Talk:Tibet

For older discussion, see Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5

Talk page archive (number 5)

This is an objective, unbiased eye-witness account of the March 14 Tibetan riots. Please look into it, whoever is writing this part. It is proof that the Chinese security force has exercised great restraint before the use of force. Also the description of the riot was sparked off.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875823 Yewhock (talk) 16:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Please fix bad grammar + Spelling

The article seems closed to editions. The following is a grammar correction, not a contribution of substance and I hope not controversial. Would someone with edit access please make the correction?

"Tibetan exiles, in turn, consider the maintenance of this arrangement from the 18th century as part of a divide-and-rule policy."

"Consider as" is incorrect in this sense. (See e.g. Strunk and White.) It is used in contexts like "We consider Tibet as a geographical area" (as opposed to "as an issue to be discussed", "as a historical notion" etc.).

The sentence should be

 Tibetan exiles, in turn, consider the maintenance of this arrangement from the 18th century
 to be part of a divide-and-rule policy.

Fuchsias (talk) 13:05, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Please make following spelling correction: "The defeat subsequently led to he signing of the Seventeen point agreement by the Tibetan Government" Correct the "he signing" to "the signing"

Tibet is not only for Tibetans

There many nationalities besides Han (Chinese) and Zang(Tibetans) living in Tibet. Who are they and what about their rights?Lie-Hap-Po (talk) 16:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No new topics have recently been started on here, and the only recent messages have been replying to long gone topics, so I have archived the talk page which is now here Talk:Tibet/Archive 5. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 02:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Tawang region is the only part of Arunachal Pradesh that was traditionally under Tibetan suzerainity(verified numerous times by Tibetan gov. in exile)an not the entire Arunachal(although China certainly claims most of Arunachal), which is far fetched as 90% of Arunachal lies to the south of the Himalayan watershed that has traditionally formed the boundary between Tibet and its neighbors to the south. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.145.64.216 (talk) 02:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

and who define Tibet border to Himalayan? Pls back with creditable source instead of making geographical estimation and assumption so we can discuss. also the tibetan GiE can't really make claim on india without being kick out; i would like to see british records and map as well as those of qing for comparision, i think that should be a fair way to judge. Akinkhoo (talk) 01:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Reincarnation Application

The Reincarnation Application article is related to the Tibet article, but I'm not sure how to tie it in. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Clerks. 17:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

? Provide an explanation, please. What's the "Reincarnation Application?" Prowikipedians (talk) 11:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Try looking it up on Wikipedia—that's often a good way to learn about new things.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 12:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Reverts

I with no doubts reverted this kind of vandalism-liked edits [1]. Removing the added citation(s) is probably regarded as vandalism. - 219.73.11.127 03:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak for the user who removed your edits, but you are incorrect in your vandalism comments. Your edits were not all sourced for a start. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 04:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

-PLEASE-! Just tell me which part of my edit is unsourced! Oh, BTW, is this incorrect in the first place if someone reverts my edits including [2] and [3]? --219.73.11.127 04:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I need to go, but by all means I will answer you tomorrow. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 04:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to go! Kindly note that I will be glad to add citations if you find out if ANY of my edits is unsourced. - 219.73.11.127 04:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Just because something is sourced does not allow it to be included. Sources must be verifiable and reliable. See WP:VERIFY. Propaganda literature does not fall into this category. --Strothra 04:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

What propaganda literature? Are these [4] [5]? Point it out!219.73.11.127 04:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you mean Grunfeld? please note that Grunfeld sources have been widely used on wikipedia. And note that the book name is already listed on Reference [1]. I dont need to add book name everytime.219.73.11.127 05:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be why I reverted my previous comment. --Strothra 05:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So? Could you please revert your own edits, so that I will not fall into the 3RR trap.219.73.11.127 05:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems that you'll need to gain consensus before adding any additional information - I don't frequent this article or this topic, but will oppose any unilateral additions against consensus at this time. The information you are attempting to add is disputed by multiple established editors. Please propose the specific sourced information you'd like to add on this talk page (or at least any new sources). Also, refrain from calling established editors "vandals." --Strothra 05:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You dont know what you are talking about. I didn't add information here [6] [7]! I added citation per request and you reverted. I corrected factual inaccuracy (Qing Dynasty being overthrown after the ROC was established) and you reverted. Secondly, point out what established consensus that I go against? Are you saying wikipedia editors shall claim authority over sources like Grunfeld? According to wikipedia guidelines which(and How) editors are classified as "established" and which are not? FYI, I have already forwarded this POV case to another admin who is a well-known editor on Tibet. Have a nice day! 219.73.11.127 05:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Clearly your edits have been reverted on every occasion by other editors of the article. You cannot force edits into an article against consensus, see WP:CONSENSUS. Further, your IP address has a history of policy violations making it difficult, if not impossible to assume good faith. You can easily remedy this by registering and forming a positive contribution history. --Strothra 05:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense, it is you who still have not shown me what exact consensus on Talk:Tibet I have violated! Try take a look carefully of my whole History of Edits on other wikipedia articles before you make false accusation. 219.73.11.127 05:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If so, for example, Strothra, what kind of bias you've seen in my edit here [8] 219.73.11.127 06:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Grunfeld's book has attracted considerable criticism as being biased - in particular in: History as Propaganda, Tibetan Exiles versus the People's Republic of China, by John Powers, Oxford University Press, 2004 - see, for example, the interesting reviews of The Making of Modern Tibet on Amazon.com. It's statements should therefore, I believe, be treated with appropriate caution. John Hill 05:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, John. I've noticed that from some of the searches I've been doing since I took interest in this little edit war. --Strothra 05:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I have few questions for you all. Firstly, I read John Powers's book one and a half yrs ago, he also points out there are also many pro-Tibet bias among the Tibetan sources, including Warren Smith's "Tibetan Nation", Tibet.com, human rights organizations....etc. However, I see there are plenty of similar stuff long quoted on Tibet. Should we also remove those? Aren't these double standards?

Secondly, for example, on the case of PLA military operation in 1951, using the words "PLA entered" and "PLA invaded" are both POV, thats why I use the compromising "controversially invaded". Isn't it constructive? Why removed?

Thirdly, being heavily criticised is not a prerequisite for classification of "Bias". We can not just remove sources simply because editors don't like it. Am I right? FYI, Grunfeld's sources have existed on Tibet for yrs, all along no editors has ever proved that what exact account from him is biases?

For example, JH, what kind of bias you've seen in my edit here [9] .

Generally you cannot claim one's sources on Tibet(e.g. Grundeld's) as bias just because John Powers says so, you have to prove by showing us the challenging/rebutting sources. If Grunfeld claims China military operation as "Liberation", then of course it is biased, but he is telling us some historical facts/events taking place on which date, then of course we should not revert with no proof.

Honestly I smell heavy POV here.219.73.11.127 06:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply to 219.73.11.127

Dear 219.73.11.127:

You have given Grunfeld as the authority for the following passage in the article:

On 1 July 1914, London ordered Henry McMahon, their chief negotiator, not to sign solely with the Tibetans whose legal status is disputed, Tibetan representatives, however, secretly signed under the pressure of McMahon on 3 July. The pact that was signed was somewhat different from the one initialed in April and the Chinese representatives were not permitted in the room when the treaty was signed and was not informed of the changes which includes the details regarding the British annexation of territory."

The current Encyclopædia Britannica gives quite a different slant on these same events

"McMahon Line

frontier between Tibet and Assam in British India, negotiated between Tibet and Great Britain at the end of the Simla Conference (October 1913–July 1914) and named after the chief British negotiator, Sir Henry McMahon. It runs from the eastern border of Bhutan along the crest of the Himalayas until it reaches the great bend in the Brahmaputra River where that river emerges from its Tibetan course into the Assam Valley.

Delegates of the Chinese republican government also attended the Simla Conference, but they refused to sign the principal agreement on the status and boundaries of Tibet on the ground that Tibet was subordinate to China and had not the power to make treaties. The Chinese maintained this position until the frontier controversy with independent India led to the Sino-Indian hostilities of October–November 1962. In that conflict the Chinese forces occupied Indian territory south of the McMahon Line but subsequently withdrew after a ceasefire had been achieved."

Now, I have no way of telling whether the McMahon Pact" was really signed in secret and "the Chinese representatives were not permitted in the room" or whether "they refused to sign the principal agreement on the status and boundaries of Tibet on the ground that Tibet was subordinate to China and had not the power to make treaties."

There is obviously a serious difference of opinion here (serious enough, apparently, to have led to war between China and India). So, it would seem to me that these differences should be discussed in a balanced way and both positions duly noted in the article.

Oh, and by the way, please use my proper name, John Hill, and not initials or other abbreviations. I make a point of always taking personal responsibility for what I say on the Wikipedia and signing everything with my real name. If I make mistakes I am happy to correct them or apologise if and when necessary. Sincerely, John Hill 07:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi John,

Please forgive if using initial is an offense. Encyclopedia Britannica is an encyclopedia, it means it's also secondary sources like wiki. Try to read word by word, EB's content does not say the Convention was signed openly by all three parties in the single room. It means EB doesn't, at least technically, deny/rebut any Grundfeld "claim", and two sources can of course co-exist with no problems.

Here are Grunfeld account, which I found no Bias, in a more detailed way, p67:

“ "Even the signing was shrouded in controversy. The initialing took place in April 1914. On 1 July the India office in London cabled McMahon with instructions that if the Chinese refused to sign the agreement, he should abandon the talks, promising the Tibetans 'that if the Chinese aggression continues Tibet may count on diplomatic support of His Majesty's Government and on any assistance which we can give in supplying munitions of war'[note54]...(New paragraph) The following day McMahon cabled back that the Tibetans would be satisfied with the initialing only. London immediately responded with an order to McMahon not to sign solely with the Tibetans, but to act as instructed in the 1 July cable. This reply, however, reached Simla too late, for McMahon had gone ahead with the signing on 3 July. The pact that was signed was somewhat different from the one initialed in April. Chen was not permitted in the room when the treaty was signed and was not informed of the changes" [Note 54: Quoted by Grunfeld from W.F. Van Eskelen, "Simla Convention and McMahon Line", RCAJ, 1967] ”

Grunfeld provided more details, instead of opposite viewpoints. Even pro-Tibet source (as John Powers claims) like Warren Smith's "Tibetan Nation" recognizes that the Chinese knew nothing about the secret Tibeto-UK agreement on the boundaries. Interestingly, even the British government itself initially rejected McMahon's bilateral accord as incompatible with the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention which prevent any foreign state from signing treaties solely with the Tibetans. [Goldstein, 1989, p80]

Isn't it Secret?- 219.73.11.127 07:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear User (I don't want to use the number - it sounds too dreadful): Thank you for your detailed reply which makes the whole issue much clearer. Still, one wonders how much of the controversy was due to the Chinese representative being excluded or whether he (they?) refused to sign? It seems to me there is still a clear difference of opinion here. I don't have time to research this at the moment (nor do I have easy access to the necessary research material), but I think that maybe the passage should be very carefully examined and perhaps rewritten. The Wikipedia article should obviously be worded so the British, Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese points of view are fairly dealt with so that it doesn't become an on-going point of contention. One wonders how the positions on this issue are described nowadays by the Chinese and Indian Governments as well as the Tibetan Government-in-exile? Regards, John Hill 08:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

TGIE mentioned nothing about the exact signing of the Simla draft as well as the status of the secret agreement, and the government-in-exile is itself hardly an NPOV source. It is however worth nothing that in 1947, when Lhasa affirmed that Britain's promise of militarily helping Tibet gain independence is no longer materialized, Lhasa sent a note exchange to the newly-independent Indian Government claiming territories south of the McMahon line.(Alastair Lamb, "The McMahon line : a study in the relations between India, China and Tibet, 1904 to 1914", 1966), de facto renouncing the Anglo-Tibetan "agreement". I think it is enough to provide hints for you on Kashag's (not TGIE) view on the McMahon Line. Besides, the highest authority in Lhasa even knew not much about the terms in the Simla documents. M.C. Goldstein's A History of Modern Tibet, notes that

"Not surprisingly, feeling was strong in Lhasa that Shatra had given up too much. The Dalai Lama himself was unhappy and later asked [Charles] Bell 'Why was Tibet divided into two'... "

Britain's view on the Simla documents is complicated, but there are at least some hints provided:

"The Government of India have read with interest your summary of the advantages gained by Tibet and ourselves under the Simla Convention, but that interest is necessarily purely academic since the Simla Convention has not been signed by the Chinese Government or accepted by the Russian Government and is, therefore, for the present invalid" [Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Sept 1915]

Regarding third-party sources, in addition to Warren Smith's Tibetan Nation which clearly affirms the existence Anglo-Tibetan secret agreement. Grunfeld account's verifiability on the secret Agreement can be seen through the sources he quoted. As a cross-examination,

"the document reveal responsible officials of British India to have acted to the injury of China in conscious violation of their instructions; deliberately misinforming their superiors in London of their actions; altering documents whose publication had been ordered by Parliament; lying at an international conference table; and deliberately breaking a treaty between the UK and Russia" [Rubin, Alfref P., "Review of the McMahon Line", American Journal of International Law, 1967]

Grunfeld's own notes claim that this viewpoint, on the UK gov cheating other parties, is supported by:

• Josef Kolmas "Some Formal Problems of Negotiations and Results of the Simla Conference", Tibet Journal (Vol. 16:1), 1991
• Josef Kolmas "Was Tibet of 1913-1914 Fully Sui Iuris to Enter into Treaty Relations with Another State?", Archiv Orient' 'aln 'I, 1972
• Parshotam Mehra, "Tibet and its Political Status: An Overview", Indo-British Review (Vol.: 18:2), 1990

Alastair Lamb's "The McMahon line : a study in the relations between India, China and Tibet, 1904 to 1914"(London, 1966), which I read two yrs ago, affirmed what Grunfeld(and many other experts) claims on p67. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy right now, but I try my best to quote it in a very near future here on talk page.

As I think the verifiability is confirmed, kindly let me quote more from Grunfeld:

"there could be no doubt as to who was conducting the conference and for whose benefit. During the entire six months of the talks, British and Tibetan officials were meeting secretly to discuss trade matters and the demarcation of the frontiers. Not only were the Chinese delegates not invited to these talks, they were not even informed of their existence. Moreover, the British were secretly monitoring all the cable communications between the Chinese delegation at Simla and their government in China. In the end, Britain pressured Chen into initialing the pact prior to his government's approval, threating to omit any mention of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet if he refused. Chen agreed, but only after making it clear that there was a considerable gulf between initialing and signing and that the latter could only be done by the government in Beijing." [Grunfeld, p67]

For reference, the Chinese view is here

219.73.11.127 11:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding verfiability. please read WP:VERIFY's official definition (NOT individual editor's own def.):

"Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source."

While the page number (unless it's an article instead of a book) and more details regarding the publisher/publication already provided, the cited sources can be proven having met the above requirements. Individual editors should stop further abusing the tag.

