belief that their possession would open up opportunities for trade with
the interior of China. At first it was hoped to use the Salween,
Mekong and Red Rivers as access routes, and when these proved
unnavigable, railways were planned. Only the line from Hanoi to
Kunming was built, however, and the volume and value of trade never
lived up to expectations.
The arrival of European powers on China’s southern frontiers
worried Beijing. For the first time a serious security threat existed
along previously peaceful, if poorly defined frontiers with cooperative
tributary states. European intentions were unclear and European
demands unreasonable. Clearly defined borders had to be marked out
in areas inhabited by non-Chinese over whom Chinese jurisdiction
was questionable. Negotiations over just where the frontier should lie
were longer and more involved in the case of Burma than for Vietnam,
where an agreed division of administrative responsibility already
existed. Laos proved more contentious for the French, but an agree-
ment was signed in 1895. An initial Anglo–Chinese agreement on
Burma actually recognised a degree of continuing Chinese suzerainty,
but this was eliminated in the 1894 and 1897 treaties defining the
Burma–China border. These agreements still left some issues unre-
solved, however, and as late as 1947 Nationalist China laid claim to a
portion of Burmese territory. The communists, of course, viewed all
such treaties with imperialist powers as unequal, and thus needing to
be renegotiated.
The late Qing and overseas Chinese in
Southeast Asia
The lifting of restrictions on travel did not just legalise the coolie
trade, it changed the whole relationship between the Nanyang
Chinese and Qing officialdom. For as long as overseas Chinese were
considered as truant subjects, and so little better than criminals, any
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia