No. 142.
Mr. Seward
to Mr. Evarts.
Peking, January 12, 1880. (Received March 15.)
Sir: The following imperial decree was published on the 2d of this month:
Chung How, senior member of the censorate, who, in obedience to our commands, went as our minister abroad, having presumed, without awaiting our permission, to return to the capital, let him, in the first instance, be handed over to the board of civil office to be severely dealt with, and be deprived of office pending the decision of the board.
Let the convention which he has made, together with the several papers in regard to the matter sent up by the foreign office, be made the subject of further consideration and of a memorial by a council composed of the members of the Grand Secretariat, the six boards, the nine lower courts, the Han-lin, and the censorate.
Respect this.
Chung How, the minister so dealt with, went to Russia at the end of 1878 to open negotiations for the return to China of the province or district of Kuldja and the “convention” is the treaty which he made with the Russian Government.
This decree has attracted great attention here, as it will elsewhere. The minister in question was a member of the foreign office when appointed to go abroad. He was the superintendent of trade at Tientsin fifteen years ago, and was present in that city as such officer when the massacre of 1870 occurred.
He was sent to France thereafter to express the regrets of this government for the massacre. His mission was successfully performed, and upon his return he became a member of the foreign office.
In 1876 he was sent to Manchuria to take the command of that extensive and important region, and remained there until summoned to go to Russia.
He is a Tartar, and esteemed a man of unusually large experience and of great discretion. He bears the reputation of being almost overcautious, even for a Chinese official.
We are bound, of course, to accept the declaration that Chung How left Russia without permission. He was on a special mission, however, and had made a treaty. He may have regarded his work as done. His intention to return was known here months ago, in good season, if I am not mistaken, to permit of his being instructed by telegraph to remain at his post. He arrived at the capital on the afternoon of the day when the decree appeared.
The offense of a minister who leaves his post without permission may be regarded as serious, but it is unlikely that Chung How would have received anything beyond a reprimand had his treaty been considered satisfactory. As it is, those who are familiar with Chinese political life cannot lose sight of the fact that one minister who was concerned in foreign [Page 207] negotiations, Ki Ying, the signer on the Chinese side of the Gushing treaty, was condemned to death for a like offense. The Chinese have made much progress since then, and it is not at all probable that a like penalty will be visited upon Chung How, but the fact is significant of the view which the government may take of his alleged offense. We cannot expect to see him again, for a considerable period at any rate, in the foreign office, and this is much to be regretted, as he was one of the most experienced and ablest of its members, a man of mature, but not advanced years, and one whose career was expected, with much reason, to be an important one.
The evils which led up to the occupation of Kuldja by Russia, and the mission of Chung How, have extended over a considerable period, and are of much interest in various ways. Eastern Turkestan, a district of so-called Central Asia, has been for centuries the theater of disturbances and war. As it reached the frontier of China, and its unsettled condition affected the peace of the neighboring districts of the empire, it was subjugated by the Emperor Kien-lung, something more than a hundred years ago.
If you will take a map of Asia, you will remark two districts lying north-of Thibet. One of these, and the more extensive, is Kashgaria, extending from the Kuen Lun to the Tien-shan Mountains; the other is Kuldja, which lies to the north of the Tien-shan and south of the Altai Mountains, Lake Dzai-sang, and the river Irtish. The general region is known as Ili. Its eastern boundaries touch Kansuh, and its western Khokand and Badashan.
The whole region thus described is arid and cold. No cultivation is possible over a very large proportion of the territory, but near tie rivers and streams the soil is fertile. Kuldja is by far the best part, and is necessary to any power which aspires to control in those regions, for the reason that it is capable of producing large crops of grain, and of yielding sustenance to the armies needed to keep in subjection the warlike races who dwell there.
The population belongs to the several nations or clans which were in possession when they were conquered by China, the Chinese having gone into the country as its rulers and as merchants, but not to any extent as colonists. Those in the west are nearly all Mohammedans, and a large Mohammedan element extends eastward into Kansuh and Shensi.
