, Yu T’ai, who helped the Younghusband mission succeed in getting the Lhasa Treaty signed by all the parties concerned, although he did not sign it himself. Some reports suggest that Yu T’ai was enchained and humiliated, along with other Chinese and Tibetan collaborators, while under investigation by Chang and the new Amban, Lien Yu, and deported to China.

  PART V

  SIMLA CONFERENCE, 1913–14

  Figure 16: The plenipotentiaries (L to R): Lonchen Shatra (Tibet), Sir A.H. McMahon (British India) and Ivan Chen (China)

  12

  The Prelude

  Taking advantage of the October 1911 Revolution and the prevailing confusion in the Chinese government, the British, without losing any time, evolved a four-pronged strategy to resolve the many issues related to Tibet. The first step was to define the boundary and status of Tibet in consultation with China and Tibet; the second was to delineate the boundaries between Tibet and China, and between Tibet, north-east India and Burma; the third was to give an impetus to the emergence of a truly autonomous Tibet, albeit under Chinese suzerainty, thereby creating a buffer between the Chinese and British Indian empires; and the fourth was to keep Russian influence in Tibet at bay. Fundamentally, the British desired to have peace and quiet on India’s northern frontiers, keeping inimical influences away, a clearly defined boundary between Tibet and China, and an end to hostilities. To achieve this, there could be nothing better than a harmless Tibet as a buffer state. However, for this it was imperative to establish a clear understanding of the political status of Tibet and have it accepted by China.

  On 23 May 1913, the British wrote to the Chinese and Tibetan governments, inviting them to participate in a tripartite conference for settlement of the Tibet question. It was clarified at the outset that all three delegates would be on an equal footing, as had been made abundantly clear in the British Memorandum of August 1912 to the Chinese government. The Chinese demurred vehemently, but had to be reminded that the situation in Tibet had undergone a paradigm shift, as by early 1913 not a single Chinese official or soldier was present in all of Tibet. The status
and frontiers of Tibet, which comprised the main issues of the agenda, could not possibly have been discussed in a free and fair manner without a level playing field. Therefore the precedence of the trade negotiations of 1908, in which the Tibetan Shape (minister) was subordinate to the Chinese delegate, no longer held good. The British reminded the Chinese that the matter had already been settled and could not be raised again at this stage. The British hinted to the Chinese that a successful agreement would result in Chinese suzerainty over a fully autonomous Tibet, as otherwise they would have to achieve the same by conducting a long-drawn and costly military campaign.

  Initially, this conference was scheduled to be held in Darjeeling. However, for reasons emphasized by the viceroy in a confidential note to the foreign secretary, the venue was changed to Simla. In his telegram, sent on 15 June 1913, announcing the change of venue, the viceroy wrote:

  It would greatly facilitate conduct of the negotiations and be in every-way more convenient if they could be held at Simla instead of Darjiling. At Simla we could exercise much more effective control over proceedings while Tibetan delegates would not be so exposed to Chinese intrigues as at Darjiling …1

  Not only was Simla the summer capital of the British Raj, the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the army being co-located there would also facilitate quicker decision making for the British. Besides these reasons, Darjeeling and Kalimpong had become notorious for espionage and subversive activities relating to Tibet, and the Chinese had developed a good network for generating intrigue and shady dealings. Lu Hsing-chi, a Chinese intelligence operative masquerading as the representative of a firm of furriers, Thinyik & Co., based at Calcutta, was the powerful mastermind behind these activities. The British endeavour was to keep such inimical influences at bay. Moreover, there were inquisitive powers like Japan and Russia, who had their own interests and would like to fish in troubled waters. Simla provided a more secure and conducive environment for such a conference.

  As far as India was concerned, there couldn’t have been a more important subject, or one that needed a more urgent solution, than this. The planning, conduct and analysis of the exploratory recces and geographical surveys in the northern frontiers was being done by the GHQ staff on a war footing, and maps were being constantly updated and revised. The geostrategic implications of the discoveries and other security issues had to be discussed, and advice offered to the viceroy.

  The Chinese were apprehensive that Great Britain might follow the Russian precedent in Mongolia and support Tibet in its endeavour to achieve independence. This resulted in their mounting an offensive to regain territory in eastern Tibet in the Marches and beyond. In the spring of 1913, the situation had deteriorated to such an extent that a state of war existed between China and Tibet on the eastern frontier. The aim of the Chinese campaign was to recapture Litang, Batang and other areas subdued by Chao Erh-feng up to 1910, particularly those areas that, according to the Chinese, belonged to the newly planned province of Hsikang, extending to Chiangta (Giamda), just 200 kilometres east of Lhasa. The Chinese strategy was to also gain a hold over as much territory as possible so that during the ensuing conference in India their exaggerated claims would be substantiated. ‘The Chinese claim to the Chiangta frontier appears to have been based on a recommendation by Chao Erh-feng in the spring of 1911, but even in the heyday of his advance, Chao never succeeded in securing any effective Chinese administration beyond a point between Derge and Chamdo,’2 said the Memorandum on Tibet by Alston, the chargé d’affaires in the British Legation in Peking.

  The Chinese president, Yuan Shih-k’ai, was therefore urged to issue orders asking his troops to maintain the status quo and refrain from further advances into Tibetan territory till the convention was over. Accordingly, he issued orders to this effect on 30 June 1913, also notifying therein the appointment of negotiators for the settlement of Tibetan affairs.3

  The Sino-Tibet boundary shifted considerably between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The Chinese laid claims to a large part of greater Tibet, disregarding the fact that these areas were under the temporal control of the Dalai Lama and that their population was preponderantly Tibetan (Figure 8).