--219.73.11.127 03:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to add to the above, this article contains what appears to be some sources that fail verifiability or at least appear to fail verifiability. And when I say that I mean from both pro-PRC and pro-Tibetan independence views. For instance note 44 is not a source at all, just a sentence saying "The petition of 10th Panchen Lama in 1962". That is not providing a reliable and verifiable source" certainly not the format. In addition is it not usual, as this is, after all, the English language wikipedia, for sources to be in English? (see notes 82 and 83) I fully admit I am not sure about that, bit for some reason I seem to remember reading it somewhere, if I am wrong of course then fair enough. But as this is the English language wikipedia then surely sources should be in English to be verifiable by all users, and not just those who can speak both English and a Chinese language? With regard to Grunfeld sources, the IP user has a point in that there are already sources listed for Grunfeld (notes 1, 13, 25, 30) as well as a book being included in "Further reading". If new sources using Grunfeld as a source are being removed, then surely the sources that are already included should also be removed? There are other sources which may fail verifiability. For example notes 8, 24, 26, 31, 54, 60 (which includes a link to what appears to be a personal site?) and as said before - 44. Maybe all the sources present on the article now need to be looked at and verified? ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 19:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So it's up to a Britisher to decide where the line goes? How would the British like it if the Chinese came and told them where they think the line between England and Scotland should lie? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.233.233 (talk) 21:25, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

No idea what a Britisher is or what line you are talking about.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

If you have no idea what a Britisher is then look it up in a dictionary. 86.157.233.233 02:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I thought this article was entitled Tibet, and about Tibet. And your initial message above about lines is still unclear as to how that is relevant to improving this article, which is what this talk page is for, and not for discussion of dictionaries or commenting on who is and who isn't allowed to decide some line. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 02:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Demographics of Tibet

The demographics section for Tibet is very limited. It doesn't provide a comprehensive account of the population of Tibet. It may be that the information simply isn't available, or that reliable data cannot be verified. It would be nice to see a map showing population density and population growth. This should not have to distinguish between ethnic groups and the political controversy relating to Chinese governance of Tibet. This would provide useful and impartial information. It would be just as useful to see population distribution and population growth data and maps for other regions of China, and like demographics for other countries of the world, should not have to focus on distinguishing between different ethnic groups of people. This improvement should be feasible, without being a threat to ethnic discrimination and political disputes. --Minotaur500 14:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Since "Tibet" has never been a political entity but basically means "places where Tibetans live", it seems like it would be quite misleading to talk about population growth in Tibet without discussing the ethnicity of the people involved.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 14:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The demographics of most other countries and regions within countries of the world include data and information of a range of criteria, including such things as gender, age, life expectancy and not just their ethnic background. The political entity known as Tibet administrated by the Dalai Llama ceased to exist in 1959 following invasion and Chinese annexation. Should demographics be included in reference to the current population for historical "political entities" whose boundaries are not synonymous with current regions ? Would it not be more accurate to describe the demographics of a region in its current form, and that of its present political situation, than that of its former existence. Tibet demographics could be provided for Tibet in 1959, however they cease to be relevant for the current population. It seems that the records for regions in China covers solely ethnic information, and nothing else. Surely data of great importance and significance is missing from the demographics of the different regions of China. --Minotaur500 16:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by which region you are referring to here. This article specifies at the beginning that it is "about historical/cultural Tibet", which basically means whichever places Tibetans predominate. "The political entity known as Tibet" was only about half as large as this in geographical terms, and probably less than half in terms of population. Historians sometimes refer to this political entity as the "Lhasa state" in order to avoid confusion with the Tibetan cultural region as a whole. In fact, the boundaries of the modern Tibetan Autonomous Region are quite similar to what the Lhasa state's boundaries were for the most of the early 20th century. So, when you say, "region in its current form", I'm not sure if you are referring to the Tibetan cultural region or to the Tibet Autonomous Region. If it's the latter, then we have a separate article about it, and, yes, that article should definitely discuss its overall demographic conditions both in general and in the context of ethnicity.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 03:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

---

I guess I would describe the Tibet region in its current form as being the seperate PRC states of Tibet Autonomous Region, Quinghai, and the parts of Sichuan where ethnic Tibetans lived within until 1959. Under the criteria "the land where Tibetans live", it is not impossible to have an albeit incredibly unlikely situation where Tibetans effectively invade an area of external land and form a new political entity that could be referred to as a Tibet. I certainly think that Quinghai, having a large proportion of ethnic Tibetans, should not be ignored when referring to a Tibet.

There is some degree of useful demographic information scattered within the article. I recommend compiling some of this information into the demographics section of the article in order to adhere to the general structure of the article. Eg,

"according to the Chinese census the total population of ethnic Tibetans in the PRC was 2.8 million in 1953[citation needed], but only 2.5 million in 1964[citation needed]. It puts forward a figure of 800,000 deaths and alleges that as many as 10% of Tibetans were interned, with few survivors.[64] Chinese demographers have estimated that 90,000 of the 300,000 "missing" Tibetans fled the region."

and also

"the GDP of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) today is thirty times that of before 1950, workers in Tibet have the second highest wages in China,"

as well as

"infant mortality has dropped from 43% in 1950 to 0.661% in 2000, life expectancy has risen from 35.5 years in 1950 to 67 in 2000"

It should be noted that the verifiability of this information is limited, judging by the references provided for the article. It is presented as this being the PRC's view of Tibet, but is not from data directly published by the PRC government, official UN bodies or reputable NGO's or QUANGO's.

Am I right to consider the Tibetan people as to be non-nomadic ? If this is accurate, they would therefore be settled peoples, forming settlements upon a land to form a Tibet and effectively administrate some form of governing power over the surrounding land, constituting a form of government ? Is it accurate to consider Tibet as being administrated from a single settlement, or rather from a number of individual settlements forming Tibets that generally merge into a region to form a single Tibet ? Is it in effect possible to have a number of divided Tibets administrated from seperate individual settlements. In my view, to state that there is only a single Tibet being that administrated from Lhasa neglects wider region encompassing the settlements of ethnic Tibetans ?

A possibly useful example to use as an analogy for Tibet is that of Britain. By definition, the term Britain refers to the land of the Britons, which it initially became following colonisation by nomadic celtic pagans. Following this, invasions by the Romans and later the Normans and Anglo-Saxons led to successive settlements being established by non-Briton ethnic groups of people. The Saxon region of Mercia for example became established. Modern Britain does not determine its population demographics on the basis of its ethnic inhabitants. To be a Briton requires you to be a registered citizen, which requires either native birth, or a successful application for citizenship of foreigners. To determine identity on ethnic grounds is now almost impossible, due to interbreeding through successive generations. How much interbreeding between Han chinese and Tibetans occurs ? In addition to this, being an island, the natural features of the coast largely determine the boundaries of the country. On this basis, Tibet could be referred to as the Tibetan plateau, so as long as the boundary of such a determinable geological feature be scientifically ascertained, a countries boundaries can be defined from their presence.

I think you are confusing the words 'Briton' and 'British'. The term 'Briton' has no legal status in the UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.81.146 (talk) 02:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

In general, the article appears to just include information about Tibet Autonomous Region when referring to modern Tibet, and I feel that this ignores the Tibetans living in Quinghai, which constitutes a considerable representation of ethnic Tibetans and should be included in the demographic description of Tibet.

There seems to be quite a bit of ambiguity about what Tibet actually should refer to. I suggest that when a search is made for Tibet, it directs directly to a disambiguation page to distinguish between all the different modern and historical definitions of Tibet. I think that this page should be headed as Historical Tibet, and not just Tibet, which should be the disambiguation page.

--Minotaur500 01:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The example of Briton/Britain show that a geographic land may be named after a people. So when the 'English' invaded parts of Britain, it then became England. Some of the Britons fled to what is now Brittany in France, but of course it does not mean that Brittany is Britain. People who live in an area may very well not be its political rulers as illustrated by the Briton/Britain/England/Brittany example. The ancestors of the present Tibetans were themselves migrants to the area. The Tibetans have also lived in traditionally Han land, and they also wish to call those land Tibet. The name TAR retains the historic connection in name with its past in the same way the UK retains the use of the names Britain and England. The TAR and the Han lands are now part of the PRC. Tibetans are free to travel to all parts of the PRC. 81.157.100.44 23:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, the boundaries you describe for Tibet are roughly correct, but a bit simplistic. I'll assume that you mean the more specific boundaries. It's worth noting that, according to government statistics, most of the Tibetan areas, even outside of the TAR, still have substantial Tibetan majorities even today. Some no longer do, such as the Tibetan autonomous area in Yunnan. Ngawa in Sichuan and Garlho in Gansu have small Tibetan majorities, although Ngawa has a large majority if you include Qiangs as well as Tibetans, and I'd imagine the half of Garlho closer to Labrang has a substantial Tibetan majority.

Traditionally, a lot of Tibetans were nomadic, especially in the less populated parts of Amdo. I'm not sure how many still are today. Tibet was traditionally administered from one major power center in Central Tibet (i.e. Lhasa since the mid-17th century and at various times before that; also, Shigatse and Sakya at times before that), but also from various minor power centers in Kham and Amdo. You are correct that it is misleading to talk about a single political unit called "Tibet", although since the Lhasa government has, for a long time, been by far the most powerful such power center, it is usually clear what people mean when they say "the Tibetan government".

Regarding the extent of intermarriage between Chinese and Tibetans, that's an interesting question, but I'm afraid I've never heard much about it.

This article is definitely not supposed to be about the Tibet Autonomous Region only, so, if there are parts that tend to do that, they should be corrected when possible. The article makes it quite clear that, "This article is about historical/cultural Tibet."—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 04:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Tibetan is not an ethnicity in the PRC, it is a nationality. The modern definition of ethnicity takes into account of religion, and so for example the various groups of people in the former Yugoslavia were ethnically different even though they speak virtually the same language, inter-married, were related to each other, lived as neighbours, conducted business with each other and so on, because they have different religions (and this included different Christian religions). Going by this definition, the present Tibetans and the so called Tibetans a thousand years ago were of different ethnicity because their religions were different. 81.157.100.44 23:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The article is not discussing the fact that there is a major (about 1 million) demographic deficit in tibetan population if you juxtapose the estimate of in 2000 and that in 1959 [People's Daily, Beijing, le 10 novembre 1959, see : Population transfer and control. Within the same period, total population in China doubled. How do you explain this deficit? --Rédacteur Tibet 17:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

There is an estimated 200million Chinese unaccounted for in the PRC. If people do not report births or deaths, then what can statistics bureaux do? 81.154.205.12 (talk) 19:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Has the famous Zhol Doring (pillar) in front of the Potala really disappeared?

There is a rumour that the famous Zhol Doring (pillar) in front of the Potala which recorded the conquests of Tibet over China leading up to the brief conquest of the Chinese capital, Chang'an, in 763 CE (see the main article and 1993 photo), has disappeared. I am hoping this is not so. Can anyone give us a recent account of it? If it is still in place is it possible to approach it closely, take photos, etc.? Many thanks, John Hill 04:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is there no climate section?

Most articles on geographic regions have a section on climate and weather. Can one be added here? It'd be especially interesting considering Tibet's high elevation. Moncrief 16:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Tufan to Tibet

Why Tufan redirects to Tibet? Xinaliq.az 21:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Seal of Tibet - experts needed.

The article currently has a "Seal of Tibet" image, with the caption linked to Seal of Tibet, a one sentence stub which serves mainly to carry the Image:Seal of Tibet.PNG image.

The stub does not make clear how ancient or modern this "seal" is - to be honest, it doesn't look very ancient. Also, Image:Seal of Tibet.PNG claims it to be in the public domain on the grounds of copyright expiration. This seems slightly dubious to me, because the image itself is clearly a modern construction, and no information is provided as to the source image from which it is constructed.

Can any experts verify whether this is a historical seal of Tibet, used say between 1912-1950? If it was used in that period, or later, then the PD tag may not be appropriate, and the image description/licensing information would need to be fixed up. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear PalaceGuard: You can find here a reference to "the official government seal of Tibet" in 1950. I have no knowledge as to whether it was of the same design - though I presume so. See: [10]

Sorry - that is all I could find - but a query to the official website of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile website may well get you more information. Cheers, John Hill 04:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

What are the neutual term/name to used?

Blnguyen, Alexwoods and I have been undo and redo other's post for a number of time over wording, terms and names. I use Tibet Autonomous Region in this article when it applies to post communist period while they use Tibet without specifying a time period. (WannabeAmatureHistorian 03:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC))

In this particular case, the article begins by defining what we mean by "Tibet". Some of Tibet's borders are controversial, but the border with Nepal isn't really. So, I don't see any particular reason not to keep it simple and say "Tibet".—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 04:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nat. There is no need to say "autonomous region" every time - it's redundant and not common English usage, and of course we don't say "province" every time we say "Sichuan", right? Also, I'd like to go on record as saying the reference to Qomolongma is totally unnecessary. Not only does Qomolongma redirect to Everest, Everest is by far the more common name in English. Alexwoods 15:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Alexwoods, too. There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED to mention "autonomous region." Just use TIBET. Prowikipedians (talk) 11:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If the context is specifically related to the administration of Tibet, or disputed claims, then TAR is permissible. If we are simply discussing the geography or undisputed borders of the region, then Tibet is appropriate. Hornplease 15:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Do we say "TAR" when we are discussing this subject in English? Of course not. We call it Tibet. Of course we have to explain the specific political status of any entity somewhere in the article, but to refer to Tibet as TAR throughout would be tantamount to only using the term (to draw an example from a topic that you are interested in outside of stalking me) "The Islamic Republic of Pakistan" - accurate, but unwieldy and not common usage. Also, WP:HAR. Alexwoods 15:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Oy! take it easy! I've been editing China-related articles all day, hardly stalking you.

As I said, using TAR when we wish to indicate that we are talking about specific territorial claims not shared by other entities also claiming to be Tibet seems appropriate. The Pakistan example is not really accurate, because there is no other entity that claims to be Pakistan. If, for example, we were to say that "Kashmir includes the Aksai Chin", that would be debatable"; it would be appropriate to say Jammu and Kashmir includes the Aksai Chin, to indicate we are talking about the Indian administrative claim, not the Pakistani one. Hornplease 15:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair point Mr. Hornplease, and I withdraw the allegation of stalking. I think we all need to be careful to consider when TAR is being used to highlight a territorial claim being made by the PRC and when it is being used by an editor who is keen to assert the PRC's claim to Tibet itself. I would wholeheartedly support the use of TAR in the former case. Alexwoods 15:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Hornplease 16:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I say, just use Tibet. Prowikipedians (talk) 11:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

GA delist

In order to uphold the quality of Wikipedia:Good articles, all articles listed as Good articles are being reviewed against the GA criteria as part of the GA project quality task force. Unfortunately, as of September 16, 2007, this article fails to satisfy the criteria, as detailed below. For that reason, the article has been delisted from WP:GA. However, if improvements are made bringing the article up to standards, the article may be nominated at WP:GAC. If you feel this decision has been made in error, you may seek remediation at WP:GA/R.

• Every statement that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs an inline citation.

Epbr123 15:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Islam section

There is a significant chunk of text in the islam section which seems misplaced:

“ The Potala Palace, former residence of the Dalai Lamas, is a World Heritage Site, as is Norbulingka, former summer residence of the Dalai Lama.

During the suppression of pro-independence forces in the 1950s, and during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, most historically significant sites in Tibet were vandalized or totally destroyed. Since 2002, Tibetans in exile have allowed a Miss Tibet beauty contest in spite of concerns that this event is considered a Western influence. The beauty contest is condemned by the Tibetan government in exile.[citation needed]

”

None of this seems to have anything to do specifically with Islam, and quite a bit of it, if anything, is more associated with Tibetan Buddhism. Warthog32 17:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Agvan Dordzhi and Lamaist Triple Pact of 1913

The chapter in main article; In 1913 Tibet and Mongolia allegedly signed a treaty proglaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. However, the validity of such a treaty is disputed by historians and diplomats, as there was not, at any time, nor has there been since, any offical publication of the text by either party, and the text does not appear to have been published in any language other than English.

Only two Anglo-Saxon sources have been mentioned to state this statement. In fact the treaty was made by 1912 between three independent Lamaist States; Tibet, Mongolia and Urjanhai (Tuva). This treaty was a big diplomatic success for the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, and his legal representantive, by born a Lamaist Burjat Mongol monk Agvan Dordzhi who left Imperial Russia in his childhood and thus was not any subject of Imperial Russia as Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Sergei Dimitrrijevitsh Sazonov, lied to the British Ambassador in St.Petersburg. The reason for this was simple, Imperial Russia had its own interests in question regarding the long term object to increase its political influence in all three Lamaist states. The treaty was well known in the Asia and even Siam recogniced it. The British claim to make Agvan Dordzhi a Russian spy in Tibet is absurd. The British "arch-imperialist" Viceroy in India, Lord Curzon, used Agvan Dordzhi´s visit as full representantive of Dalai Lama to Russia as an excuse to launch his own mission led by (then) Major Francis Younghusband to Tibet. Why Agvan Dordzhi visited in Russia is told in detail at least in Finnish literature, just to mention Lähettiläänä Nipponissa by Professor G.J.Ramstedt, Helsinki 1950. What comes to Charles Bell´s claim, presumably passed to him in 1914 by a Tibetan who was not in the inner circle of 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, is clearly from person who had not seen the written Treaty text.