It was to be expected that the people of this region would not be careless observers of the decay of Chinese power, which became apparent more than fifty years ago, and of the threatened overthrow of the ruling dynasty in 1852–’64, and it was altogether likely that the Mohammedan element, in particular, would seize the first opportunity to assert control in the districts where they were most numerous. Their revolts in Kweichow and Yunnan, in the southwest, and Shensi, Kansuh, and Hi, in the northwest, came late in the history of the great disturbances, of which the Taiping rebellion was the most serious, but they led to the independence, for the time being, of parts of Yunnan, much of Kansuh, and nearly all of Hi.
The insurgents in Ili were not to be allowed, however, the independence which they had conquered. Kashgaria soon fell under the domination of Yakoob Beg, otherwise known as Yakoob Khan and Athalik Ghazi, the most prominent figure in Central Asiatic politics of recent times. Kuldja, on the other hand, was occupied by Russia.
The Russians could not be unmindful of the value of this district. It was adjacent to their own territory and not distant from the scene of their military operations against Bokhara and Khiva. It was on the [Page 208] high road of trade between their territories in this region and those of China, and their merchants were settled in it. It was a necessary base for operations against Kashgaria, if these were projected. It was an open country on their side, but on the side of China defended by mountain barriers. The Russians accordingly occupied it, asserting, what was doubtless true, that its disordered state was intolerable to them. They made haste, however, to declare to China that they would restore the territory to her whenever she should be in a position to reoccupy it.
The suppression of the central or Taiping rebellion, which began in 1852, in the province of Kwangtung in the south, had controlled for more than ten years a large part of the lower valley of the Yangtse River, had taken, in fact, possession of the most fertile and populous portion of the empire, occupied the ancient capital of Nanking, and threatened the northern capital, occurred in 1862–’64. The imperial arms were then carried into the southwest and northwest; Yunnan and Kweichow were first reduced to order, and then Kansuh, and in 1876–’77 the reconquest of Ili was undertaken.
It seemed to many that the Chinese had undertaken, in this last direction, more than they were likely to accomplish. Yakoob Khan was a ruler who had conquered his possessions by the sword, and had consolidated his conquest by an administration so able that it had attracted attention throughout Asia. He had won his title of Ahbat el Ghazi, defender of the faith, by repeated evidences of devotion to his religion. He was the central figure of Mohammedan politics, whose summons might be expected to rally Mohammedan influence throughout the whole northwest.
The operations in China, however, went forward with a celerity begot of the experience of many years of bitter warfare, and a certainty that must have seemed ominous from the outset to the conqueror of Kashgaria. In less than two years the arms of China were victorious from the one end to the other of his dominions, the conquerer had perished, and his children and grandchildren were in flight.
Such was the situation at the beginning of 1879. The ancient territory of the empire, saving the encroachments of Russia of earlier years, and Kuldja, had been reconquered, and the victorious Chinese were on the borders of Kuldja, eager, to all appearances, to reassert by arms the rule of the empire as against that of Russia.
It was under these circumstances that the now degraded minister, Chung How, was sent to St. Petersburg. His duty undoubtedly was to arrange for the reoccupation of Kuldja by China. We cannot know here the details of his negotiation, but it has become certain that Chung How did not find his task an easy one. The occupation of Kuldja had extended over so many years that the obligation of Russia to return it to the Chinese might well have seemed to have lapsed by the efflux of time. Russian conquests had been pushed forward meanwhile, and possession of Kuldja may have become a matter of more importance in consequence. It is believed that the foreign office was steadfast in the determination to fulfill the pledge, but that the military party opposed the retrocession with great energy. It is probably true that certain difficulties in the way of retrocession had grown up in the years of Russian domination. Their merchants would have moved in and established themselves, and many refugees from Kashgaria, under Yakoob, and other surrounding districts during the period of disturbance, and during the period of Chinese reoccupation, would have flowed in upon them. All of these may have had reason to dread the return of the Chinese rule, and appealed [Page 209] to Russia not to destroy their asylum. In the main the more conciliatory councils appear to have prevailed.
It is not easy to define the policy of Russia towards China, but it is evident that it should be friendliness and respect. She has conterminous boundaries with China from Central Asia to the Pacific. She is consolidating conquests over the petty states of the center. She has room for the gratification of her ambition in developing the empire which she has already conquered, and which lies immediately before her. A struggle with China under such circumstances would be unnecessary and unwise.
