FOREIGN RELATIONS WITH BHUTAN
On this occasion the interference of the Chinese Ambans at Lhasa cannot be construed as an act merely of their own initiative. The Indian Government received information from her Britannic Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires at Pekin that the Chinese were disposed to take the cause of the ex-Deb in hand and support him with Chinese troops, and in consequence of the attitude taken up by China the subsidy was withheld till the dispute between the opposing Debs was finally settled.
In 1890 there occurred a further symptom of the interest taken by China in Bhutan and of the intention of the Chinese Government to revive their former suzerainty over the country. The Assistant Resident in Tibet, who was afterwards promoted to be Principal Resident, in a memorial to his Government at Pekin, suggested that the two Penlops of Tongsa and Paro should be created Chieftains, and should at the same time be invested with a title of hereditary nobility by the Emperor of China. This proposal received the imperial sanction. Subsequently the Assistant Resident modified his proposal, and, in view of the fact that the executive administration was really vested in the Tongsa Penlop, the Paro Penlop being merely nominally associated with him in the government of the country, suggested that this distinction should be recognised, and that the former should be appointed Chieftain and the latter Sub-Chieftain. This was sanctioned by the Emperor in the Pekin Gazette of August 22, 1890.
Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister at Pekin, in his letter informing the Government of India of the step, adds:
“The action taken by the Resident in the present instance appears to be merely a continuation of the policy adopted by his predecessor in 1866, when, as reported in my Despatches Nos. 59 and 60 of the 9th and 15th November of that year, the Chinese Government asserted the right of controlling appointments to the posts of Raja or Penlop in Tibet. As explained in the second of my above-mentioned Despatches, the right of granting a patent of investiture
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