The versions Aguan Dorijiev, Dorzhiev, Dorijev and Aguan Dorijeff ara all wrong written. His real name was Agvan Dordzhi, and he was a personal friend to Professor Ramstedt who met him several times during his expenditures in Mongolia. Agvan Dordzhi was an respected quest and full representantive of Dalai Lama and Minister in Tibetan Government, by the Siamete Royal House when he visited in the country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.127.228 (talk) 04:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the treaty was signed (if it was signed) in 1913, either on February 4th or on January 11th, and only between representatives of Mongolia and Tibet. Scholars of Mongolia are quite positive that the treaty was signed - i.e. that Agvandorj and some other (alleged?) representatives of Tibet and the Mongolian representatives Da Lama Ravdan and Mainlaibaatar Damdinsüren put their signatures on the piece of paper. They are less positive on how seriously to take the treaty, but signed it was. It was apparently published in Mongolian at least in 1982. Udo B.Barkmann gives a german translation in Geschichte der Mongolei, Bonn 1999, p.380. His source is BNMAU-yn ShUA-iin tüükhiin khüreelen, NATsKhYa-ny dergedekh ulsyn arkhivyn khereg erkhlekh gazar, Mongolyn ard tümnii 1911 ony ündesnii erkh chölöö, tusgaar togmolyn tölöö temtsel - barimt bichgiin emkhtgel (1911-1914) (he uses a german transliteration from Cyrillic Mongolian which I changed into a more english-like, so some of th letters might be wrong), UB 1982, p. 189-190. Barkmann doesn't state whether his source was in faksimile, in classical, or in cyrillic Mongolian, but the rendering of the names looks more like form cyrillic.

Barkmann also points to an article by P. Mehra about The Mongol-Tibetan Treaty of January 11, 1913 in Journal of Asian History, vol III, 1969, p.10. Also of interest might be Korostovets' Von Cinggis Khan zur Sowjetrepublik, Berlin 1926.

It's interesting that some(?) scholars(?) of Tibet seem to imply that the treaty was never signed. Do they give some points to discredit the Mongolian version - that at least something "was" signed, or do they just ignore it? Yaan 12:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

John Snelling, in his book, Buddhism in Russia: The Story of Agvan Dorzhiev, Lhasa's Emissary to the Tsar. (1993) Element Books, p. 150 says: "Though sometimes doubted, this Tibet-Mongolia Treaty certainly existed. It was signed on 29 December 1912 (OS) [that is, by the Julian Calendar - making it 10 days earlier than by the Gregorian Calendar we use] by Dorzhiev and two Tibetans on behalf of the Dalai Lama, and by two Mongolians for the Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu." He then goes on to give the complete wording of the treaty on pp. 150-151. Hope this is of some interest. Cheers, John Hill 22:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

English language sources are always of interest. Especially if they take note on doubts re. the existence of the treaty, which sources dealing with Mongolia apparently often don't. There is also an article by Gerard M. Friters called The prelude to Outer Mongolian independence which discusses the treaty, with less detail than Barkmann and without giving the text, but it still mentions the basic problem - that Agvandorj's authority to conclude international treaties on behalf of the Dalai Lama was .. rather weak. Yaan 22:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Yaan. By the way, Snelling adds quite a long discussion about the Tibet-Mongolia Treaty on page 152 (where he notes that Dorzhiev dispatched a copy of the treaty to the Dalai Lama for formal approval in January 1913) and on page 154, he notes the comment by Lönchen Paljor Dorji Shatra at the Śimla conference in 1913-14, where he said that the letter given to Dorzhiev was of a general nature only - asking him to merely work for the benefit of the Buddhist religion. Shatra claimed the letter could not be found as it was probably destroyed in a fire.

Snelling obviously doubts Shatra's claims and says: "Bell seems to have taken Shatra's spiel as solemn truth - another instance of his naîvété where Tibetans were concerned. Clearly the treaty did exist, and Dorzhiev had been given plenipotentiary powers to negotiate and sign it: why then did the Tibetans repudiate it? Perhaps for pragmatic reasons - in which case they would not necessarily have seen themselves as lying so much as deferring to the honourable oriental [and - I should add - occidental. JH] convention of telling others what they want to hear." Best wishes, John Hill 01:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to think that - although not always that devoted to historical accuracy in the past - the Mongolian academy of science in 1982 is still a much more reliable source than some Tibetan diplomat in 1913. I'll therefore change the sentence here and in the other articles to something a la "The treaty was signed, though its validity has always been disputed. Some British diplomats have sometimes even disputed the mere existence of the treaty, but Mongoian sources are very positive it exists". Yaan 14:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Given that Mongolia was a heavily ideological (i.e. Communist) state in 1982, where (speaking generally) research is often subordinated to political needs, and asserting the existence of the treaty has great ideological and nationalistic value, I don't think the reverence to that source is warranted. I think the previous version worked better. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I fail to see the nationalistic/ideologic value of a treaty with Tibet in 1913. Mongolian communists always emphasized that Mongolia owed her independence to the Soviets, not to Tsarist Russia, and certainly not to Tibet. For them the 1911 - 1919 period was a period of continuation of the old, feudal and backward order, and would end with the leading representatives almost giving up Mongoia's independence voluntarily. Even then, the 1912 declaration of independence and appointment of the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutugtu to Bogd Khan, and the military action in Khovd and Inner Mongolia, were far more significant than this rather meaningless (or as Korostovets put it, "pretty harmless") treaty. Udo B.Barkmann wrote his work in 1999, well after the 1990 demcratic revolution in Mongolia. Since he actually does speak Mongolian and spends a lot of time in the country, I think he would have taken note if information about this rather interesting piece of history had experienced major revisions. My uninformed guess is that those authors who believe those Tibetan envoys are just unaware about the Mongolian (as opposed to Tsarist Russian) side of the argument. Yaan 13:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Please see my new notes on the main page where I mention that Snelling gives the full English translation of the treaty taken from a British Foreign Office report of 1913. I will now add these notes to the article on Tibetan history and Agvan Dorzhiev. Please do not remove them again without giving good reason, as they are well-referenced. John Hill 23:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about it, the treaty does not seem important enough to warrant inclusion in this rather general site. Or at least not as long as we don't explain the consequences of the treaty. Yaan 20:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed some sentences that seemed very much OR. The assumption that no treaty existed also might lead to interesting conclusions, for example that the Russians could make Agvandorj keep quiet for 20+ years, but could not make him sign the treaty. Maybe someone should write the Mongolian Academy of science or the relevant archive and ask for a scan. Yaan 16:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

After looking around a bit at some databases, I actually wonder how big the controversy about the existence (not about the validity) of the treaty really is. Most authors, including contemporaries, seem to agree that the paper was signed. Actually, I don't think the treaty is significant enough to be mentioned in this article, esp. not with an own section. But to create a controversy around it seems completely overblown. Yaan (talk) 12:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Added Lobsang Rampa

I have added Lobsang Rampa to the See Also section of this article. Kathleen.wright5 04:17, 4 October 2007(UTC)

Links

I have cleaned up a couple of the links as they were typed in incorrectly and leading to incorrect pages. If you click on them now they all lead to their respective places. Josborne2382 15:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Tsampa

Would these photos be good for the Tsampa article? We don't have any photo there, but I don't know how representative these photos are. Badagnani 07:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews Interview with the Dalai Lama's representative

I will be conducting an interview with the Dalai Lama's Representative to the Americas, Tashi Wangdi. If you have a question you would like me to consider asking, please leave it here: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:David_Shankbone/Tibet --David Shankbone 19:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Question about the Tibetan's best interests/wishes/hopes/etc after the brutal Chinese reply occurred. Prowikipedians (talk) 11:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What's a brutal reply? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

so far the only picture i seem now (due to china censorship) is nepalese beating tibetan protestor with stick, and i don't really see much complainting about those "reply". and for whatever tourist and reporter who were in tibet before the lockdown; they tell a strangely different picture (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/world/asia/24tibet.html)... is china using excessive force? likely as that would be the norm of PAP behaviour. is china brutal to the tibetan? of course, at least to the level you expect riot police to use against people destory public property and kill innocent bystander. I believe the tibetan HAD suffer injustice which result in the displacement of dalai lama and his supporter; but there is also self-censorship by western media to suggest the condition of tibet has not improved over the years. i read alot of article on the exile's website, i suggest people who are interested to read it. strangely there are some conflicting theories between different scholar. some argue tibetan is economical deprived by the chinese, some argue tibetan should be taught in tibetan for all subject as it produce better result and protect their culture. i would like to ask if the tibetan if educated in tibetan be able to find jobs and compete effectively; i really think the tibetan need to have a unified direction: do they want economic growth or culture preservation, because let be realistic: there going to be trade off. i would like to know how dalai lama's cabinet plan to tackle these issue if china put him in power. Akinkhoo (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

External Links

I recently removed the spam template. Its been there over a year and no longer seems necessary. Since there is no obvious spam, the tag unnecessarily clutters the page. More importantly, I noticed that the external links have been categorized into Pro, Con, and apolitical sections. First off, the wording of these titles reaks of weasel words. Titles for these sections should be short, not formulated to be the most politically correct, non-offending version possible. There also seems to be be too many weighted links and not enough NPOV links. We could probably remove the categories, cut down the POV links (and include comments saying which ones are POV), and have one external links section. Finally, the links should be balanced by viewpoint to avoid undue weight on particular points of view. Anyone agree with my changes? If so, I'll get to it. --Jdcaust 22:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

==

To User:Strothra concerning Altan Khan

Hi, you reversed without explanation my edit of the passage about Altan Khan of Tumet stating as if he was a subordinate of Ming China. That statement isn't supported by any relaible source. We should avoid destortion of history in WP. Altan Khan and his vassals frequently raided Ming China. When China managed to persuade Altan Khan stop his raids, his vassals still continued raiding China. China begged Altan Khan to prevent his vassals from raiding China. Altan Khan then answered he can't stop his vassals doing that as China didn't open frontier trade stations for them. I don't see any reason for Altan Khan to be a subordinate of China. When I put this comment on your talk page, you removed it. 122.201.16.22 15:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

With respect you also made your edits "without explanation" (adding "never heard that" is hardly an explanation. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem arises from some authors who seem to imply think that paying tribute to China was a form of subordination. This completely ignores that, at least in the Mongol case, the right to pay tribute to the court in Beijing was usually a result of successful military action on the part of the tribute-bringer, not the receiver. It also fails to explain why on earth the Ming erected the Great Wall as we know it today, when they in fact had tributary relations with the Mongols most of the time. I guess this borders OR, but I don't think any self-respecting author would describe England or Russia as subordinate to China just because they paid tribute to the Qing court 150 years later. Yaan 20:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Eastern and Western political customs were different at the time. 81.154.205.12 (talk) 19:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

A Chinese source/Mongols

There seems to be a problem in the article re. the status of Tibet from the 17th century to 1721, and re. the role of Altan Khan. The problem seems to stem from a 2000 book referred to as "a chinese sorce". For me as someone primarily interested in Mongol history, the situation looks as follows: in the 1570s, Altan Khan invented/started/? the Dalai Lama lineage. In the 1630s, Ligden Khan tried to conquer Tibet, but died on the way, in Qinghai (this event may be more relevant to the rise of the Manchu than to Tibet). His supporter Tsogt Taij was eventually defeated by the Khoshud Oirads in 1637, who as a result became something like the overlords over Tibet. This went until roughly 1717, when the Dzüngar Oirads evicted the Khoshud. It is at this point - and only at this point - that China enters the picture. The Dzüngar had come into conflict with the Manchu in the 1680s, and the Manchu were apparently not ready to accept them gaining more power. Moreover, the Dzüngar seem to have been rather unpopular with the Tibetans, and the Manchu used the opportunities presented by this.

My guess is this narrative can be read in any good book that covers Oirad history, in particular I seem to recall Rene Grousset's Empire of the Steppes has a section on the Khoshud in Tibet. My guess is that Western accounts of Tibetan history during that time are not much different, but it would be interesting to know for sure.

Re. the Status of Altan Khan, and also the Oirads, vs. China: It is true that Altan Khan entered tributary relations to China in 1571, and also the different Oirad factions may have paid tribute to the court in Beijing at some point in time or the other. But this should never be understood as subordination, as any serious account of the Chinese tribute system under Ming dynasty would tell you. See also the case of Esen Tayisi. Yaan 16:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I edited the bit about Altan Khan for now. That he had entered tributary relations with China is irrelevant in this context. It may be relevant in the context of Chinese claims on Tibet, or of the weakness of these claims, though. Qinghai is the Chinese translation of Khökh nuur (or maybe it's the other way round), and Khökh nuur is the Mongolian name for the area where the soon-to-be Dalai Lama and Altan Khan met in 1578. Therefore, it is not "what the Chinese now consider as Qinghai", rather it is "what the Chinese call Qinghai" and accurate enough. P.S. I also deleted the reference, but that Altan Khan and the 3rd Dalai Lama met in 1578 is a pretty basic fact that should be included in any standard account of Tibetan History. Yaan 17:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I followed that all the way up to "I deleted the reference". Why did you delete the reference? You seem to have turned a referenced sentence into a "citation needed" sentence.

If you think the original sourced statement is inaccurate, I believe the usual approach is to tag it "dubious" and then find reliable sources to contradict it. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The sourced statement was inaccurate in so far as while it is true Altan Khan was formally a tributary of China, he definitely was no subordinate, and his status as a tributary generally seems to have little to do with Tibetan history. On the other hand, that Altan Khan and the to-be 3rd Dalai Lama met in Qinghai, that Altan Khan introduced the title Dalai Lama etc. is so undisputed that we could give any given mainstream source as a reference. IMHO it is better to give sources that are easily accessible, and sources that are rather not likely to be suspected of being biased. Also, I didn't check the reference given myself, so I wasn't really sure if it supported the new wording. Maybe I'll have a look into Grousset's work in the next few days, than I might also do some more rewriting. Yaan 23:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, makes sense. I'm going to restore the previous text but put a dubious tag on it until we find reliable sources to contradict it. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

On a second reading, the unrefernenced tag was for "The 3rd Dalai paid tribute to the Ming imperial court through Altan Khan and wrote to the Chinese prime minister, requesting to be allowed to pay tribute to the imperial court on a regular basis, and was approved.", not for the sentence about Altan Khan appointing the Dalai Lama. This particular sentence didn't seem to be sourced before. Btw. the following two sentences don't really seem to make sense to me either. Tibetan exiles contest that Altan Khan spread the Lamaist religion in Mongolia? Yaan 23:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know enough about Tibetan/Mongolian/Chinese history to comment on the substance. I'm just making a procedural point here, that a properly sourced statement should not be changed into an unsourced statement unless a contradictory, reliable source is provided. Hence, a "dubious" tag until a source is found to contradict it. I think you are likely to be right, but to do otherwise than what is described above is WP:OR. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

On a second reading - you're right about the next sentence... that makes no sense. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The above is all history. We need to deal with today, which is that Tibet is a part of The PRC. 81.154.205.12 (talk) 19:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Some rewrite

I rewrote the the history between the 13th and 18th centuries. Unfortuantely, I didn't find any good english-language sources in my library (Rene Grousset was a bit of a disappointment in this regard), so I used three German authors. Weiers is somewhat of a big shot in Germany's Mongolian studies, though his Geschichte der Mongolen does contain a number of easily recognizable inaccuracies. However, most of them (with the exception of the old lamas=people who live in monasteries trap) concern 20th century Outer Mongolia, and (being from West Germany and all that) he seems to be more a specialist for pre-modern Inner Mongolia. I can't really comment on the other two authors, except that their works have fotnotes and a bibliography, and that Ms. Kollmar Paulenz is a professor for religous history in Switzerland and apparently speaks Tibetan.

I guess the new version might e a bit mongol-centric, so if you feel it should be corrected, please do (not that I could do anything about it anyway). I also left out the whole tribute thingie. To me this is more relevant in rgards to chinese claims re. souvereignity than to Tibetan History most of the time. If you think it is really important and have reliable and relevant information, feel free to add. Also I feel the coverage of the late 14th to early 17th centuries is a bit short, and the growing Manchu influence in the late 17th, early 18th century might not be treated accurately. Last not least the transliteration is inconsistent and the page number for the rene grousset quote is missing. I will add the latter as soon as possible. Cheers, Yaan 20:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Great work, Yaan. Thanks for this contribution. By the way, do you have any objection if I edit the spelling of names in the parts you added to conform more closely to the rest of the article? I think it is mostly established that we generally use (Central Tibetan-based) phonetic or conventional spellings for Tibetan names, rather than Wylie.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 02:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

No objection at all. Yaan 16:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Chinese pronunciations

I have removed the original research about "disputes in mainland China and Taiwan", and different pronunciations in mainland China and Taiwan, from the Chinese names section.

