The Facts | Tibet's History | Tibet's Relations with Neighbouring Peoples | Tibet in the 20th Century | The Invasion Of Tibet | Present Situation

Until 1950 Tibet was an independent nation with limited exposure to the rest of the world. An ancient country with a rich cultural tradition, its native religion, Bon, was later followed by the introduction of Buddhism in the 8th Century ACE. Religion was a unifying force among Tibetans; as was their language, music, literature, and art. The Dalai Lama is both political and spiritual leader of the country.

The current Dalai Lama (the 14th) was only 24 years old when this all came to an end in 1959 with the Lhasa uprising against Chinese occupation. The Chinese invasion in 1950 led to years of chaos which culminated in the overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans in the years following Tibet's annexation.

1. Tibet was invaded by China in 1950. Since that time, over 1.2 million have lost their lives, 6000 monasteries have been destroyed, and thousands of Tibetans have been imprisoned.

2. In Tibet today, there is no freedom of speech, religion, or press and arbitrary arrests are widespread.

3. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's political and spiritual leader, fled to India in 1959. He now lives among over 100,000 other Tibetan refugees and heads their government in exile.

4. Mass campaigns of forced abortion, and sterilisation of Tibetan women and Chinese colonisation threaten the survival of Tibet's unique culture. In some Tibetan provinces, Chinese settlers outnumber Tibetans 7 to 1.

5. In China massive human rights abuses continue. According to Chinese researcher, Dr Harry Wu, there up to twenty million Chinese citizens working in a vast network of slave-labour camps, known as Laogai.

6. Most of the Tibetan plateau lies above 4000 m and the region is the source of five of Asia's greatest rivers, which over 2 billion people depend upon. Since 1959, the Chinese government estimates that they have removed over $54 billion worth of timber. Over 80% of their forests have been destroyed, adding to the enormous problems of flooding in Bangladesh. Large amounts of nuclear and toxic waste have been dumped in Tibet.

7. Despite this catalogue of oppression and environmental destruction the British, and other governments, continue to support China economically. This commercial agenda shows a blatant lack of respect for such issues. Tibet can be used as a mechanism for change in human rights, women's rights, political, religious, and cultural freedom world-wide. Through a collective effort people can stand up and say "NO!" to governments and the business community who continue to ignore the suffering of Tibetans or exploit its resources.

The struggle for Tibet's independence symbolizes every human rights struggle. So, please, join the campaign.

Although the history of Tibetan culture can be traced back many millennia, with the pre-Buddhist Kingdom of Zhang-Zhung, the country as we know it was first unified in 1st Century BCE under King Nyatri Tsenpo and his successors. During the sixth and seventh Centuries Tibet became one of the mightiest powers in Asia, as witnessed by the inscription at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.

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."

Role of the Mongols

With the expansion of Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire towards Europe in the West and China in the East in the 13th Century, Tibetan leaders reached an agreement with the Mongol rulers in order to avoid the conquest of Tibet. In return Tibetans promised political loyalty, religious blessings and teachings in exchange for patronage and protection. This relationship became so important that when, decades later, Kublai Khan conquered China and established what was later termed by Chinese historians, "the Yuan Dynasty" (1279-1368), he invited the Sakya Lama to become the Imperial Preceptor and supreme pontiff of his empire. Relations developed and continued to exist into the 20th Century between the Mongols and Tibetans, a reflection of the cultural and 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 subsumed the administration of Tibet or appended Tibet to China in any manner. In fact Tibet broke political ties with the Khan 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.

Amidst chaotic scenes and gunfire a dying Tibetan is carried away
(pro-independence demonstration, Lhasa, 1st October 1987)

Tibet developed no ties with 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, developed close religious relations 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, himself Central Asian, 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 Manchus during the Qing Dynasty. It did not, in itself, affect Tibet's independence. On the political level, some 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 capital, 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 therefore 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. It is also important to record that the Manchu were themselves not Chinese, being a Central Asian people and more closely related to Tibet. Manchu influence did not last very long and was entirely ineffective by the time Britain invaded Lhasa and concluded a bilateral treaty with Tibet (Lhasa Convention, in 1904).

