Fall of the Qing dynasty (1911) , showing Tibet as an
autonomous region of the Republic of China Tibet came under the rule of the
Qing dynasty of China in 1720 after the Qing
expelled the forces of the
Dzungar Khanate. But by the end of the 19th century, Qing authority in Tibet became little more than ritualistic and symbolic. In response to perceived
British encroachment in Tibet, however, the Qing dynasty launched an
expedition to the region in 1910 and decided to assert greater control over the region. Following the
Xinhai Revolution in 1911–1912, Tibetan militia launched a surprise attack on the Qing garrison stationed in Tibet after the
Xinhai Lhasa turmoil. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the Qing officials in
Lhasa were then forced to sign the "Three Point Agreement" for the surrender and expulsion of Qing forces in central Tibet. In early 1912, the
Government of the Republic of China replaced the Qing dynasty as the government of China and the new republic asserted its sovereignty over all the territories of the previous dynasty, which included 22 Chinese
provinces, Tibet, and
Outer Mongolia. This claim was provided for in the
Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor signed by the
Empress Dowager Longyu on behalf of the six-year-old
Xuantong Emperor: "...the continued territorial integrity of the lands of the five races,
Manchu,
Han,
Mongol,
Hui, and
Tibetan into one great Republic of China" (...). The
Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China adopted in 1912 specifically established frontier regions of the new republic, including Tibet, as integral parts of the state. Following the establishment of the new Republic, China's provisional President,
Yuan Shikai, sent a telegram to the
13th Dalai Lama, restoring his earlier titles. The Dalai Lama spurned these titles, replying that he "intended to exercise both temporal and ecclesiastical rule in Tibet." In 1913 he returned to Lhasa and issued a proclamation that stated that the relationship between Beijing and Tibet "had been that of
patron and priest and had not been based on the subordination of one to the other." "We are a small, religious, and independent nation," the proclamation stated. In January 1913,
Agvan Dorzhiev and three other Tibetan representatives signed a
treaty between Tibet and Mongolia in
Urga, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. The British diplomat
Charles Bell wrote that the 13th Dalai Lama told him that he had not authorized Agvan Dorzhiev to conclude any treaties on behalf of Tibet. Because the text was not published, some initially doubted the existence of the treaty, but the Mongolian text was published by the
Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1982.
Simla Convention (1914) In 1913–1914, a conference was held in
Simla between the British India, Tibet, and the
Republic of China. The British suggested dividing Tibetan-inhabited areas into an Outer and an Inner Tibet (on the model of an earlier agreement between China and
Russia over Mongolia). Outer Tibet, approximately the same area as the modern
Tibet Autonomous Region, would be autonomous under Chinese
suzerainty. In this area, China would refrain from "interference in the administration." In Inner Tibet, consisting of eastern
Kham and
Amdo, China would have rights of administration and Lhasa would retain control of religious institutions. When negotiations broke down over the specific boundary between Inner and Outer Tibet, the boundary of Tibet defined in the convention also included what came to be known as the
McMahon Line, which delineated the Tibet-India border, in the
Assam Himalayan region. The boundary included in India the
Tawang tract, which had been under indirect administration of Tibet via the control of the Tawang monastery. The
Simla Convention was initialled by all three delegations, but was immediately rejected by Beijing because of dissatisfaction with the boundary between Outer and Inner Tibet. McMahon and the Tibetans then signed the document as a bilateral accord with a note denying China any of the rights under the convention until it signed. The British Government initially rejected McMahon's bilateral accord as being incompatible with the
1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. The 1907 Anglo-Russian Treaty, which had earlier caused the British to question the validity of Simla, was renounced by the Russians in 1917 and by the Russians and British jointly in 1921. Tibet, however, altered its position on the McMahon Line in the 1940s. In late 1947, the Tibetan government wrote a note presented to the
newly independent Indian
Ministry of External Affairs laying claims to Tibetan districts south of the McMahon Line. According to
Alastair Lamb, by refusing to sign the Simla documents, the Chinese Government had escaped giving any recognition to the McMahon Line.
After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1933 Since the expulsion of the
Amban from Tibet in 1912, communication between Tibet and China had taken place only with the British as mediator. Direct communications resumed after the 13th Dalai Lama's death in December 1933, when China sent a "condolence mission" to Lhasa headed by General
Huang Musong. Soon after the 13th Dalai Lama died, according to some accounts, the
Kashag reaffirmed its 1914 position that Tibet remained nominally part of China, provided Tibet could manage its own political affairs. In his essay
Hidden Tibet: History of Independence and Occupation published by the
Library of Tibetan Works and Archives at Dharamsala,
S.L. Kuzmin cited several sources indicating that the Tibetan government had not declared Tibet a part of China, despite an intimation of Chinese sovereignty made by the Kuomintang government. Since 1912, Tibet had been
de facto independent of Chinese control, but on other occasions it had indicated willingness to accept nominal subordinate status as a part of China, provided that Tibetan internal systems were left untouched, and provided China relinquished control over a number of important ethnic Tibetan areas in Kham and Amdo. In support of claims that China's rule over Tibet was not interrupted, China argues that official documents showed that the National Assembly of China and both chambers of parliament had Tibetan members, whose names had been preserved all along.—but the Tibetans claim that they rejected China's proposal that Tibet should be a part of China, and in turn demanded the return of territories east of the Drichu (
Yangtze River). In response to the establishment of a Chinese office in Lhasa, the British obtained similar permission and set up their own office there. The
1934 Khamba Rebellion led by Pandastang Togbye and
Pandatsang Rapga broke out against the Tibetan Government during this time, with the Pandatsang family leading Khamba tribesmen against the
Tibetan Army.