The material about different pronunciations of Tubo is referenced solely by two dictionaries, one of which is not a Chinese dictionary but a Chinese-English dictionary. Neither dictionary pretends to be only documenting Standard Mandarin "as spoken in mainland China" or "as spoken in Taiwan". Both dictionaries document Standard Mandarin as a unified language. Any statements about "this is pronounced A in mainland China and pronounced B in Taiwan" is original research not supported by these sources.

The second view, supporting the "tufan" pronunciation, requires a citation from something more authoritative with respect to the Chinese language than a Chinese-English dictionary. A bilingual dictionary is by its very nature less authoritative than a monolingual one with respect to pronunciations of a single language, all else being equal, as opposed to translations from one language to another. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits

This message is for the user, Williamliew. I have now left you three messages on your user talk page asking you not to keep adding unsourced content to this article, and asked you to back up your edits by citing sources. You have thus far though ignored this advice. Please do not keep adding the edits in the way you are doing. If you have fully verifiable sources for your edits then please provide those sources. Before making potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page, in other words in here. Also, adding unsourced or original content violates Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Thank you. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 17:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Hilarious pro-Tibetan Bias

The deliberate attempts by some of the editors here to detach the historical Chinese political influences over Tibet from Tibet's history sections is getting hilarious. All references to the Yuan Dynasty become written as "Mongol"; all political references to Qing Dynasty become written as "Manchu." This obsession with ethnic labels by some of the pro-Tibet editors here would be pretty funny if it weren't so revisionist and fascist. Maybe we should rename the "British in Tibet" section as the "Scots, Welsh, Irish and English/Anglo Saxons in Tibet" too. It'll be more accurate, right? Don't forget, Sir Francis Younghusband was an Englishman and Sir Charles Bell was a Scot. --Naus (talk) 23:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Newsflash for the clueless and ethnic obsessed pro-Tibet editors: the 19th and 20th century concepts of fascism and ethnocentrism were defeated in WWII. Why are you so obsessed with the ethnicity of the politicians and not their actual political allegiance? What kind of history are you trying to revision? A fascist one I gather? --Naus (talk) 23:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear Naus: I think you will find that quite often the various Mongol and Manchu tribes or factions the Tibetans were dealing with were not the same groups that were ruling China at the time. Maybe some work needs be done to make it clearer when they were dealing with the groups that were actually ruling China, and when they were dealing with other groups of Mongols and Manchus? Also, your comment about fascism and ethnocentrism being "defeated" in WWII seems hopelessly optimistic. Unfortunately, I see lots of evidence of fascist attitudes and ethnocentrism in our sorry world today - including China. John Hill (talk) 23:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

as well as USA, if they can't even find china on a map ;P Akinkhoo (talk) 06:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Since I wrote much of the criticized stuff, I think it's helpful to point out that

• what the Tibetans were facing in 1240 were indeed Mongols, no Chinese dynasty (alright, I think this is undisputed)
• As I understand it, Tibet's status during Yuan dynasty has a lot to do with the ruling family and little to do with China. It would be interesting to know the Tibetan side of the argument, though. I understand there are some Tibetan chronicles of that era, do they refer to Mongols, to Yuan, or to China?
• To me, Manchu is pretty much synonymous to Qing, and Khoshud, Dzungars, and Manchu sounds much better than Khoshud, Dzungars, and Manchu, and Qing dynasty (1644-1911). That's all.
• I don't think I care enough about Tibet to qualify for the "pro-Tibet editor" label. I wonder what is the opposite of "pro-Tibet", though.

Yaan 17:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I think it is worth pointing out that the "Englishmen and Welsh" analogy is a wrong one. Khoshud, Dzungars and Manchu (or Qing Dynasty) definitely, although to different degrees, were political rivals, as can be seen from the article, or learnt from reading some of the more reliable offline sources. A "British and Englishmen"-like section title was only introduced with Naus' "Manchu and the Qing Dynasty" edits. Yaan 18:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

John Hill: " I think you will find that quite often the various Mongol and Manchu tribes or factions the Tibetans were dealing with were not the same groups that were ruling China at the time." Why don't you say that the people in Tibet in 1000 were not the same people who live in Tibet now. The people of the 2 periods had different religions. 81.154.205.12 (talk) 19:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I don't get your point. You could say the same about any people, religious or philosophical system - we all change and develop over time. This does not mean the religions or people are "different". One could just as well say that the Italian people are not the same people as they were 1000 years ago, or that their Roman Catholic religion is not the same religion it is today. While this is certainly true in some senses - it is really more accurate to say that both the Italian people and their religion have developed and changed over the years. In Tibet this natural process of change and development has been complicated, of course, by the huge numbers of Han Chinese who have moved into Tibet since the Chinese takeover and the deliberate attempts to destroy their religion and culture. John Hill (talk) 23:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Then by your reasoning today's Tibetans and Hans are the same people as if you go back far enough in time, they were both descended from the same Mongoloid ancestors. So by your reasoning there is no takeover of Tibet by the Hans at all. I think you might find that Western religions are the ones that are attempting to destroy (and have succeeded in destroying)other people's cultures and religions. 81.155.96.175 (talk) 10:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The Dalai Lama already agrees that Tibet is a part of the PRC, but that it should be autonomous. The disagreement between the PRC government and the DL's side is how autonomous Tibet should be, not whether it is a part of the PRC or not. 81.155.96.175 (talk) 22:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think if you carefully examine the Dalai Lama's comments on this subject you will find that, rather than agreeing that "Tibet is a part of the PRC", he agrees that the political reality is that Tibet has been overtaken or swallowed up by its more powerful neighbour and that there is little Tibetans can do to change that reality. Therefore, the best Tibetans can hope for is to come to some arrangement for autonomy within the Chinese state where their human rights, and their right to freely practice their religions and culture are guaranteed. John Hill (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

....which is politic-speak for agreement. 81.155.96.175 (talk) 10:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Reading through the History section, I can see some merits to the original complaint, in that the omission of references to "Yuan dynasty" and "Qing dynasty" means that a cursory glance through the section conveys the impression that the incorporation of Tibet and China under the same empire did not occur before 1911.

Now these issues are of course subject to frequent and heated debate, as seen here, but I think we can at least agree that (1) the "Mongols" referenced in the section about the Mongols were, at least for a significant part of the history there covered, the same as the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty, and that (2) the "Manchus" referenced in the section about the Manchus were the same Manchus identified as the rulers of the Qing Dynasty.

The absence of reference to these sinicised dynastic names means that it creates the impression of displacing the orthodox Chinese views on this history (even if the contents may not), which, especially by contrast to the prominence given to British activities, tends to create an impression of bias. (I find, by the way, the emphasis of British activities in Tibet disproportionate - though I have no doubt this is more a result of disproportionate expertise among the editors rather than any conscious bias.) Granted this is the English wikipedia, but even in English we frequently talk about the "Qing dynasty" when we reference the government of the day.

I've modified the subsection headers to reference the Yuan and Qing dynasties. I hope my changes strike an acceptable balance. Despite these edits, however, I think many of these subsections should be cut by moving contents to the daughter page. The ToC is far too long. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the new edits make the headings read worse. Given that the history section really is too long, I'm not going to revert the changes, but in fact I think adding the Dynasty names was redundant. I don't think referring to Syria at the end of the 13th century as "under Mongol rule" rather than "under Il-Khanid rule" creates any anti-Iranian/pro-Syrian bias, esp. no hilarious one. Given that Mongol politics in Tibet seem to have been heavily influenced by the Mongol (or the ruling clan's) adoption of Tibetan buddhism - a religion apparently not very well-received among the Chinese at that time - I also fail to see how the rule of Tibet at the time was more Chinese than Mongolian.

Re. the Manchu, I really think the heading reads worse now. Maybe we could create another subsection about "Tibet under the Qing dynasty" or so (not in this article, though), but "Manchu Qing Dynasty" sounds terribly tautologic. Yaan (talk) 13:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree in principle with your comments, Palaceguard008. I would suggest that we should disentangle the article's treatment of Manchus with its treatment of Mongols. The Tibetans had important relationships with several Mongol groups. Kublai Khan of the Yüan was certainly one of them, but I'm not sure how much influence any of the other Yüan emperors ever really had in Tibet. On the other, as far as Tibetan history is concerned, the Manchus pretty much equal the Qing. So, I would suggest that the article and its headings should tend to use "Mongols" rather than "Yuan" but "Qing" rather than "Manchus".—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 18:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Yaan, yes they do read worse, but I was trying to address an objection which, to me, had some merits with regard to historiographical NPOV.

I agree with your comments Nat Krause. That said, the ToC is far too long and I would like to see the History section exported to the daughter article, then shortened and summarised. Would any of the original contributors who expanded the section like to undertake the task? If not, I could volunteer my time, though it might take some time. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Re. Yuan dynasty, Tibet was always part of the Yuan empire, I think - the Il-Khanids also partially adopted Tibetan buddhism, but were, I think, too far away. The other Mongol states became Muslim, so they propably did not care about Tibet anyway.

But actually, I think both using Manchu and Mongols has its merits. IMO using it in a subsection heading is just as NPOV as using Yuan or Qing dynasty - headings are just a headings, the complicated stuff should be explained in the text below the heading, if at all - and in both cases Tibet was already entangled before the repective dynasties were founded, 1240 by the first Mongol intrusions, 1634 when the Manchu drove Ligden Khan and his ally Tsogt Taij into the area. I think it might also be worthy to look a bit deeper then just what empire Tibet belonged to. What were the nationalities of the ambans installed in Tibet? In what way did Tibet have contact with the rest of China? The source I have used for my expansion of the History section a while back is now back in the library, and I think did not really cover Tibetan-Manchu or Tibetan-Chinese relations in great detail anyway (it's a Kleine Geschichte, after all), but I really think there should be some material around for the Qing period. At least there is plenty of similar material available, and in English and sometimes excellent quality, for Mongolia - how the Manchu officially tried to isolate the area from the rest of China, how the country was penetrated ever more by Han-Chinese traders, and, in Inner Mongolia, settlers, at what point it becomes unrealistic to talk about the "foreign presence" as purely Manchu rather than Chinese, etc.

To expand my aforementioned point: Would using "Mongols" instead of "Golden Horde" ever be considered anti-anything? But of course in Russia that time is not taken as justification for anything, so it's not NPOV yet to refer to Mongols as Mongols. Yaan (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Please feel free to export the text into the daugher article as you see fit. I ama bit lazy now. I'll let you know if there is something I don't like. :) Yaan (talk) 00:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The 2006 Spanish trial

From article: On 11 January 2006 it was reported that the Spanish High Court will investigate whether seven former Chinese officials, including the former President of China Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals.[61] The court proceedings in the case brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet against several former Chinese officials was opened by the Judge on 6 June 2006.

What was the result of this case? Is it still ongoing? --Naus (talk) 00:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• I am wondering that myself --the_hoodie 06:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by The hoodie (talk • contribs)

That's good. Will the spanish court try the genocide of native Americans by the spanish? 81.154.205.12 (talk) 19:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

How about Francisco Franco, who fought side by side with Hitler twice? Herunar (talk) 12:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point Herunar. And, I wonder whether there is any Basque or Catalonian blood on the Spanish government's hands? The judges there seem awfully high-handed to me, given the country's own history of human rights abuses.Ndriley97 (talk) 01:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This logic would seem to imply that Spanish courts shouldn't try anyone.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 01:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The logic implies that the rationale of universal jurisdiction for genocide aren't fully applicable for Spanish courts - if, that is, one assumes a continuation between the Franco regime and the present, and ignore the separation of powers between the courts and the executive government. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair point, Nat Krause. Point was made more in the sense that I don't see how one particular country's judges can arbitrarily decide to start bringing human rights violation charges against persons not subject to their jurisdiction without being hypocritical. I make this argument from an institutional standpoint, not as to their moral standing as individuals. There is a reason that human rights trials have typically been reserved for multi-national bodies with a broad mandate from many countries. Otherwise, any judge in any country could insist that he/she has jurisdiction over a crime committed anywhere in the world. That is not consistent with generally-accepted international law, principles of comity, etc. What's to stop a Chinese court from subpoenaing a bunch of ex-Franco regime officials for crimes against humanity during the Spanish Civil War? Why does the Spanish court have more moral authority than the Chinese court? Why can't a Chilean court bring charges against Spanish officials who collaborated with Pinochet (this actually happened)? Please clarify why judges in Spain, who keep doing this, somehow have special rights to be the world's policemen. Ndriley97 (talk) 03:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Why not have the Chinese courts trying the spanish cases? Absurd!!!81.155.96.175 (talk) 11:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

You present an excellent idea! Let's have PRC courts try some Spanish officials for abusing ETA members in jail. While we're at it, we can hale some Chavistas into US court for abusing student protestors. It will be like a commie-fascist war, and eventually the two sides will wipe each other out like matter and anti-matter leaving the rest of us semi-normal folks to go about our business. Ndriley97 (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I see there are many missunderstandings of what we are (Spanish) and what it is Spain. I am from Spain but live in foreign countries for more than 10 years. So here, I give my little input dispassionated, but well informed both from inside and outside Spain. I might be wrong, of course, but it is quite likely that I am mostly right (wink) : Until 1939 Spain was a democracy, a republic, it was a Democratic republic. Unluckily Franco's (and others') "coupe" and subsequent fascist regime truncated that democracy for a long period: Until 1977 when we (Spanish) recovered democracy again. Of course, Franco can not be judged because he died, otherwise he would have been. Same applies to the rest of war criminals along Franco's side: they have passed away during those long 40 years (Franco outlived practically everyone!) or went missing in exile. (Not to mention those who went to America 500 years ago!). These days (2008), Spain is safely (we believe!) well into a new vibrant monarchic Democracy. Spain counts with a strong "constitutional foundation letter" (Constitucion Espanola) that was carefully made via a consensual agreement during 1975-77. The "Constitucion Espanola" was created with participation of representatives of all parties (from left to right), and with representatives of all social institutions (unions etc ..) The Spanish Constitution is based in equality before the law for everyone regardless of sex, race,... You can imagine that it respects and promotes the most fundamental rights, and the rest. Another thing: those that have committed any crime in Spain against organized criminal groups (such as international drug dealers, different kinds of mafia, terrorists like ETA members) have been prosecuted and they are in jail (or at least justice is trying to catch them!). In particular some members of former democratic Spanish governments (from the 80's) are currently serving in jail due to the fact that they have been proof responsible for allowing (not prosecuting) torture and even murder of former members of ETA. And we are talking of some scarce criminal actions that are ilegal (of course!) and have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law (I can not say how many victims but surely few and far between, the most prominent case was the murder of 2 people (ETA members) that were shot in the country side; and they tried to cover it as "confrontation with the military police", that happened around 1980 or so). By the way ETA, as of today, is just an organized criminal band which has practically no popular support anywhere (including the Basque region). They have no more reason to exists, they started fighting against Franco (that was some reason), but now it is widely accepted by the Basque region society at large that ETA has no reason to exist, other than its lack of accepting the reality of change of times. See as a reference datum the results of the last national Spanish elections that have been recently held (9 March 2008) with more than a 75 percent of participation. There is practically no social support for the radical nationalists in Basque region. Of course, same applies to Catalonia that has always lacked of any social problem at any comparable level.

