all to feel to some extent the effects of the Industrial Revolution
in England and the consequent quest by British merchants for
new markets and fresh sources of raw materials.

The Chinese, in their reaction to British attempts to establish
contact with these peripheral regions of their Empire, were also
influenced by general considerations of policy. As the nine-
teenth century developed, it seemed increasingly probable that
the outlying portions of the Chinese Empire would be absorbed
into the expanding empires of Russia, Britain and France. The
Manchu Dynasty was confronted with a succession of crises
along its frontiers, not only in Mongolia, Manchuria and
Korea, but also in Sinkiang, Tibet and Yunnan. There were re-
bellions by the Muslims of Sinkiang and Yunnan and the tribes-
men of Eastern Tibet. The Dalai Lama, or, during the frequent
minorities of this theocrat, the Lhasa Regency, did little to
conceal a desire to shake off the symbols of Chinese suzerainty.
On every frontier the Chinese were fighting what must have
seemed at times in Peking to be little more than a stubborn
rearguard action. Every stratagem of procrastination and
intrigue was employed to delay the apparently inevitable end;
and with considerable success, for neither did Sinkiang fall to
Russia nor did the French or the British acquire Yunnan; and
but for the outbreak of the Chinese Revolution in 1911 Tibet
would not have enjoyed its brief spell of independence. Thus
the Chinese neither welcomed British interest in that Chinese
territory which marched with the Indian border, nor did they,
except under duress, aid the extension of British commercial
and political influence into those regions. Disputes arising from
the existence of a common border between India and China
played an important part in the history of Anglo-Chinese rela-
tions in the nineteenth century just as they still are of signif-
icance today in the relations between Pakistan, India and Burma
and the Chinese People's Republic. This is an aspect of the
history of the foreign relations of China which has received
surprisingly little attention from European writers.

The history of this frontier was to a great extent affected by
local factors outside the direct control of British and Chinese
Governments. Each of the three regions of Chinese territory
touching this border possessed traditional relationships, political
religious and economic, with territory which came to be con-

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