But the Government of India again replied that they wished to pursue a policy of conciliation, and did not wish to make any serious representations to the Chinese Government. They repeated that trade had increased, and as regards demarcation of the frontier, they understood from a further report of Mr. Nolan’s that the Tibetans claimed a strip of territory near Giagong, in the north of Sikkim, and these claims the Government of India considered it would not only be impolitic but inequitable to ignore. The Viceroy therefore wrote to the Chinese Resident, suggesting that Chinese and Tibetan delegates should be sent to Gantok, the capital of Sikkim, to meet Mr. White there, and proceed with him to Giagong to make a local inquiry, but that no actual demarcation should take place until the reports of the results of the inquiry had taken place.
And so the game rolled on, and nothing whatever resulted. The Chinese Resident was superseded, and the Chinese asked that action should be deferred till the new one arrived. The new Resident came, and wrote that the Tibetans are "naturally doltish, and prone to doubts and misgivings," and it would be best therefore that they should “personally inspect the line of demarcation mentioned in the treaty,” though a Tibetan representative had been with the Chinese Amban when the Convention was made, and had ample opportunity during the years that agreement took in negotiating to inspect and to give the views of his Government upon it. And so it resulted that when, at the conclusion of five years from the signing of the Trade Regulations, the Secretary of State asked the Government of India for “a full report, both on the progress made since the date of that agreement towards the settlement of the frontier, and on the extent to which the trade stipulations of the treaty and Convention had been operative,” the Bengal Government had to reply[10] that the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet, as laid down in Article I. of the Convention, had not yet been demarcated, owing to the refusal of the Tibetans to abide by the terms of the Convention, and to their claiming a tract of land to the north of Donkya-la, Giagong, and the Lonakh Valley; and that the trade stipulations contained in the Regulations, had been inoperative. The Tibetans had prevented Yatung becoming a real trade-mart; absolutely no business was transacted there, and it was merely a registering post for goods passing between Tibet and India, and the proclamation of the place as a mart had in no way influenced the trade between the two countries, for what small increase there was appeared to be mainly due to, and might have been expected from, the restoration of peace between the British Government and Tibet.