About the jurisdiction of an Spanish judge to judge genocide "anywhere". Well, think carefully of this: we are talking only of "genocide", which is defined as a crime against humanity. You have to really qualify to become eligible to "genocide criminal" (not anyone can qualify easily!). We are all human, and what makes no sense is that we cross our arms while someone mass murders our human fellows, only because there is a "border" (artificial as it is) so thin between them and we. It is the duty of humans to defend defenseless humans wherever they might be. So, if a French judge spends research time and effort to collect evidence that can be used to stop someone (whoever) to keep on doing atrocities against humans (anywhere he might be), and, in seeing this French judge, I go and comment: "who does he think he is, the world police?" I think I would be only showing off my lack of understanding which would borderline the uttermost ignorance of the most obvious things, my lack of common sense. Last but not least, this French judge would not be doing any treasppassing at all: Once this judge collects the evidence, he would ask for the deportation of such person. Everything is done legally according to international law. Deportation can be denied of course. In which case there is no one flying a helicopter in the night and kidnapping the genocide guy. Those things only happen in Hollywood ( ... Oh well, not exactly only in Hollywood ... ). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.142.143.67 (talk) 21:24, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Gurkha invasions

The article currently gives the impression that the Qing central government sent troops to Tibet when the Gurkhas attacked the area in late 17th century. IIRC, Ms. Collmar-Paulenz (Kleine Geschichte Tibets, see reflist) states that the central government sent no troops at all, and that the Gurkha had to be repelled by local troops. So, who is wrong? Yaan 11:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I was wrong. Miss Paulenz says that the Qing sent a whole army in 1793, bot no troops in 1854. Yaan (talk) 09:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought that sounded strange that someone said there was no army sent in 1793.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 01:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

TOC too long

Just a note that the TOC is too long for FA standards. Perhaps the details in the "history" and "culture" sections can be added to the relevant daughter articles and the content on this summary page trimmed to eliminate subheadings. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Manchu suzerainty

"Manchu suzerainty" at the end of the lead is not NPOV. If I understand the history of Sino-British negotiations over Tibet correctly, one big sticking point was always whether China (under the Qing dynasty or afterwards) was suzerain or sovereign. Is there an ambiguous word that can cover both? What about just simply "authority"? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

"dominance"? Yaan (talk) 23:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

'Suzerainty' is a British term. Eastern political theory may not work in such a fashion. 86.163.61.178 (talk) 02:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

"Sovereignty" is also a British term. Of course, we are looking for an English word to describe the situation in this article.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 03:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

"controversially"

Can some native speakers of English please point out whether saying "They controversially signed the treaty", taken to mean "There is a controversy on whether they signed the treaty", is good English or not? I have seen phrases like this one pop up in this article and others. I always reverted them, but I actually just recognized that, as a non-native speaker myself, I should be somewhat more humble and not too confident. So can someone please help me out? Yaan (talk) 08:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Yaan. It depends on what you mean by "controversy". If you mean that it is not known whether they signed the treaty or not, then you are correct to say, "It is controversial whether they signed the treaty or not." Is that what you mean by controversial? Respectfully, Thomas Lessman (talk) 13:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

What I wanted to know is whether "They controversially signed the treaty" reads OK or not. I thought it does not, but was not entirely sure anymore. But now I tend to think it really does read strange. Actually, I just asked because I have seen constructions like this in several articles and got a bit unsure of myself -- but only after I had been a bit harsh in a recent edit summary. Yaan (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay. No, it does not sound right to say "They controversially signed the treaty". There are similar grammatical errors in this article and others, and I've been meaning to help correct them. Anytime you have a question like that Yaan, feel free to ask me. Respectfully, Thomas Lessman (talk) 15:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

color-coded map legend confusing

The approach selected for the color-coded map legend is quite confusing. Can it be improved upon, most likely by switching to horizontal bars... which align with the relevant description...? Ling.Nut (talk) 11:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree it is not very intuitive, but I am not sure if changing the orientation of the bars is enough to fix it. Yaan (talk) 13:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the map legend's layout. Y'all can wrangle over further details. later! Ling.Nut (talk) 10:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It's clear - but inaccurate now! I'm reverting it back. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I second that. The legend now makes it seem as if "Tibetan areas designated by the PRC" does not include the TAR.

Your kind of legend, in connection with shades of the same color instead of red, yellow, blue, would make sense if the areas mentioned in the legend formed an ascending (or descending) chain, i.e if "Historic Tibet as claimed by Tibetan exile groups" includes "Tibetan areas designated by the PRC" and "Tibetan areas designated by the PRC" includes "Tibet Autonomous Region (actual control)" etc. But "Tibet Autonomous Region (actual control)" includes neither "Claimed by PRC as part of TAR" nor "Other areas historically within Tibetan cultural sphere", so I think the whole thing is now a worse mess than before. Sorry, Yaan (talk) 11:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The map legend is not intuitive by any strectch of the imagination.. If it requires deep thought to understand, then add explanatory text. The entire purpose of a map legen is to provide clarity at a glance. I hope we can agree on that point. Later Ling.Nut (talk) 02:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree. But I am afraid that with the current map, there is no easy way to provide a legend (or maybe there is: Yellow = TAR (uncontested), orange = Tibetan areas outside TAR, as designated by the PRC, red = areas claimed as Tibetan by Tibetan exile groups, but not designated as Tibetan areas by the PRC, etc., green = claimed by India, but controlled by the PRC as part of TAR (or is it?, turquoise = areas claimed by the PRC as part of TAR, but controlled by India, blue = Other areas historically within Tibetan cultural sphere) Yaan (talk) 09:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea behind what Ling.Nut has done. Basically, breaking the colour strips into blocks ensures that the reader is not "mislead" into reading the legend downwards rather than across. Perhaps lining up the blocks (if anyone knows how to do it) so that the same colour is vertically aligned, as it was formerly, would be a good idea. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Maps showing Tibet's historical borders

The existing historical map, {Image:World_820.png} is good but its borders for Tibet are incorrect. For Examples: Nan Zhao and Bengal were both free from Tibetan rule after 794 AD, and Tibet ruled the Tarim Basin and parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul until 812 or 815 AD.

I've got 2 maps of Asia that show Tibet's historical borders, one in 700 [Image:Asia_700ad.jpg] and another in 800 AD [Image:Asia_800ad.jpg]. I can edit the map to highlight Tibet so it stands out on the maps. Would it be okay to replace the existing history map with one or both of the maps, or at least add one of them to the article?

Ideally this article's history section should have at least 2 maps, one showing Tibet's borders in relation to other empires, and another map showing Tibet and its historical regions, battles, etc. Thomas Lessman (talk) 17:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

1913 treaty with Mongolia, again

I reiterate my previous point that the treaty does not seem relevant enough to be included in the article, but since some questions seem to emain open, I'll engage in some hairsplitting: I think part of the problem might be a misunderstanding (on my part or on the part of other authors) of what constitutes "existence of a treaty" and what constitutes "signing of a treaty". My understanding is that "no treaty exists" is a bit ambigous: it could mean both "no treaty was signed" or "there are no valid treaties". "A treaty was signed" means "a document purported to be a treaty was signed" (even if it turns out that the treaty is void from the start). In our case, the claim that the Tibet-Mongolian treaty of 1913 never was valid is well-represented in literature as well as in the article, while fewer refereneces (at least I coud not find one) make the claim that no treaty was signed at all.

If you read Charles Bell's 1937 paper carefully enough, he only asks whether the "Chief Minister of Tibet"'s government "had made a treaty with Mongolia". He did not ask whether Agvan Dorjiev had signed a certain document, so strictly speaking, I don't think this is a reference for the existence of a signed "treaty" document being put into doubt. Bell does also not give the date on which he asked the Chief Minister about the treaty, so it would be nice to know where the info that the remarks were made "years later" comes from. Yaan (talk) 12:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Balanced wording

Per WP:NPOV I just reverted those unbalanced wordings as I see blatantly organized POV pushing for the past months. All editors should read Tibet sovereignty debate before taking any action. - MainBody (talk) 08:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Qing control reasserted

Would like to add some sources providing different pictures, from both Charles Bell and A.T. Grunfeld. Please feel free to comment:

"the Chinese officials of the modern school, who came in now, lessened the bribes taken by the Tibetan officials from the poorer classes, and...gave straighter justice than that dealt out by the Tibetan magistry. There is no doubt some foundation for the Amban's claim that the poorer classes in Tibet were in favor of China" [Bell, Charles, Tibet Past and Present, Oxford University Press, 1927 , p93, p210]

"Zhang (initiated) a series of developmental project, and (forced) the official to a higher level of productivity by having them work harder. Specifically, Zhang and the amban...attacked corruption and "monastic idleness" founded a four thousand-man Tibetan army, secularized the government in Lhasa, opened schools, improved agriculture, and founded a military academy. While none of these reforms lasted very long, they did go some way toward winning the allegiance of the people and the enmity of the ruling elite."[Grunfeld, A.T., The Making of Modern Tibet, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p60] --219.79.122.72 (talk) 02:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

This sounds somewhat similar to what happened in Outer Mongolia at the time. Scholars of Mongolia usually regard these "new policies" as aiming at Han Chinese colonization and not at increased welfare for the Mongolian commoners. Indeed, Han Chinese colonization in Inner Mongolia had, by that time, already proven quite detrimental to the welfare of Inner Mongolians. These policies are also seen as the principal reason why the Outer Mongolian nobles sought help from Russia.

Of course Tibet is not Outer Mongolia, but I am still a bit sceptical about the alleged positive effects of these policies in Tibet, especially when the motives for these policies are not mentioned. Of course what we have in the article now does not seem very neutral either, probably because the sources given are not very neutral. I guess it should be possible to find some reliable, scholarly sources. I know Grunfeld has sometimes been criticised for missing important details because he speaks/reads no Tibetan and never went to Tibet before writing his book, but I have no idea which author could be more reliable. Just my 2ct. Yaan (talk) 22:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I think all reliable sources should be represented. Remember that NPOV does not say "find neutral sources". It says "represent all points of view", and by presenting, for example, two countering POV sources from opposite ends, we achieve neutrality and balance in the aggregate. My personal view is that any policy aimed at granting "favours" to commoners is likely to undermine the local nobility's hold on power, and the question of which purpose being dominant, or indeed which being the motivating purpose, is a question of perspective and may not be clear even in the minds of the original decision-maker. Say the Emperor in Beijing orders a new hospital to be built in Lhasa. Does he think he's bringing benefit to his subjects? Probably. Does the thought of undermining the local ruling class enter his consideration? Probably. Which is dominant? We have no way of knowing, short of reading cabinet meeting minutes - which, unfortunately, we can't. Was it great for the local populace? Maybe for some, not so for others. So presenting with due weight all reliable scholarly analysis is the best approach. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that WP:NPOV does not mean "try to achieve neutrality by finding the average between two extremes". My understanding is that first, those facts that are generally undisputed in reliable sources should be established first, and then the different viewpoints should be explained. I actually have no real idea of how reliable either Grunfeld or the sources now referenced in the article really are, but I am generaly suspicious of partisan websites, and I have read some reviews of Grunfeld that were not entirely convinced. Of course that does not mean these texts are not valid sources for POVs, but maybe not too reliable when tryng to establish facts. Or maybe they are, I have just not read enough about Tibet to know which works are reliable and which are not.

Regarding the "new policies", I wonder whether they were aimed at granting favours to anyone at all. My understanding is that they were aimed at tightening administration. That attacking the lamas is supposed to have created goodwill among the population seems, for example, rather strange. In Mongolia, the result was usually the opposite. On the other hand I have no problem believing that any reforms were rather ill-recieved among the Tibetan establishment. In any case, I think it would be better to establish the facts from reliable sources first. Yaan (talk) 23:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

That policies were implemented are facts; whether the policies were well received by particular sections of the populace are disputed facts, and the motivations for the policies are, in the absence of actual records, mere opinions. In regard to the latter categories, WP:NPOV would stipulate that we represent all major points of view, weighted according to their relative importance.

As to attacking lamas winning popularity: I don't see why it is such an unreasonable proposition. In all societies, those at the relative bottom end of the socio-economic or political scale will, to some extent, resent those near the top. In a theocracy, if Tibet in that period can be classified as such, the intrusion of religion does not necessarily remove this resentment, or class conflict if you will. Just because the other European states were Catholic does not mean that the Papal States were sacrosanct; and no doubt the population would have resented the privileged classes just as much as the commoners of any other European state of the time. It seems a bit romantic to think that Tibetan society is homogeneous. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your first section, but anyway I think using some good secondary sources (as opposed to partial quotes from secondary sources provided from an anonymous contributor, or stuff taken directly from partisan websites) would be a good idea.

Re. the attacks on religion, I do not think I am romantic, and I do not think Tibetan society was homogeneous at all. In fact, I think your reasoning is a bit questionable on two counts: First, you seem to imply that lamas were the top of Tibetan society, when my understanding is (and here I am extrapolating from the situation in Mongolia again) that there were large class differences among lamas, and that basically every family had a lama of some sorts within their ranks. In such a situation, where religion is deeply engrained with the people's whole way of life, my understanding is that an outsider's attack - or just a perceived attack - on the church as a whole ('monastic idleness' just does not sound to be specifically directed at the high lamas, does it?) does not automatically translate into class struggle. Examples from Mongolia include To Wang's modernization attempts in his banner during the mid-19th century, or the anti-communist uprisings in the early 1930s. An example from Europe could be Bismarck's Kulturkampf. But I may be underestimating the differences between Mongolia and Tibet on that count, or missing important details, so it would again be nice to have this all sorted out with the help of some really reliable sources.

The second questionable point is the comparison of commoner-church relationship in Tibet with international relations in medieval Europe. I just do not see the relevance of that example.

Regards, Yaan (talk) 13:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you on the first count. When I said "lamas", I was using it as a shorthand to refer to the theocratic establishment who held political and socio-economic power. Of course "lamas" is not a homogenous category, just as the Communist Party of China includes both the top political echelon and rural village officials in that country. However, I don't agree on the (seemingly) qualitative difference you draw between lamaist society, where religion is ingrained, as opposed to other religious societies. No society is homogeneous and all have conflicts. Successfully exploiting these conflicts are an important part of an outsider's strategy to obtain control, as Machiavelli might have noted. The difference between pre-modern Tibet and medieval Europe in terms of the permeation of religion into society is one of degree at most. Just as attacking the Catholic Church won the Communards support in France, it is not hard to believe that attacking the religio-socio-economic establishment would have won friends in Tibet, too. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. But I would imagine that Paris in 1871 is quite different from both medieval Europe and Tibet in 1910. Had the french priests in 1871 been able to convince the attackers that they were able to put a curse on their enemies, and the families of their enemies, things might have worked out different. I can also agree that exploiting conflicts within a society is a good strategy when trying to gain control, I just can't see any references saying that this was tried - and Grunfeld gives the impression that whatever really was tried did not succeed. In the absence of good sources, this discussion is rather theoretical anyway. I propose we continue it once we have access to proper sources. Yaan (talk) 10:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I wonder what is the threat-value of eternal damnation :) But I completely agree with those comments. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

It's worth noting that Charles Bell's sources have been quoted repeatedly, therefore I don't see ANY reason to exclude his viewpoint, at least not "partial", on the Qing modernization in the region.219.79.122.72 (talk) 08:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

In any case, I would like to know what the "..." is for. You seem to have access to these works, so would you mind quoting them in full instead of only partially? How are we to know that you did not leave out something important? Yaan (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I finally made it into my library, and Miss Kollmar-Paulenz' (whom I found not really pro-Dharamsala) take is that General Zhao's troops indeed "looted and murdered". While the text quoted from in the article is certainly non-NPOV (what the communists did 50 years later is entirely irrelevant to 1905), I think it is wrong to juxtapose this quote and the following ones in this way, as if one speaks against the other - they are not mutually exclusive at all: Yes, Zhao's troops destroyed monasteries, looted and murdered (this is not denied in the latter two quotes, and probably fits quite well with what is known about the behaviour of Chinese troops in other theatres of the early 20th century), and yes, "Zhao Erfang worked out a comprehensive scheme for the redevelopment of Tibet that covered military training reclamation work, secular education, trade and administration" (excerpt from the "pro-Dharamsala" quote). Maybe it would be better to just add a citation of Miss Collmar-Paulenz, and put the citations into the footnotes section, as there is no need for such long quotes in this article anyway? Of course I would still prefer to know what Goldstein or Bell have to say about the actual Qing expedition, but I don't have the books in my library, so... Yaan (talk) 18:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Just in case anyone is wondering, my library actually does have Melvyn Goldstein's History of Modern Tibet. I just found out that they even have Charles Bell's Tibet Past and present (and in two different languages!), so I might look up his stance of the 1905/1908 developments in the next days, too. Yaan (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed out of article

"The money funneled into cultural restoration projects is being primarily aimed at purely attracting tourists, and Tibet is still lagging behind the rest of the PRC. The first large hospital in Tibet was not built until 1985. Several of Lhasa's main roads were not paved until 1987 and the first students at Tibet University did not graduate until 1988."

