The Snow Lion and the British Lion continues.....

The 1890, 1904 and 1906 treaties, and the one with Russia in 1907, gave the British the buffer they wanted for their empire in India, and set the stage for their attempt to formalize the situation by holding the 1913-1914 Shimla conference. Tibet had just declared itself independent in 1913, after the collapse of the Manchu empire.

The Tibetans were at this time militarily pre-occupied since 1905 in dealing with the inroads being made into Amdo and Kham, started by the Chinese warlord Zhao Erfeng. Since 1910 the collapse of the Manchu empire had started another round of independent military adventurism against eastern Tibet by the neighbouring Chinese warlords, and the Tibetans certainly did believe that they would benefit from territorial adjustments and understandings reached.

THE SHIMLA CONFERENCE

When the British Government of India requested both Tibetan and Chinese participation at the proposed tripartite Shimla (Simla) conference, the Chinese were very reluctant to participate on an equal footing with the Tibetans. The aim of the proposed conference was to solve the Tibetan ‘problem’, to secure for British India a buffer zone between the British Empire and China, and thus ensure peace and stability in the region. But the Chinese were being pressurized by other factors, in addition to the modernization of the Tibetan army. They were worried that British India and Tibet might sign another Lhasa Convention, which they might not even be asked to ratify.

They knew that the Dalai Lama, during his long self-imposed exile in Darjeeling (1910-1912), had become close to Charles Bell, the Political Officer in Sikkim. The Tibetan army had become well-organised, and imported arms and ammunition had arrived. Most of the territory in Kham captured by Zhao Erfeng had been re-captured by Tibetan government troops sent from Lhasa. After the agreement signed between independent Tibet and Mongolia, Mongolia had come under Russian control. It seemed possible that Tibet would soon come into the British sphere of influence, if they did not attend the proposed tripartite conference. Thus the Chinese felt they had no alternative but to attend.

To be continued.....