Despite this loss of influence, the imperial government in Peking continued 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. Petersburg, Russia. Chinese 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's status following the expulsion of Manchu troops is not subject to serious dispute. Whatever ties existed between the Dalai Lama 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 foreign influence and enjoyed all the privileges and rights of a fully independent state.

Tibet maintained diplomatic relations with Bhutan, Nepal, Britain and later with independent India. Relations with China however remain strained. The Chinese waged a border war with Tibet while formally urging Tibet to "join" the Chinese Republic, claiming all along to 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 representative of the three states met on equal terms. As the British delegation reminded his Chinese counterpart, Tibet entered the conference as an "independent nation recognising no allegiance to China." The conference was unsuccessful in that it did not resolve the difference between Tibet and China. It was, nevertheless, significant in that Anglo-Tibetans friendship was reaffirmed with the conclusion of bilateral trade and border agreements. In a Joint Declaration, Great Britain and Tibet bound themselves not to recognise Chinese suzerainty or other special rights in Tibet unless China signed the draft Simla Convention which would have guaranteed Tibet's greater borders, its territorial integrity and full autonomy.

China never signed the Convention, however, leaving the terms of the joint declaration in full force. Tibet conducted its international relations primarily by dealing with the British, Chinese, Nepalese and Bhutanese diplomatic missions in Lhasa, but also through government delegations travelling abroad.

When India became independent the British mission in Lhasa was replaced by an Indian one. During World War Two Tibet remained neutral, despite combined pressure from the United States, Great Britain, and China to allow passage of raw materials through Tibet. Tibet never maintained extensive international relations, but those countries with whom it did maintain relations treated Tibet as they would with any sovereign state. Its international status was in fact no different from, say, that of Nepal. Thus, when Nepal applied for membership of the United Nations in 1949, it cited its treaty and diplomatic relations with Tibet to demonstrate its international integrity.

Pro-independence demonstration Jokhang Square, Lhasa (1st October 1987)

The turning point of Tibet's history came in 1950, when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) first crossed into Tibet. After defeating the small Tibetan army and occupying half the country, the Chinese government imposed the so-called "17-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" on the Tibetan government in May 1951. Signed under duress, the agreement lacked validity under international law while the presence of 40,000 troops in Tibet, the threat of an immediate occupation of Lhasa left Tibetans little choice.

As armed resistance to the occupation escalated, particularly in Eastern Tibet, the Chinese repression, which included the destruction of religious buildings and the imprisonment of monks and other community leaders, increased dramatically. By 1959 the popular uprising culminated in massive demonstrations in Lhasa. By the time China crushed the uprising, 87,000 Tibetans were dead in the Lhasa region alone and the Dalai Lama had fled to India, where he now heads the Tibetan Government-in-exile, in Dharamsala, India. A bloody war of resistance was continued by Tibetans for nearly two decades, with some serious casualties being inflicted upon the Chinese. However, with the re-establishment of relations between the US and China in 1970 any limited support for the Tibetan freedom fighters dwindled away and their courageous war came to a halt.

In 1963, the Dalai Lama set out a constitution for a democratic Tibet which has, as far as has been possible, successfully implemented by the Government-in-exile. Meanwhile, violations of women's human rights, religious persecution, abuse of political prisoners, and the wanton destruction of religious and historic buildings by the Chinese regime have not dimmed the spirit of the Tibetan people in their struggle for independence.

Tibetans Shot for Taking Part in Pro-Independence Demonstrations-Kham, East Tibet 16th March 2008

In the course of Tibet's history, the country came under a degree of foreign influence only briefly during the 13th and 18th centuries. Few independent countries today can claim such a record. The following was noted by an Irish ambassador to the UN during the General Assembly debates on the question of Tibet;

"For thousands of years, for a couple of thousands years at any rate, (Tibet) was a free and as fully in control of its own affairs as any nation in this Assembly, and a thousand times more free to look after it own affairs than many of the nations here."