The above statement was removed from the article. Not only is this lacking sources, but this is seriously debatable. There are parts deep in mainland China that can be considered lagging behind Tibet. Also eastern traditional medicine and tibet medicine needs to be compared. The comment about hospitals is a bad way to compare modernization. Benjwong (talk) 05:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Younghusband massacre

But on his way to Lhasa, Younghusband slaughtered 1,300 Tibetans in Gyangz, because the locals feared that the British would force an unequal treaty on the Tibetans. Younghusband first tricked them into extinguishing the burning ropes of their basic rifles before opening fire with the Maxim machine guns.

The first sentence makes no sense; the latter is uncited and is at odds with Hopkirk's "The Great Game".

205.181.102.108 (talk) 20:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

After reading and studying this page over several weeks, I became very interested about this subject of "Tibet controversy" with respect to modern politics and nationalism. Before I tagged this as an biased article, I took the time and pleasure of doing research by reading many history books and articles on such a topic. Mostly, I tried to locate books regarding the history and culture of the Tibetan region and its people. Books concerning the politics of this issue were generally avoided. Upon completing my "concise" research project, I came to a conclusion that this article about the history/culture of Tibet is very biased and tends to especially lean toward the perspective of the Western political world. I will state my reasons below.

1. In Wikipedia, facts and quotes are often backed up by appropriate and reliable sources of information. The location and whereabouts of the sources can be found by scrolling to the bottom of page. By examining the sources of all information concerning Tibet, we can determine for ourselves if any bias exists. I did this and found an overwhelmingly large proportion of articles that came from pro-Western politics websites and articles. Almost none of the sources came from the perspective of the government of the People's Republic of China. In addition, I failed to find any historical website linked to this topic and yet, the article is supposed to speak about the "history and culture" of Tibet. Not surprisingly, many sources of information have either direct or indirect links to websites supporting Tibetan independence and western politics. Thus, many sections of this article on "Tibetan history and culture" speak about politics from the Western perspective. For instance, this articles includes the three topics of "Perspective of Tibetan Exile Community", "Perspective of Western Governments", and "Perspective of the People's Republic of China." If you actually scroll to these subsections, you will find that the "Perspective of the People's Republic of China" is almost FIVE times SHORTER than the other perspectives! Tibet is a province in China and Tibet is almost 9,000 miles away from the coast of California. One should definitely expect more sources from the People's Republic of China but that is not the case. In fact, those with ulterior motives who edited the article never even bothered to provide credible sources to the section of the "Perspective of the People's Republic of China."

2. This article is also structured in a fashion, which is written to have single SOLE purpose of branding the People's Republic of China as a horrific human rights violator. By reading an article about Tibet "HISTORY and CULTURE", one may expect to learn more about the customs and history of the Tibetan people. Instead, most of the main points of this articles try to prove that Tibet was "invaded" by communist China. IF YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT TIBETAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS, THEN DO SO ON ARTICLES ABOUT "TIBETAN INDEPENDENCE", WHICH EXIST ALREADY. But, keep the BIAS from historical and cultural articles. Few actual facts from this article are about Tibetan history and culture. Ask yourself these questions. How do Tibetans pray? Where do they pray? How does Tibetan food differ from Chinese food? How doe Tibetan etiquettes differ or have in common with Chinese etiquettes? and so forth.. IN FACT, nothing from this article states anything about this! Read it once and ask yourself those questions!

These are my mains reasons of coming to a conclusion that there is some serious bias in this article. If you have opinions about Tibet from a political perspective, then go to a blog or write about it on "Tibetan Independence Movement" wikiarticles . But, please DO NOT do this on an article about the history and culture of Tibet! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historychaser4 (talk • contribs) 22:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the PRC is a major HR violater. :http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41640.htm

Look at the reference section on Human rights in the People's Republic of China.

Google china human rights violations, you'll get lists of sources.

Tibet was invaded by the PRC, historically Tibet has not been part of China. Historically it has been its own nation.

My reply to your "reply". So far, no refutable academic non-political group has even found any evidence to state that Tibet was never part of China historically at one point or another. In fact, a search on Encyclopedia Britanica would have a very comprehensive time line of Sino-Tibetan history. Furthermore, the Dala Lama also stated that Tibet was historical part of China in a speech this 2007. I even believe that this wikiarticle has it quoted! Again, humans rights violations is really something inappropriate to be discussed in Tibetan history and culture. Such events and information should belong on "Tibetan Independence" blogs and wikiarticles. So please remove your bias from a political standpoint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historychaser4 (talk • contribs) 04:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Historychaser, you're right that this article tends to rely on English-language sources, which is not desireable but normal, since the article is written by people who understand English. I'm afraid I don't understand your other complaints. Looking at the version of the article before you started editing, I don't see any sections on "the views of Western governments" and the sections such as this one or this one are certainly not five times shorter than the ones representing the Tibetan exile view. Also, the section on culture does actually only mentions the occupation briefly.

There are a lot of political issues involved with Tibet, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be discussed in this article.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 04:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there are problems of systematic bias throughout Wikipedia, especially on controversial issues such as Tibet.

It is very easy for any of us to reject anything said by the Chinese government, because everyone knows it is a tyrannical homocidal dictatorship, so of course anything it says must be propaganda. Some fall for that temptation so completely that they lose sight of any of Wikipedia's guiding principles. I myself have just come back from a block incurred when User:Blnguyen baited me past 3RR for my crime of trying to achieve balance on the Panchen Lama articles.

On the other hand, this article is remarkably balanced. Though it still has a lot of uncited "some say..." and "Tibetan independence groups reject..." it generally presents all sides of the argument in a fair and balanced manner, which is a credit to the long term and dedicated contributors here.

The article is not without problems, but it has the good fortune of being in the hands of a group of rational, balanced, and dedicated editors, and we should all work together to improve it. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

MY REPLY AGAIN... I fail to see any reason why POLITICAL and NATIONALISTIC writings should be POSTED on articles about CULTURE/HISTORY and in fact, much of the "facts" used are sourced from incredibly pro-Tibetan independence and their imperialistic Western governments. Lhasa, Tibet is over 11,000 miles away from Washington, DC. Shouldn't we be expecting more articles from the People's Republic of China? The People's Republic of China has over 70 million English students and the government provides many websites and historical sources but none are used at all.

KEEP IN MIND THAT THESE "SOURCES" YOU ARE USING AT BASICALLY HEAVILY BIASED. They are filled with utmost hypocrisy and serve as puppet as the Western government. Ask yourself why Russian Federation, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Serbia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Iran, and many African countries DO NOT have anything or any major groups related to this "cause." The reason is simple... these are pro-Western government groups. I HIGHLY DOUBT THE CREDIBILITY OF THESE GROUPS. For instance, the United States has fought many wars for its self interest. Take for example, the incredible genocide of Native Americans, war crimes committed against Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese civilians during those wars. So, even if you do write about "FREEDOM", then please get some more reliable sources! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historychaser4 (talk • contribs) 13:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that your response seems to have shifted toward political invective at this point—there isn't much here to reply to.

I think it is not exactly right that this article is about culture and history to the exclusion of other subjects. The note at the beginning says that it is about "Tibet" and it defines "Tibet" as a historical/cultural region. This means that it is not about a particular political entity called "Tibet", such as the Lhasa state or the TAR. I don't think it is supposed to mean that the political status of the region will not be discussed at all.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Historychaser - While I completely disagree with your politics, motive, rhetoric, methods, blind accusations and wild rantings, I do tend to agree that the general article on Tibet may be too politically loaded. For comparison, consider the article on Sudan. The Darfur conflict is every bad as contraversial and politically charged as the situation in Tibet, but yet the only mention in the general Sudan article is the link to "War in Darfur". Other similar cases include Rwanda and Burma. The base article on Tibet should focus on people, culture, traditions, geography, history and notable events with links pointing to dedicated articles on the broader conflict and politics around it.

POV by both anons and registered users

Maybe some anon/registered users are not too professionally familiar with this topic, but like it or not, there are tonnes of NPOV information showing Tibet did have some forms, loose or tight, of subordination to the Chinese state before the establishment of the People's Republic. I with no doubts reverted all those copy-and-paste pro-Dharamsala POVs.

maps as primary sources:

• Map published in Japan, 1908
• Rand McNally & Co. map published in 1914, See "Image:LA2-NSRW-1-0148.jpg" on Wiki.
• Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd in 1923, See "Image:India_shepherd_1923.jpg" on Wiki.
• "The Growth of European and Japanese Dominions", by W.R. Shepherd, 1923
• Map published in Japan, 1933
• "Administration Divisions of Shina", Japan, 1933
• History and Commercial Atlas of China, Harvard University Press, 1935
• Map published in Japan in 1942

(FYI, the People's Republic was established in 1949)

other info/sources

• Simla Convention 1914
• Goldstein, Melvyn C. A History of Modern Tibet, University of California Press, 1989

Commemorating the 49th Tibetan Uprising day doesn't mean we the editors should greenlight those Dharamsala propaganda these few days.

MainBody (talk) 12:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

How ironic that someone would invoke Japanese maps to validate Chinese imperialism. Maps also show the Manchukuo, but that doesn't mean it has a historical fate/obligation to be part of the Japanese Empire. That these earlier maps show Qing dominions as "China" i.e. part of the Qing Empire, is simply an expression of Japanese endorsements of Qing claims - maps are inherently political in nature, same as old US maps showing the Oregon Country as already part of the United States before that was actually the case; (there's also Chinese documents in British Columbia describing that British colony as a "colony of T'ang", but nobody ever took it seriously that BC was a Chinese colony, or at least no one else did...). Japan wheedled on Tibet in the same way the governments of Canada and the US do today; these maps mean nothing except a Japanese endorsement of Qing presumptions. And to boot, that the post-Maoist Imperial China condemns the Qing legacy, but invokes it as a way to extend claims to "Chineseness" far beyond Han China is not just ironic, it is rather sick. Tibetan Uprising Day - that's when the slaughter of monks and the raping of nuns and burning of monasteries was launched, huh? And the ground set for the mass immigration of Han into an area they're not even physiologically suited to live in, overwhelming the real Tibetan population: Some liberation...pointing at mperialist maps to justify genocide is, well, all too typical of Han/Maoist logic.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Inflamatory language like "imperialism", and quasi-racist condemnation of "Han/Maoist logic" is not helpful here... Your disagreement with a multi-ethnic conception of China does not make it "sick". Intolerance of others' beliefs is much "sicker".

MainBody, what are you trying to prove? I think it's fairly established that Tibet was never "independent" in the 20th century, and the article makes no such claim. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:24, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Imperialism is imperialism, and that's what Chinese policy about Tibet and other non-Han areas is. Period. "Imperialism" is not a POV word, it is a statement of fact with clear definitions, which Chinese poltical behaviour and ambitions fully lives up to. PRC imperialism uses Qing mperialism to justify itself, to justify its territorial claims and violent repression and genocide. That's not inflammatory, it's a statement of fact. Never saying the truth directly is one of the practices that allow those who wish to twist truth to get away with it. Oh, "genocide", that's another inflammatory word that's probably "not allowed"....I guess in writing histories of Germany we should avoid the term "holocaust" as inflammatory, too....Skookum1 (talk) 15:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It makes you "sick" that people who do not share China's multi-ethnic conceits - all a cover for Han expansionism - suggests you are in need of a reality check. The rest of the world doesn't have to buy Chinese historical propaganda, even if you've been breastfed on it. If you feel sick, maybe that's because you're confronted with the reality that your country has determinedly sought to deny. China's vision of multi-ethnicity is all about having cute little non-Han groups to help sell tourism with, and to say "see, these people are Chinese too, just because we made them be part of China, isn't that great?". The Tibetans do not share your concept of a multi-ethnic China - and they are sick of being told they don't have a right to define their history, insteadof having Han propagandists do it for them....and Han propagandists who get huffy when somebody calls them on their newspeak and twisted history. "Self-determination" sa principle of ethnic self-governance; somethinig denied to the Tibetans and Uighurs and others....be sick all you want, I'm unsympathetic.Skookum1 (talk) 15:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Bah, this sort of Imperialism crap/analogy in your sophomoric language doesn't work in the case of Tibet/China. Imperialism is unquestionably imperialism, but it basically doesn't not exist in the Sino-Tibetan relationship. If it exists, Han Chinese should have easily became the majority group for several decades or even a century in TAR. Honestly, as you may not acknowledge, Han Chinese are not interested in living on the Plateau at all, needless to say "imperialist ambitions"

Like it or not, the multinational feature of China is developed naturally since at least the Tang Dynasty. In the case of Qing case, we Han Chinese never forced the Manchus to claim their country China and we have never (and not intestested) assimilate them into Han Culture by force. Moreoever, it's the Manchu Emperor, while in the height of power, voluntarily claim their regime as China on the world stage. It's similar to ethnic-German Catherine the Great crowned herself Tzarina(-Regant) of Russia.

I think MainBody's Japanese maps (Can't you see this detailed map is quite NPOV?) rather successfully rebut those Dharamsala's brainwashing claims that there is no historical connection between Tibet and China "before the PLA invasion". The maps show that all foreign countries, both ROC's allies and adversaries, with no limitation, acknowledged Tibet as part of a Chinese Nation.

Nuns raped, civilians killed, human rights violations exist, yes, frequently in Tibet and other part of the Chinese Nation. However, I don't see there is any credibility and justification for the Dharamsala propagandists pointing fingers. Actually such kind of violations (even more serious) did exist under the pre-1951 Lamaist Government(Sources: Bessac, Frank, "This Was the Perilous Trek to Tragedy", Life, 13 Nov 1950, pp130-136, 198, 141; Ford, Robert W., "Wind Between The Worlds", New York, 1957, p37; MacDonald, David, "The Land of the Lamas", London, 1929, pp196-197) while the ROC was torn by civil wars, for example, do you know how Tibetan Commander-in-Chief Lungshar was punished by the Dalai government that he pledged allegiance to?

"Greater China", Han Chauvinism....Han Expansionism...blahblah, please feel free to invent more terms like these, but please note that having made friends with some ethnic Tibetans residing in the North American cities doesn't automatically award you basic knowledge on the Tibet issue.

Let's focus on improving the Wikipedia article itself, if you are so eager in expressing your special love for your Tibetan friends, please feel free to do so on TPT. Anyway, you have my sympathy.

Hey, wait! Here is my IMPERIALIST PEOPLE"S REPUBLIC OF CHINA IP ADDRESS -> :-) 219.79.27.241 (talk) 17:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Snide putdowns and personal innunendo are stock-in-trade for Han chauvists and anti-Tibetan propagandists, you're nothing new. Likewise the ability to admit to rape and killings, and then baldly say it's just "Dharamsala propagandists pointing fingers". All the rest of us are wondering when Chinese fascism wakes up to the smell of its own doodoo, and realizes that by "callng white black" you're not savng face, you're humliating yourself by your embrace of illogic and the typical personal attacks you throw at your critics; a personal attack on someone who disagrees with you is, after all, a sign that you know your logic cannot stand, so you have to discredit the source, or try to. It's avery old game, and very childish. "Sophomoric" was teh term you used on me; it's far more applicable to you.Skookum1 (talk) 18:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC) You're so stock-in-trade I'm surprised you didn't call me a running-dog lackey as well as a patsy of the "Dharamsala propandists". Qiang qing would be proud....Skookum1 (talk) 18:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

yawn...is that all you can say? Thanks for displaying such kind of thousand-word literary grace on this talk page , but, sorry, I don't really see how it works in improving the article with your, if exist, knowledgeable and constructive edits.

And, btw, stop being paranoid on this heated topic. Mentioning human rights violations, killings and rapes, in historic Tibet/China doesn't represent brainlessly following those Dharamsala stories of (pre-1951) Tibet as Shangri La and happy/benevolent serfdom. The argument you used above is nothing but nitpicking.

Once again, it is a talk page for discussing improvement of the wikipedia article. please go to newsgroups for pledging your political allegiance to CTA in Dharamsala.(where your literary talent would help :-)) 219.79.27.241 (talk) 01:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Err... yes. Hope you both feel better after that. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

As PalaceGuard implies, this kind of pseudo-conversation is not fit for Wikipedia. I don't mind if the conversation wanders a bit off topic for a while, as long as it is generally productive, but this flame-war serves no useful purpose at all.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Repeated Text and Broken Refs

The section Evaluation by the Tibetan exile community needs repairs by a knowledgeable editor.

--Juanco (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

POV- THIS ARTICLE IS SOMEWHAT BIASED...