1930s to 1949 as a young boy. In 1935, Lhamo Dhondup was born in Amdo in eastern Tibet and recognized by all concerned as the incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. Similar to his predecessor Thubten Gyatso who was approved by the Central Government of China in 1877 to be exempted from the lot-drawing process using
Golden Urn to become the
13th Dalai Lama On 26 January 1940, the Regent
Reting Rinpoche requested the Central Government of China to exempt Lhamo Dhondup from the lot-drawing process using the
Golden Urn to become the 14th Dalai Lama, and the Chinese government approved. After a ransom of 400,000
silver dragons had been paid by Lhasa to the Hui Muslim warlord
Ma Bufang, who ruled
Qinghai (Chinghai) from Xining, Ma Bufang released him to travel to Lhasa in 1939. He was then enthroned by the Ganden Phodrang government at the Potala Palace on the Tibetan New Year. issued by the
Government of the Republic of China on 1 January 1940 The
Kuomintang Government 'ratified' the current 14th Dalai Lama, and that Kuomintang representative General Wu Zhongxin presided over the ceremony; both the ratification order of February 1940 and the documentary film of the ceremony still exist intact. In 1942, the U.S. government told the government of Chiang Kai-shek that it had never disputed Chinese claims to Tibet. In 1944, the USA War Department produced a series of seven documentary films on
Why We Fight; in the sixth series,
The Battle of China, Tibet is incorrectly called a province of China (as the Chinese officially referred to the administrative division of Tibet as
Tibet Area, which was distinct from a province). In 1944, during
World War II, two Austrian mountaineers,
Heinrich Harrer and
Peter Aufschnaiter, came to Lhasa, where Harrer became a tutor and friend to the young Dalai Lama, giving him sound knowledge of Western culture and modern society, until Harrer chose to leave in 1949. Tibet established a Foreign Office in 1942, and in 1946 it sent congratulatory missions to China and India (related to the end of World War II). The mission to China was given a letter addressed to Chinese President
Chiang Kai-shek which states that, "We shall continue to maintain the independence of Tibet as a nation ruled by the successive Dalai Lamas through an authentic religious-political rule." The mission agreed to attend a Chinese constitutional assembly in Nanjing as observers. Under orders from the
Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek, Ma Bufang repaired the Yushu airport in 1942 to deter Tibetan independence. Chiang also ordered Ma Bufang to put his Muslim soldiers on alert for an invasion of Tibet in 1942. Ma Bufang complied, and moved several thousand troops to the border with Tibet. Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with bombing if they did not comply. In 1947, Tibet sent a delegation to the
Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi, India, where it represented itself as an independent nation. India based its position on recognising it as an independent nation until 1954. This may have been the first appearance of the Tibetan national flag at a public gathering.
André Migot, a French doctor who travelled for many months in Tibet in 1947, described the complex history and border arrangements between Tibet and China. Following the 1906 British expedition to Tibet, the Qing government attempted to reinforce its control over the region but was met with resistance. Chinese bannerman
Zhao Erfeng killed many Tibetans in Kham and attempted to create a new province called
Xikang. After the
1911 Revolution however, Chinese forces lost ground control beyond the city of
Kangding.
Annexation by the People's Republic of China In the year 1949, seeing that the Communists were gaining control of China, the Kashag government expelled all Chinese officials from Tibet despite protests from both the Kuomintang and the Communists. On 1 October 1949, the
10th Panchen Lama wrote a telegraph to Beijing, expressing his congratulations for the liberation of northwest China and the establishment of the People's Republic of China, and his excitement to see the inevitable liberation of Tibet. The
Chinese Communist government, led by
Chairman Mao Zedong, began reasserting Chinese presence shortly thereafter. In June 1950, the British government stated in the
House of Commons that His Majesty's Government "have always been prepared to recognise Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, but only on the understanding that Tibet is regarded as autonomous". In October 1950, the
People's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of
Chamdo, defeating sporadic resistance from the
Tibetan Army. In 1951, representatives of the Tibetan authorities, headed by
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, with the Dalai Lama's authorization, participated in negotiations in Beijing with the Chinese government. It resulted in the
Seventeen Point Agreement which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later. China described the signing of the agreement as the "peaceful liberation of Tibet". == Politics ==