Within international law Tibet has not lost its statehood, it is an independent state under illegal occupation. Neither China's invasion nor the continuing occupation by the PLA has transferred Tibetan sovereignty to China. As pointed out earlier, the Chinese government has never claimed to have acquired sovereignty over Tibet by conquest.

Indeed, China recognise that the use or threat of force (outside the exceptional circumstances provided for in the UN Charter), the imposition of an unequal treaty, or the continued illegal occupation of a country can never grant an invader legal title to territory. Its claims are largely founded upon the misleading and false claim that because Tibet was under the influence of the Mongol Empire (as was China itself) it is thus a part of China. Many other countries were part of that same empire, is Beijing now laying claim to Poland, Hungary, Iraq, and Palestine? What China conveniently forgets is that it was ruled for large parts of its own history by foreign rulers, including the Mongols and Manchurians (Qing Dynasty). To distort the facts and appropriate their glorious conquests Chinese historians rewrote this period as the so-called Yuan Dynasty. In reality it was a period of foreign domination for China which, unlike Tibet, was under military occupation. Chinese claims on Tibet are nothing less than a deliberate fiction.

At the commencement of the 21st century Tibet and its people continue to resist Chinese occupation, mass protests for Tibetan independence erupted across Tibet during March and April 2008, which was brutally suppressed by a bloody-crackdown, as Beijing despatched thousands of security troops into Tibet.

The territory continues to experience high rates of population transfer from China, a process encouraged by the communist Chinese authorities, through a number of economic and social incentives. With the completion of the Beijing to Lhasa train-line those seeking to gain some economic advantage from settling in Tibet now have direct and easy access. Official Chinese figures for 2007-8 claimed that some 2 million people used the service, a worrying statistic indeed. The continuing Sinofication of Tibet has resulted in the transformation of Tibetan towns into Chinese dominated settlements, generating a troubling erosion of Tibetan culture, along with increased social problems such as prostitution and drug useage. The impact upon employment, health care, and education has left Tibetans thoroughly disadvantaged. Meanwhile, China has launched a campaign to forcibly resettle Tibetan nomads and farmers, a form of demographic aggression last witnessed during Stalinist Russia, into poor-quality and very basic concrete accomodation. This enforced resettlement is a deliberate assault upon a traditional and sustainable way-of-life, which Tibetans have enjoyed for thousands of years.

Internationally Tibet continues to receive limited and cynical political support from goverments, carefully avoiding any engagement with Tibet's status as an illegally occupied nation, and keen to maintain positive relations with Beijing. The emphasis has been to counsel the exiled Tibetan Government to enter into unconditional talks with China, to abandon any notion of independence, and to accept Chinese rule, in exchange for what has been termed 'genuine autonomy'. Despite overtures to commence negotiations communist China insists the exiled Tibetan administration is covertly seeking Tibetan independence, ignoring the repeated assurances of the Dalai Lama's Ofice, which has made significant concessions, including a committment to surrender Tibet's statehood and sovereignty.

That has proved a compromise too far to many Tibetans, and resulted in division wthin the Tibetan movement, loyal to the Tibetan leader, yet witnessing Tibetans inside Tibet facing bullets, torture and prison for demanding independence. Meanwhile outside the exiled Tibetan Government follows a course of appeasement, that has brought no meaningful progress. As one Tibetan scholar noted, is is time that the Tibetan government respected the political will of its people, honoured the historic and legal status of Tibet, and supported the revolution for Tibet's freedom and political independence.

Sources:

Tibet the Facts: Paul Ingram, Tibetan Young Buddhists Association, 1990.
The Status of Tibet: History, Rights and Prospects in International Law: Michael van Walt, Westview Press, Boulder, Colo., Wisdom Press, London, 1987.

With grateful thanks to Optimus and Students for a Free Tibet.