After reading this article carefully, I came to a conclusion that a severe problem of bias is present in this article. Wikipedia tries to maintain a neutral POV on most articles and I believe that this article should be no exception. Although the issue of Tibet may cause controversy in modern politics, I strongly believe that political "propaganda" on both sides should not exist in this article. As for this particle, propaganda or biased language often come from "Pro-Tibetan" groups. One can clearly examine the tone of the language and the sources used for this article to discover this. When people are interested in Tibetan history and culture, they should be learning about Tibetan history and culture, not human rights abuses around the world. I really don't think that Tibetan etiquettes and language has anything to do with the perspective of the "Tibetan government in exile" or the "People's Republic of China." Furthermore, I believe that it is entirely wrong to "stereotype" or "brand" some as a "COMMUNIST" just because they do not believe in the "Tibet cause." Ironically, those who brand or label others as "communists" are in fact threatening the freedom of speech of others on Wikipedia. If you believe in the Tibetan cause, then please go ahead and blog on "Pro-Tibetan" websites but keep it away from Wikipedia. Wikipedia tries to serve as an unbiased source of information for millions of readers around the globe and I believe you guys (regardless of which "side" you're on" are tarnishing Wikipedia's image. Just go to Encyclopedia Britannica and read their articles about Tibet and see what "unbiased" means.

IN THE MEANTIME, I HOPE NO ONE WILL REMOVE THE "POV" SIGN AND EVERYONE ON BOTH "SIDES" CAN CONTRIBUTE TO A BETTER WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE! I have already contacted the administrator in order to settle such debates and controversies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historychaser4 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Your edit history shows you are running around tagging Tibetan articles with the POV tag, and then pasting a message on the talk page which does not address what your specific concerns are. Post specifics, or the tags will be reverted as your own POV. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 01:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

REPLY I feel very compelled to uphold the Wikipedia standard of keep articles unbiased and very educational and useful to many users. Much of what I said were unfortunately deleted by some users. I will not try to state what I said before. But, my main point is that we should remove bias in articles especially controversial ones. Primarily, my interest are in East Asian and Slavic history and cultures. It's very hard to judge history at times and even history books can be somewhat biased at times. But, I believe that by staying away from modern politics, history can be become "history" again. Thus, I recommended that the Administrator and fellow users delete parts of the article unrelated to TIBETAN HISTORY AND CULTURE. For instance, "Perspective of Tibet from a Tibetan Government in Exile, China, Human Rights groups perspective" are completely unrelated to Tibetan history and culture. An overwhelmingly high percentage of the sources used are directly linked to Pro-Tibetan websites and such. One may also doubt sources and facts put out by the Chinese government as well. Thus, in order to come to an agreement, I believe we should first take away all POLITICS from a HISTORY/CULTURE article and use academic sources instead. If you have strong feelings concerning Tibet from a political perspective whether supporting Tibetan independence or not, then please post on blogs or write about them on Wikiarticles related to Tibetan independence. But, keep away from HISTORY/CULTURE articles. It really damages the reliability and prestige of Wikipedia.

Can you point to the instances where your comments were removed from talk pages by other editors? They're not supposed to do that. I looked at this history of this page and didn't see anything.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is EXTREMELY biased (as of March 2008). It would be better titled "Why Tibet has always been part of China". This point was made, remade and made again before anything about the actual subject, Tibet and its history was mentioned. I made an atttempt to rebalance it, but obviously there are a lot of Chinese "patriots" who will swiftly revert any such attempts. So I give up. Ministry of Truth has won. Continue to revise history to justify your imperialism and genocide. Barsoomian (talk) 09:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Friend, you use the word "genocide" too lightly. You have no idea what a real genocide is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.138.164.228 (talk) 04:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you read more than the intro, Barsoomian? --Littlebutterfly (talk) 05:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Why is there not a section about the customs of Tibetan people?

Tibet is not just a spot on the map. It is where the Tibetans lived. To understand its people will perhaps help people understand the reason for the recent riots.

Maybe these pages can be pasted or linked to the main Tibet site? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry_in_Tibet —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pleasantweather (talk • contribs) 17:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This article does already have sections on Tibetan culture and cuisine. By the way, they still live there.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Truth behind the Younghusband Massacre

Knowing nothing about Tibetan history, I was nonetheless struck by the Younghusband 'massacre' as seemingly out of character (based on his Wiki entry) and the fact that such a serious incident seems to have generated no repurcussions. Currently the article states that he "slaughtered 1,300 Tibetans in Gyangzê, because the locals feared that the British would force an unequal treaty on the Tibetans. Younghusband first tricked them into extinguishing the burning ropes of their basic rifles before opening fire with the Maxim machine guns."

However, a brief click on the 'reference' (the Chinese Government's official website for Tibet: which is IMO far from the best NPOV source for historical analysis: http://en.tibet.cn/) already changes the story. According to that version, the British did 'trick' the Tibetan soldiers into extinguishing their fuses, but in order to disarm them: and the shooting only started when a British soldier was killed trying to take the gun from a Tibetan soldier. There is no talk of maxim machine guns either.

While we are in both cases describing an ugly and deeply unfortunate incident/massacre, the current wording gives the improper impression that Younghusband deliberately slaughtered 1,300 lightly armed Tibetans(effectively civilians) with machine guns, after tricking them into lowering their weapons.

A more proper construction might be: 'Younghusband's men were involved in a massacre of 1,300 Tibetan soldiers at Gyangzê. A British attempt to trick the Tibetan forces into laying down their weapons failed when shots were fired, and 1,300 mostly unprepared Tibetans were killed in the ensuing chaos.'

This seems altogether more honest, and more fitting, than something poorly culled from an already controversial source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.108.97.130 (talk) 23:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

A PRC source is POV. Documents from a authoritarian "communist" government generally don't fit the bill for npov. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 02:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A common misconception is that "NPOV" means using neutral sources. It does not - editors are not required nor equipped to assess the neutrality of a source. NPOV means presenting all points of view disclosed by reliable sources. A Chinese government website is a reliable source -- of the Chinese government's view of the situation. If you can find other sources that argue against this version of events, then both should be presented. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Robbers are robbers, the Younghusband massacre was even documented in source favoring CTA's position including "Red Flag over Tibet" by Orville Schell. Denying the British massacre is as ridiculous as CCP denying killings in Tiananmen Square in 1989. (I'm not sure whether this source can be used as Reference.)

Observation by Arthur Balfour, then-British PM, implies that British operation was not simply expedition:

"If the lama refused to even consider our very reasonable and moderate offers, we have no choice but to turn the expedition from a peaceful into a punitive one...(and) to destroy such buildings as walls and the gates of the city and to carry (off) some of the leading citizens as hostages"[Grunfeld A.T., quoted from Peter Fleming's Bayonets to Lhasa, 1961]

219.79.27.241 (talk) 03:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Younghusband did use Maxim machine guns and there wasn’t fatal casualty to his soldiers, according to his own report. Younghusband maintained communication with his superior in India by telegraphs. His telegraphs are included in a book titled “The British Invasion of Tibet: Colonel Younghusband, 1904” which can be found on amazon.com at this address: http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Invasion-Tibet-Younghusband-Uncovered/dp/0117024090

The following statement, Younghusband’s report of the incident, is on page 235. “The Lhasa Depon (Tibetan officer) firing the first shot and the Tibetans (1,500 strong) firing point blank and charging with swords; they were, however, so hemmed in that they coul not make use of their numbers, and after a few minutes were in full retreat under a heavy fire of guns, Maxims and rifles, which caused them heavy loss.”

Younghusband reported the casualties as “our casualties are—Major Wallace Dunlop slightly wounded; Mr. Candler severely wounded, and seven sepoys wounded.” What a great success! He, of course, said nothing about tricking the Tibetans.

The Chinese government is so incompetent; you should not trust their material. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 07:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Judging from the minor casualties the British suffered and the disproportionate heavy loss of the Tibetans, these poor guys were tricked. Who should be blamed? Maybe the Tibetans should blame their “uncivilized” minds. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 08:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It is unclear to me whether there are any serious historians who argue that a massacre of civilians or captured soldiers during the Younghusband incident. Most accounts agree that the British force entered Tibet and met with resistance from the Tibetans, whose bravery in some cases resulted in them taking heavy casualties fighting against a much stronger opponent. There's no "massacre" there, just a one-sided result to a battle. As for the Balfour quote, I think it's indisputable that the Younghusband invasion had the goal of winning political concessions from Tibet, and that they were willing to use violence toward this end. But the quote refers to tactics such as destroying government property and kidnapping influential persons. There is no indication that the British would attack ordinary people, and I don't really see what they would have stood to gain by that.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

There was a massacre, read the words of British soldiers who pulled the triggers. “From three sides at once a withering volley of magazine fire crashed into the crowded mass of Tibetans,” wrote Perceval Landon. “Under the appalling punishment of lead, they [the Tibetans] staggered, failed and ran…Men dropped at every yard.” The British soldiers mowed down the Tibetans with Machine guns as they fled. “I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, though the general’s order was to make as big a bag as possible,” wrote Lieutenant Arthur Hadow, commander of the Maxim guns detachment. “I hope I shall never again have to shoot down men walking away.” [Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood, page 195] http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Tibet-Searching-Shangri-Himalayas/dp/0805043810 If this is not a Massacre I don’t know what is.

Colonel Younghudsband had a mutual agreement with the Tibetans for not firing at each other. To avoid bloodshed the Tibetans pledged that if the Tibetans make no attack upon the British, no attack should be made by the British on them. Colonel Younghusband, on December 6, 1903 replied that “we are not at war with Tibet and that, unless we are ourselves attacked, we shall not attack the Tibetans.” [The British Invasion of Tibet: Colonel Younghusband, page 189] Younghudsband apparently did not keep his word but the Tibetans did. And they were killed.

In his telegraph to the headquarter in India on April 1, 1904, the day after the massacre, Younghudsband said the following: “I trust the tremendous punishment they have received will prevent further fighting, and induce them to at last to negotiate.” [The British Invasion of Tibet: Colonel Younghusband, page 237] He was trying to break the fighting spirit of the Tibetans.

It is true that there aren’t many people talking about this massacre in the West. It has been swept under the rug, too embarrassing I guess. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 22:21, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

a section on China and Tibet

Because of the known dispute, the relationship between China and Tibet should be given more weight in this article. Tibet has a long relationship with China which begins with Tibet’s military aggression into China in the 8th century. This article only talks about the recent part of this relationship which begins at about 1900. To help people better understand the history of these two, this article should have a section on China and Tibet that covers the full length of this relationship. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 06:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps adding a new article would be a better idea...Prowikipedians (talk) 06:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Pre-1600 and Post-1600 China tibet relation should not be mixed up. They are very different issues. There are wars between dynasties all over the history, and Tibet is historically Theocracy, as some dynasties around the World does. However, the difference is, at the time of Qing, colonization becomes global trend and Qing is one of them which starts colonizing over China and Tibet as well. This kind of imperialism conflict is rather different than the previous dynastic war. Both of them should be documented, but under different sections.--203.186.20.219 (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

In Geography Section: Source for Ganges is not in Tibetan Plateau, please correct it.

Source of Ganges is Gaumukh/Gangotri in Garhwal Himalayas which I think is not a part of Tibetan Plateau. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.134.68 (talk) 08:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

autonomous region

if tibet is autonomous then what is their quarel with the chinese govt? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.134.113 (talk) 05:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The quarrel, at least from the Dalai Lama's official perspective, is the level of autonomy. The level of autonomy enjoyed by Tibet is, in many respects, less than that enjoyed by, for example, Hong Kong.

Another perspective is that Tibetans disagree with the cultural worldview of the Chinese government. There is a good article in today's China Times of Taiwan written by its mainland correspondent, which points out that for many Tibetans, religion, a peaceful life, and preparing for the afterlife is more important than material wealth. Thus, while they welcomed the Communists' reform of Tibet's previous feudal socio-economic system and theocracy, to them the infrastructure and economic investment by the Chinese government does not come close to compensating for the exclusion of the Dalai Lama, control and disturbance of religious practices and their way of life.

Added to this is the high-handed way in which appointed Communist officials treat the local populace. Anyone who has been to China will know that this happens everywhere in the mainland. However, in Tibet, this is easily elevated into a Dalai Lama vs Beijing, or Tibetan vs Han issue. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

In just one day, this article has become a Pro-Tibet Advertisement

I am kind of disappointed in many wiki editors today. They took notice of the growing attention on Tibet in the past week, so they decided to edit this article to paint their own story here. No, a pro-tibet website is NOT a source. Good lord. Also, if you're going to source an article, don't just snippet pieces of it that makes the article seem even more pro-Tibet. Wikipedia is NOT supposed to be CNN or FOX here. Keep it objective and verified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashkenazi78 (talk • contribs) 02:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

has any country ever objected to China's rule over Tibet?

I recently added the following neutral and factual statement “No country in the world has ever objected to China’s rule over Tibet.” It was removed twice by different editors without good explaination. What is your opinion on this? Has any country ever objected to China's rule over Tibet? If your answer is none then this statement should be included. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 04:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "object". Many countries have expressed various degrees of criticism of Chinese policies in Tibet, occasionally vociferous but more often relatively mild. When the PLA began moving into Tibet in 1950, it is certainly the case that Britain, the United States, and India suggested that China should not use military force and made their opinions on this point very clear. The government of El Salvador was less circumspect, proposing a resolution by the UN General Assembly to the observing that "... the peaceful nation of Tibet has been invaded, without any provocation on its part, by foreign forces" and deciding "to condemn this act of unprovoked aggression against Tibet". This resolution was, of course, not passed, but, later, in 1959, the UN did pass a resolution calling "for respect for the fundamental human rights of the Tibetan people and for their distinctive cultural and religious life"; and, in 1961, the UN clarified this by "solemnly renew[ing] its call for the cessation of practices which deprive the Tibetan people of their fundamental human rights and freedoms, including their right to self-determination." I don't know how much of this rises to one's standard for "objecting the the rule over Tibet", but I would think that the statements by the government of El Salvador do, at least.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 04:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Didn’t Beijing and Tibet reached an agreement, something like seventeen points agreement? Didn’t the Chinese entered Tibet without a war? --Littlebutterfly (talk) 05:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by an "agreement". The Lhasa government showed no interest at all in agreeing to anything of the sort until after the PLA captured Chamdo by defeating a Tibetan army (Chamdo was inside the territory of the Lhasa regime and deep inside the ethnic Tibetan area). Even after the fall of Chamdo, the Tibetans' opening negotiating position was "please return the territories you have taken." The 17 point agreement was negotiated in Beijing and, regarding the more contentiuous points, the Tibetan party had to be cajoled and pressured into accepting it. In the most contentious case, point #15, their hesitancy was met with an explicit threat that the PLA would march on Lhasa.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 17:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes there was a war in Chamdo and the Tibetan army was defeated, but that has little to do with the signing of the seventeen point agreement. This agreement was reached in Beijing in May, 1951 and was passed by the Tibetan national assembly in Tibet in September, 1951. This agreement, negotiated and confirmed by Tibetans, makes Tibet officially a part of China.

The Tibetans was pressured, no doubt, but they were not “cajoled and pressured into accepting it.” They signed it voluntarily. The Dalai Lama was in a small town near India during the negotiation. Despite the repeated persuasion from the U.S. government which pledged to give him support and asylum in the US, he refused. Instead he returned to Lhasa and signed the agreement. He even went to Beijing in 1954. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 02:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't seem to have quite gotten your argument. How could the loss of Chamdo possibly have nothing to do with the 17 point agreement? Before the battle, the government in Lhasa had no interest at all in agreeing to anything of the sort. After an army marched into their territory and seized Chamdo, poising itself to march directly on the capital with no chance of serious resistance in between, they decided to start negotiating. The cause and effect seems crystal clear.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the Tibetan delegation was not cajoled and pressured, or that they signed voluntarily. As I said, they were directly threatened with a renewed offensive by the PLA. According to Melvyn Goldstein, the Tibetan delegation's objection to point #15 "irritated the Chinese, who angrily replied, 'Are you saying that you are against China? If that is the case then you can go home, you need not stay. We will send the People's Liberation Army.' The Tibetans then tried to calm the Chinese and suggested taking a break. During this period they talked among themselves and decided they had to acquiesce."

