For the above reasons, the Home Government thought it necessary, before sanctioning a course which might be regarded as an attack on the integrity of the Chinese Empire, to be sure that such action could be justified by the previous action of Tibet, and they had, accordingly, come to the conclusion that it would be premature to adopt measures so likely to precipitate a crisis in the affairs of Tibet as those proposed by the Government of India. They would await, therefore, the result of their reference to the Russian Government, and after those explanations had been received they would be in a better position to decide on the scope to be given to the negotiations with China, and on the steps to be taken to protect India against any danger from the establishment of foreign influence in Tibet.
When the Russian assurances were at length received, the purport of the conversation Lord Lansdowne had held with the Russian Ambassador was at once communicated by telegram to the Viceroy, and on April 14 the Secretary of State, presuming that it would be necessary to include in the scope of the negotiations with China and Tibet the entire question of our future relations with Tibet, commercial and otherwise, asked the Viceroy for his views as to the form which these negotiations should now take, with special reference to the means to be adopted to insure that the conditions that might be arrived at would be observed by Tibet.
The Viceroy on April 16 replied that he had recently received from the delegate deputed by the Chinese Resident an intimation that if Yatung was not considered a suitable locality, they were willing to negotiate at any place acceptable to us. And he proposed, accordingly, to invite the Chinese Resident to depute delegates to meet our representative at Khamba Jong, which was the nearest inhabited place on the Tibetan side to the frontier in dispute near Giagong. The Viceroy proposed that our representative, with an escort of 200 men, should proceed to that place, while reinforcements were held in reserve in Sikkim, and that, should the Chinese and Tibetan representatives fail to appear, or should the former come without the latter, our representative should move forward to Shigatse or Gyantse, in order that the arrival of the deputations from Lhasa might be accelerated.