ABSTRACT
The Lord Curzon-Younghusband policy had been directed towards the exclusion or neutralization of Russian influence in Tibet by means of the establishment of an appropriate measure of British influence. The western part of Tibet, the world of the Dalai Lama’s theocracy, was very much on the outer frontier of the Chinese world. Central to the Tibetan policy devised by Curzon and Younghusband was the establishment of some form of permanent British representation in the administrative centre of Tibet, there both to combat possible Russian intrigues and to conduct the normal business of relationships across a mutual frontier. In the negotiation of a new set of Trade Regulations specified in the Lhasa Convention, which opened in the summer of 1907, the British managed to ensure the presence of Tibetan as well as Chinese representatives. The whole tone of the 1908 Trade Regulations gave support to the Chinese position as overlords in Tibet, though a certain number of ambiguities remained.