  The Chinese were simultaneously and secretly looking at bilateral negotiations with the Tibetans, and in view of this wanted to delay the commencement of the tripartite conference in which they did not have their heart. Despite the Wai Chiao-pu (the Chinese Foreign Office) denials that China had made efforts to hold direct talks between Wang, the administrator of Lhasa and Tibet, and the Kalon Lama, the Tibetan administrator, at Chamdo, the situation on the ground was different. The Dalai Lama was being directly cajoled and threatened at the same time by the Chinese to resolve all issues with them. In May 1913, ‘the Peking Government directed the Dalai Lama to send an officer to escort him (Lu Hsing-chi, the Chinese agent at Calcutta) thither (Lhasa), using threats of force unless the suggestion was carried out. The Lhasa Government refused to receive Lu on the plea that Chinese were behaving in an outrageous manner in Eastern Tibet.’4

  Lu Hsing-chi was relentlessly pursuing his games of intrigue and was establishing a network of spies under a man named Tashi Wangdi. Tashi was tasked to ‘win over officials’ and ‘induce’ the Dalai Lama and his advisers to create a favourable environment for China. Despite Lu’s best endeavours and the persistent efforts of the Chinese government, he was not permitted to proceed to Lhasa, even when he was nominated as the Amban designate, or ‘Officiating Chinese Resident in Lhasa’ or administrator of Tibet. The British soon put a stop to these attempts by the Chinese government to pressure the Dalai Lama through Lu: ‘On July 30 His Majesty’s Government approved a suggestion of Mr Alston’s that Lu should be warned by the Government of India that any attempt to carry out the duties of his appointment as Amban would result in his deportation from India.’5 This was duly acted upon and the warning was conveyed to Lu.

  Though nominated on 14 June 1913, the formal appointment of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Henry McMahon, secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, as the British plenipotentiary for the Simla Convention was conveyed only on 13 August 1913 by a Royal Commission that addressed the affairs of Tibet. It empowered him ‘to sign any Convention, Agreement or Treaty which may be concluded at this Conference’.6 As a young captain twenty years earlier, McMahon had accompanied Durand on his mission to Kabul and had spent two hard years demarcating the Durand Line. By 1914, McMahon had been knighted and was functioning as foreign secretary of the Indian government. He possessed remarkable moral strength, of the kind that Curzon must have had in mind when he spoke of the ‘frontier school of character’, where men were moulded ‘in the furnace of responsibility and on the anvil of self-reliance’. McMahon relished the creation and laying down of boundaries, holding it to be not a science but an art as articulated by Lord Curzon. Further, while describing the process of boundary evolution, Curzon had remarked, ‘so plastic and so malleable are its forms and manifestations’.7

  Besides McMahon, the British side comprised a formidable team of China and Tibet experts who carried immense experience of frontiers and their demarcation. McMahon played a key role in demarcation of the boundary between Afghanistan and Baluchistan during 1894–96, and during 1903–05 had headed the Seistan Mission as commissioner.8 Moreover, as foreign secretary, he was fully conversant with the Chinese forays in the Zayul and Pomed areas and had been also involved in the planning of all exploratory and survey missions along the Himalayan frontiers, along with the General Staff of the army. He had a deep understanding of the geopolitical and strategic issues that needed to be addressed while evolving the rationale for delineating an appropriate boundary. During the Simla Conference, he was accommodated in a wonderful cottage, called Knockdrin, on the Ridge in that town. This cottage is at present the Officer’s Mess of Indian Army’s Training Command.

  Charles Bell, the political officer in Sikkim, and Archibald Rose, an experienced consular official working on Tibetan affai
rs at the Peking Legation, were appointed as McMahon’s assistants. Bell, a noted Tibetologist, had been given the charge of looking after the thirteenth Dalai Lama during his exile in Darjeeling from 1910 to 1912, as we know. He was nominated for his ‘requisite’ local knowledge of Tibetan affairs9 and, importantly, also because of his extremely close rapport with the Grand Lama. Rose was endowed with a profound knowledge of China and the Chinese government. He had performed exceedingly well as British consul at Tengyueh near the Burma border from 1909 to 1911. Rose’s selection was commented upon as an ‘admirable one’ by the India Office at London.

  As a matter of fact, the Chinese would have preferred the talks to be held in London rather than in India, as they considered Whitehall to be more sympathetic to them than the Government of India. This view was dismissed, as it found no support on the British side.

  The Chinese were extremely wary that the British and the Tibetans might go ahead with direct negotiations. Yuan Shih-k’ai told Jordan that he was considering nomination of Chang Yin-tang as the Chinese representative for these deliberations. However, Jordan was quick to object to this and suggested the name of Ivan Chen instead. Ivan was former counsellor of the Chinese mission in London and was currently commissioner for foreign affairs at Shanghai. Based on experiences of the recent past, Chang had not proved to be a success, and was therefore unacceptable, Jordan told Yuan.10 After prevaricating and raising repeated objections to the tripartite nature of the conference on Tibet for a number of months, the Chinese president gave his assent to China’s participation in it, and Ivan Chen was nominated as the Chinese plenipotentiary on 6 June 1913.11