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The PRC makes no claim to sovereign rights over Tibet as a result of its military subjugation and occupation of Tibet following its armed invasion in 1949/50. Indeed, the PRC could hardly make that claim, since it categorically rejects as illegal claims to sovereignty put forward by other states based on conquest, occupation or the imposition of unequal treaties. Instead, the PRC bases its claim to Tibet solely on the theory that Tibet became an integral part of China seven hundred years ago.
Early History
Although the history of the Tibetan state started in 127 B.C. with the establishment of the Yarlung Dynasty, the country as we now know it was first unified in the 7th Century A.D. under King Songtsen Gampo and his successors. Tibet was one of the mightiest powers of Asia for the three centuries that followed, as a pillar inscription at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa and Chinese Tang histories of the period confirm. A formal peace treaty concluded between China and Tibet in 821/823 demarcated the borders between the two countries and ensured that, "Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China."
Mongol Influence
As Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire expanded towards Europe in the West and China in the East in the 13th Century, Tibetan leaders of the powerful Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism concluded an agreement with Mongol rulers in order to avoid the conquest of Tibet. The Tibetan lama promised religious relationship became so important that when, decades later, Kublai Khan conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), he invited the Sakya Lama to become the Imperial Preceptor and supreme pontiff of his empire.
The relationship that developed and continued to exist into the 20th Century between the Mongols and the Tibetans was a reflection of the close racial, cultural and especially religious affinity between the two Central Asian peoples. The Mongol Empire was a world empire and, whatever the relationship between its rulers and the Tibetans, the Mongols never integrated the administration of Tibet and China or appended Tibet to China in any manner.
Tibet broke political ties with the Yuan emperor in 1350, before China regained its independence from the Mongols. Not until the 18th Century did Tibet again come under a degree of foreign influence.
Relations with Manchu, Corkha and British Neighbors
Tibet developed no ties with the Chinese Ming Dynasty (1386-1644). On the other hand, the Dalai Lama, who established his sovereign rule over Tibet with the help of a Mongol patron in 1642, did develop close religious ties with the Manchu emperors, who conquered China and established the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The Dalai Lama agreed to become the spiritual guide of the Manchu emperor, and accepted patronage and protection in exchange. This 'priest-patron' relationship (known in Tibetan as Choe-Yoen), which the Dalai Lama also maintained with some Mongol princes and Tibetan nobles, was the only formal tie that existed between the Tibetans and the Manchus during the Qing dynasty. It did not, in itself affect Tibet's independence.
On the political level, some powerful Manchu emperors succeeded in exerting a degree of influence over Tibet. Thus, between 1720 and 1792, Emperors Kangxi, Yong Zhen and Qianlong sent imperial troops to Tibet four times to protect the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people from foreign invasions by Mongols and Gorkhas or from internal unrest. These expeditions provided the Emperor with the means for establishing influence in Tibet. He sent representatives to the Tibetan capitol, Lhasa, some of whom successfully exercised their influence, in his name, over the Tibetan Government, particularly with respect to the conduct of foreign relations. At the height of Manchu power, which lasted a few decades, the situation was not unlike that which can exist between a superpower and a satellite or protectorate, and therfore one which, though politically significant, does not extinguish the independent existence of the weaker state. Tibet was never incorporated into the Manchu empire much less China, and it continued to conduct its relations with neighbouring states largely on its own.
Manchu influence did not last long. It was entirely ineffective by the time the British briefly invaded Lhasa and concluded a bilateral treaty with Tibet, the Lhasa Convention, in 1904. Despite this loss of influence, the imperial government in Peking continuted to claim some authority over Tibet, particularly with respect to its international relations, an authority which the British imperial government termed 'suzerainty' in its dealings with Peking and St. Petersburgh. Imperial armies tried to reassert actual influence in 1910 by invading the country and occupying Lhasa. Following the 1911 revolution in China and the overthrow of the Manchu empire, the troops surrendered to the Tibetan army and were repatriated under a Sino-Tibetan peace accord. The Dalai Lama reasserted Tibet's full independence internally, by issuing a proclamation, and externally, in communications to foreign rulers and in a treaty with Mongolia.
Tibet in the 20th Century
Tibet's status following the expulsion of Manchu troops is not subject to serious dispute. Whatever ties existed between the Dalai Lamas and the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty were extinguished with the fall of that empire and dynasty. From 1911 to 1950, Tibet successfully avoided undue foreign influence and behaved, in every repect as a fully independent state.
Tibet maintained diplomatic relations with Nepal, Bhutan, Britain and later with independent India. Relations with China remained strained. The Chinese waged a border war with Tibet while formally urging Tibet to 'join' the Chinese Republic, claiming all along to the rest of the world that Tibet already was one of China's "five races."
In an effort to reduce Sino-Tibetan tensions, the British convened a tripartite conference in Simla in 1913 where the three states met on equal terms. As the British delegate reminded his Chinese counterpart, Tibet entered the conference as 'an independent nation recognizing no allegiance to China."
China invaded Tibet in 1949. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s temporal and spiritual leader, tried for eight years to reach a peaceful solution to the Sino-Tibetan problem. In 1959 the cycle of resistance and brutal repression culminated in a national uprising against the Chinese on March 10th. Chinese troops crushed the uprising, killing over 87,000 tibetans in central Tibet alone. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, his government and some 80,000 Tibetans were forced into exile.
In Dharamsala, India, the Tibetan Government-in-exile has been reorganized along modern democratic lines with a parliamentray system of government. The Tibetan cabinet is elected by the 46-member Assembly of Tibetan people’s Deputies (the Tibetan parliament in exile). A Charter for the Tibetan exiles has been adopted and passed by the parliament in June 1991. As compared to the progress made by the Tibetans in exile, the situation in Chinese-occupied Tibet is grim. Tibetans, at the risk of torture, imprisonment, and execution, have never accepted the Chinese occupation of their country. In 1996 the Tibetan centre for Human Rights and Democracy recorded 204 known cases of arrests of Tibetans for exercising their freedom of xpression and assembly. Arrests have resulted from peaceful actions ranging from the possession of a picture of the Dalai Lama or the Tibetan national flag, the voicing of ‘Free Tibet’ or a non-violent demonstration of just a few minutes duration. Over 6,000 monasteries, temples and historic structures have been looted and razed, their ancient irreplaceable religious art and literature destroyed or sold by the Chinese. |
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