I am inclined to think that these considerations are accepted as conclusive by the experienced statesmen of St. Petersburg, and that it was in part the general policy of the state, and in part disbelief that China would show vigor enough to reconquer Ili, which led to the promise to return Kuldja.
To the military party, however, such retrocession would have seemed portentous of disaster. It would be attributed in Central Asia to a fear of China, and would break down the prestige of their arms. It would give away territory very valuable for military purposes.
It is not singular that under these circumstances a middle course was adopted by Russia. I am not able to place before you now the text of the treaty agreed upon by Chung How, but it appears that Russia retains under it, a considerable part of the territory of Kuldja, as much as three-tenths, according to native reports. It is significant that the territory retained lies along the Tien-shan range, commands the passes into Kashgaria, and embraces not a small part of the river land of the whole province. It may be that, regarded from the point of view of military men, Russia holds fast to the most valuable portion of the district. Of this, however, I am not well informed.
The treaty, it would appear, stipulates that China shall pay an indemnity of about two and a-half millions of dollars to Russia, in part for the indemnification of merchants, and in part for supplies furnished to China by the Russians, it may be for the expense of the occupation. Certain trading privileges are accorded to Russian frontier merchants.
When word reached here that Chung How had made the treaty it seemed to the members of the diplomatic services that he had gone very far in the direction of conciliation, not, perhaps, if regard should be had for the exigencies of the case, but certainly from the point of view of Chinese statesmen.
* * * * * * *
Upon examination of the spirit in which the members of this government would have received the news of Chung How’s stipulations with Russia, it becomes evident that they are full of danger for him. He had given away, as it would appear to Chinese statesmen, a portion of the national domain, and he has done this during the minority of the Emperor.
It is almost incredible that a Chinese statesman, trained to regard individual responsibility as inseparable from every public act, should have gone so far without positive authority from the government. It is well known that Chung How was in constant communication with the foreign office by telegraph, and the inference is strong from this fact and from the extreme caution which has marked his career, that he believed himself empowered to do what he did.
* * * * * * *
I have said that the Chinese troops on the boundaries of Kuldja have [Page 210] seemed anxious to reoccupy that district, It would appear now that their commander, the viceroy of Kansuh, Tso Chung Tang, one of the very ablest of Chinese statesmen, has not been pleased that his great successes in Hi should be detracted from by a failure to rectify completely the frontier, and that he has assailed Chung How’s treaty with vehemence, going so far as to prefer against him the charge of high treason.
We come now to conditions which no one among the foreign representatives appears to understand. Is it really the foreign office which is on trial, or is it true that Chung How has exceeded his instructions? Is it a movement which has regard to the given question only, or is it a stroke of policy on the part of the conservative and reactionary party, based upon a doubtful act of the Yamên, which may be considered to represent the more progressive element in the state! Or, may it not be, after all, a sagacious movement on the part of the Yamên itself, so directed as to draw the whole government into the discussion, and to demonstrate that Chung How has really done as well as could have been expected?
Without attempting to wade into the depths of the political waters of this capital, I incline to the opinion that the result, however it may affect individuals, will be the rejection of the treaty. I do not regard this as certain, but it does appear probable. If such shall prove to be the case, the further progress of the affair may take either one of two courses, which will not, at least for the moment, threaten an attempt to solve the difficulty by force of arms. It may be that the Chinese will, in such case, send another mission to Russia, or seek further recourse through the Russian legation here, or through negotiations to be conducted by Tso Chung Tang on the frontier. Or it may be that they will content themselves by rejecting the treaty, and by protesting against the failure of Russia to discharge her promise to return the territory in question.
If I am right as to Russian policy, that government will not long allow the question to disturb her relations with China.
There is an obvious way out of the difficulty, that of demanding a larger indemnity and of yielding up the rest of the territory in consideration of the increased sum paid. The Chinese may not like the alternative, but they will not like the alternative of war, and they may either accept such a proposal or content themselves by leaving the question open to be dealt with at some later moment, when the situation may be more favorable for its solution.
It is said that the conclave of high officials created by the decree which I quoted in beginning this dispatch, is now in session; but it is not certain that this is the case, nor easy to predict when their work will be completed. There has been no other such conclave since I have been resident here; but they are a part of the Chinese system of government, although very infrequently called into existence. I have, &c.,