It's true that the Dalai Lama's government at length decided that they were better off accepting the 17 point agreement than going into exile. So what?—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 03:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The distance between Chamdo and Lhasa is about 1081 km or 670 miles. The high altitude, the lack of roads and the mountainous terrain provided plenty of difficult obstruction for the advancing Chinese army. To say that there was “no chance of serious resistance in between” is not convincing. Aside from this minor issue, what country would give up its sovereignty over one defeat? This is why I said the Chamdo defeat means little.

The Tibetan delegation was not cajoled and pressured into signing that agreement because they did not have the final word. It was the Tibetan government in Lhasa and the Dalai Lama who approved and signed it. Surely the signing of the agreement was done after the thorough evaluation of the situation. People who are not aware of Tibet’s history with China often say that the agreement was signed under threat. Could the Tibetans sign the agreement because of the benefits of being a part of China? Tibet enjoyed being a part of China over two centuries before claiming its independence in 1911. China gave it food and protection during that period, maybe the Tibetans wanted to become a part of China because of that.

The quote from Melvyn Goldstein is silly. He wasn’t there. Was he? That statement, if true, makes the Tibetans cowards. During the Russian invasion, Afghanistan was weaker than Tibet and the Russian military was much stronger than the Chinese one. Yet, the Afghanistan people fought and won. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 07:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

How do you know the quote is silly? Were you there? Just wondering. Actually, the Chinese had caught a number of high officials, the army was completely demoralized, there are a number of other good reasons why resistance after fall of Chamdo could have become infeasible. I wonder what the basis for the statement "Afghanistan was weaker than Tibet" etc. is. And of course the Russians did not lose, they just retreated. Yaan (talk) 18:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There are many ways you can view the situation: perhaps the Tibetans were demoralised by the defeat of the pride of their forces; perhaps they were very keen to join New China and the fight was all a mistake; perhaps they put up a token fight in order to strengthen their bargaining position; perhaps the more advanced weaponry and tactis of the People's Liberation Army impressed them.

The only version(s) of events that we should present here, however, are those backed by reliable sources. See WP:OR and WP:RS for why. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Littlebutterfly, my main source for information about this sort of thing is Melvyn Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913 - 1951. What's yours? Here's how Goldstein describes the situation after the fall of Chamdo:

With the main Tibetan force destroyed, the Chinese pushed on, meeting no resistance. On 22 October, they took Lho Dzong, Lhalu having already fled west to Pemba Dzong; on 27 October, they took Shobando; and 31 October they captured Pemba Dzong, again meeting no resistance, for by this time Lhalu had moved still further west to Giamda. It had taken just two weeks to destroy the main Tibetan defense force totally and, in the process to capture a shape and other important officials. The central road to Lhasa was wide open to the Chinese; they could easily have taken Giamda, where Lhalu commanded a small number of new recruits recently sent from Lhasa, and have moved into Lhoka and Lhasa.

So, yes, I think this meant a great deal in terms of the Tibetans' interest in negotiating, to say nothing of the fact of the post hoc, that it was at this point that they in fact did begin negotiating in earnest (although they did still try to delay, so it's actually a bit more complicated).

The Tibetan government ratified the Seventeen Point Agreement after it was signed. That doesn't change the fact that the circumstances under which they agreed to it involved a vastly superior sitting in their territory which clearly could and would have occupied the entire area regardless of whether they agreed or not. You ask, "Could the Tibetans sign the agreement because of the benefits of being a part of China?" They could, yes. Do you have any evidence at all that they actually did do it for this reason? Let's not forget who it was that negotiated the Seventeen Point Agreement: five aristocrats who held high positions in the Tibetan government. Ngabö himself was a shapê, meaning that he was one of the four highest-ranking persons in the government below the Dalai Lama or the regent. These were the last people people who would ever have any motivation to voluntarily cede authority over Tibet to someone else.

Melvyn Goldstein was, of course, not present at the negotiatons—A History of Modern Tibet is not a memoir. Goldstein is a historian, and so his job is to report accurately on things which he did not actually see himself. In this case, he cites as his main source an interview with Sambo Rimshi, who actually was there: he was one of the Tibetan negotiators. Tsering Shakya in Dragon in the Land of Snows also describes basically the same incident, citing one of the other Tibetan negotiators, Lhautara. This is interesting because Tsering Shakya spends a bit less time on the negotiations than Goldstein does, and his account relatively de-emphasising the pressure put on the Tibetan side; but he still includes mention of this particular threat.

Whether or not the quote shows the Tibetans in a negative light is immaterial to the question of whether or not it happened. In fact, a lot of people would say that Ngabö really was a coward, although I take a bit more favourable view of him than that. I'm curious as to how brave you would be in the face of a credible threat from the PLA to march into your house and take over.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 01:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Nat, the Chinese military threat was the primary factor, sure. What I disagree with you is that you seem to discount other factors—the lack of international support, the benefit of the union, etc. The more important point I have been arguing for, with you and others, is that it was the Dalia Lama and other Tibetan officials in Lhasa who signed off Tibet’s sovereignty. The negotiation in Beijing became valid only after it was confirmed by those in Lhasa, so don’t blame the delegation in Beijing.

Are Tibetans cowards? I don’t know. All I know is that they were reluctant to defend their homeland. Countries raise and fall throughout the history, only those who can stand up to the tests (invasions, natural disasters…) deserve to have their own countries. Americans fought the British for their independence. The Chinese resisted the Japanese invasion for more than a decade. They suffered a casualty of 30 million deaths and the lost of their capital Nanking, and yet, they continued fighting. Maybe the Tibetans do not deserve a country of their own.

Personally I am in favor of forming big countries, provided that there is not much bloodshed in the process. A room with many small boys is chaotic; a room with just one big boy is free of conflict. Beijing incorporated Tibet into China without much bloodshed; I have no problem with that. After all, the great majority of Tibetans don’t seem to mind. Very few Tibetans joined the 1959 uprising and the struggle that followed.

What I care about is the human rights of the Tibetans. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 20:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Tibet invasion or not discussion

You do not WP:OWN the article so please do not take absence of replies as a sign to include the fact article. Your edit has apparently been reverted twice, a stronger indicator that you should instead discuss the reversion on the talk page. This behavior, especially an article like this, can encourage an edit war. Your edit included a WP:WEASEL phrase ("It should be noted that") which compromises the neutrality of the article and does not allow the facts to speak for itself. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 04:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for remindng me that I don't own the article. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 05:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No one actually "owns" articles on Wikipedia. Prowikipedians (talk) 06:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Taiwan has made statements regarding to China's invasion in Tibet. Prowikipedians (talk) 06:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What kind of statement, something like Tibet is part of China? --Littlebutterfly (talk) 07:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

NO. WHY WOULD TAIWAN STATE SOMETHING LIKE THAT? Taiwan wants it's independence and seat in the UN, just like Tibet. Candidates Hsieh and Ma have stated their opinions on the issue. (which I don't think it should be discussed here since it's POLITICS.) Prowikipedians (talk) 11:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No country has doubted China's sovereignty over Tibet post-World War II. However, as you will see at Simla Convention, there were debates about the exact nature of Imperial China (and Republican China)'s authority over Tibet.

That said, I agree with Nat that "object" is too inexact a term to be used here. That no country has doubted China's sovereignty over Tibet does not mean that no country has objected to the nature and manner of China's ruling of Tibet.

To give an example that illustrates the difference: the Dalai Lama accepts Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, but he objects to China's ruling of Tibet in the sense that he objects to the lack of or insufficient level of autonomy in Tibet, and the Chinese government's religious and political policies in Tibet. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean Republican China? There's PRC and there's Taiwan. They're separate nations. Prowikipedians (talk) 11:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

He doesn't really "accept" it. What he wants know is peace and preservation of the Tibetan Culture. He doesn't lack the insufficient level of autonomy either. If you lived in places like Mongolia, Tibet or TAIWAN, you would understand this issue a bit better. China, here, is like the BIG BULLY here. Would China be prepared to take over the United States at any time? specifically this moment? NO. As you can see, China's trying to take over "weaker" countries. Read some information about Taiwan's sovereignty and such more. Prowikipedians (talk) 11:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't *quite* understand what you are getting at there... --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

For years, Taiwan has been rejected from the United Nations. If YOUR country was rejected from the UN, wouldn't you think that human rights / freedom of speech has been wrongly taken away? Prowikipedians (talk) 10:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, the exclusion of the Republic of China government from the United Nations has relevance for Tibet.... how? This is not a soap box for your political views. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

For information about "Republican China", see Republic of China. If you have any further questions about the history of China from 1911 to 1949, please post on the talk page of that article. An expert will be along shortly to answer your queries. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

How about this statement: “Concerns over the rights of Tibetans have been raised, however, no country has ever objected to China’s sovereignty over Tibet.” --Littlebutterfly (talk) 02:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That's problematic in both directions - the first part is weasel-wordy, and the second is imprecise. If you really wanted to make a statement about this, just say "No modern foreign government has recognised Tibet as being independently sovereign", then back it up with reliable sources. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

All right, I will quote a reliable source. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 07:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I added this statement--Although Tibet proclaimed its independence from China in 1911, no country has ever recognized it as a sovereign nation. “Indeed, at no time did any western power come out in favor of its independence or grant it diplomatic recognition.” [Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood, page 24] --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how that statement can be reconciled with the information in Nat Krause's post above, and I certainly don't think you should have added to the article without establishing consensus on the talk page first. It's not clear what your motivation for putting it in there was, either, and the fact that you can find a citation doesn't mean it is necessarily worthy of inclusion in the article. Alexwoods (talk) 19:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It is absurd not to have any statement addressing the international attitude towards Tibet’s sovereignty. That statement fixed that problem. If you don’t like that statement you can suggest something else as long as it covers the issue. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 06:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Western propaganda may well refer to an invasion, but if you move your troops within your claimed territory, is it an invasion? You might as well say the United Kingdom army invaded Northern Ireland. 81.133.196.180 (talk) 13:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If you move your army into a territory controlled by another power, it is usually called an invasion. Otherwise, Iraq's attacks on Iran and Kuweit in 1980/1990 resp. would not count as real invasion either. And of course anyone is free to make up his favourite claim, so this is pretty meaningless. I think yoone could make a case that the UK has controlled Northern Ireland for some centuries now. Yaan (talk) 13:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello we are having a similar discussion over at Invasion of Tibet (1950–1951). The discrepancies are so far off between the 1904 British engagement and the 1950 PRC engagement. We could use more expertise since one is classified as an "expedition" another as an "invasion". Yet the overwhelming sources are so controversial, we could use more people for discussion. Benjwong (talk) 16:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Tibet proclaimed its independence in 1911. At the same time many warlords in other parts of China divided the country up. To the Chinese the Tibetans and other warlords were the same, they exploited the chaotic situation. The priority of the ROC and PROC was the unification of the country. Anyway, no country recognized Tibet as an independent nation then and now, unifying a country is not an invasion.

To Yaan, Iraq's attacks on Iran and Kuweit were invasions because both were sovereign nations recognized by the international community. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 16:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I am proposing the move of British expedition to Tibet to British Invasion of Tibet. Or move the 1950-1951 invasion of Tibet to PRC expedition to Tibet. I am open to which ever move of your choice. You know is bad when a pro-Taiwan independence source like this one is saying the 1904 British engagement was a butchery of tibetans. Some more of the previous discussion was here. They should both be treated equally on wiki. Benjwong (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should just use whatever term is used in English-language literature? No-one cares about whether Free French and their allies can actually invade their own country, so maybe you should really let scholar.google.com and books.google.com decide. Yaan (talk) 20:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If we go by the books it is definitely an "invasion" both ways. 1904 British Invasion of Tibet and the 1950 PRC Invasion of Tibet. I will leave a message on the British expedition to Tibet page. Benjwong (talk) 21:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:RS and WP:NPOV, I think. Whatever the books say. Personally, I think calling it an "expedition" when a column of armed men march uninvited into another country is a tad apologist and biased, since it takes the view only of the invaders and not of the invaded. I would call it an "expedition" only if it was 1) into unknown wilderness and without clear objection from the local government, or 2) at the invitation of the local government (at law). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the II Marine Expeditionary Force always wait for an invitation. Nor were the people who took part in the expeditio sacra (pl?) of the early second millenium. You might also want to look up the term "punitive expedition". I actually think there is established english usage of "Younghusband expedition" (though not "British expedition") and "Chinese invasion" ([11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]). Just because some people may think this is politically incorrect (or may not really understand the different possible meanings of expedition) is no sufficient reason to change the names of the respective articles IMO. Yaan (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Yaan is right. An 'expeditionary force' can go in and burn stuff and kill people without invading. The raid against the Summer Palace in Beijing is an example of this. The European powers had no intention of actually conquering China, but rather were making a show of force. I think, at the level of which is the correct English term to use, the question is whether the English force intended and expected to conquer Tibet and rule it alongside the Raj, as they did with, for instance, Afghanistan and Burma, and as the Americans did in Iraq, but not in Somalia. The convention of referring to the Younghusband incident as an "expedition" is an important secondary argument. Alexwoods (talk) 22:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok I am trying to see what you mean. You suggest the British expedition was not an actual invasion because they basically released control by 1908, and didn't stay according to the Anglo-Chinese convention. Essentially that is correct. However the US is currently in Iraq, but not forever. Yet it is still called an invasion? You see the contradictions. If you wanted to go by source counts, there are plenty to suggest it was also a "British invasion", specifically under Francis Younghusband. Also keep in mind we are digging currently into English text. Is like digging into Chinese text, all you will find is "Peaceful liberation of tibet". Which is not something I would ever consider naming that article. Benjwong (talk) 23:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not pushing one or the other points of view (unlike Littlebutterfly). I am trying to make sure that we frame the debate as clearly as possible so that we don't have an edit war and so that we have an article that is in clear English and as apolitical as possible. You folks know a lot more about Younghusband than I do, so I'm going to leave the terminology question to you. But, again, the source count should not be our primary concern - the intent of the British to directly govern the region was. To respond to your Iraq example, the Americans do not intend to permanently govern Iraq but certainly went in with the idea of running the country, whereas they obviously did not in Somalia. Also, it's important that all the editors on this contentious page examine their own motives for making changes. Littlebutterfly, for instance, clearly strongly supports the Chinese presence in Tibet, and that is the motivation for his/her edits. That's an unacceptable reason to change an article. This is an encylcopedia, not a soapbox. Ben, I appreciate your taking the time to think this through and I'll support whatever decision is reached through reasonable consensus. Alexwoods (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Alexwoods, my motivation is to make this article as encyclopedic as possible. I will only use material from creditable sources. Some editors here are editing with an anti-Chinese government attitude which makes this a soapbox. My position is not different from that of Dalai Lama’s regarding the sovereignty of Tibet. He said Tibet Wants Autonomy, Not Independence. I would argue for the human rights of the Tibetans but not Tibet independence. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

That's great that you would so argue, unfortunately an encyclopedia is not the place to make that argument, which is exactly what you are doing when you intentionally try to skew the article in favor of your point of view. You are too emotionally involved in the subject matter of this article to be objective and you should recuse yourself from editing it. Alexwoods (talk) 18:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The brief military conflict between Beijing and Tibet can not be called an invasion for two reasons. First, it was very brief. In comparison the British expedition was more like an invasion. The British, in a few months, fought its way to Lhasa by killing thousands of Tibetans. The PLA army on the other hand did not go all the way to Lhasa and did not kill many Tibetans. When brief military action takes place it is usually called military conflict between X and Y. Second, Tibet was recognized as a part of China by the Chinese, every country in the world and even some Tibetans before and after the event. According to international standards it was an internal conflict and therefore can not be called an “invasion.”

The title of the article is inconsistent with its content. Invasion refers to military action; to be consistent the article should just cover the war at Chamdo. The article now includes the signing of the 17-point agreement and incorrectly credits it to the Tibetan defeat at Chamdo. Are you sure that the Tibetans signed the agreement because they lost that war? Who has the authority to make such a conclusion here?

This article should just cover the Chamdo war with titles like “Chamdo war" or Chinese and Tibetan military conflict at Chamdo.” The material about the signing of the agreement should be moved to the main page or it can be part of an article on the signing of the agreement. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 06:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

What were the troop levels of Younghusband in 1904 vs. the PLA in 1950? The PLA in 1950 marched in four columns, in how many columns did Younghusband move? I guess you could find plenty of differences on the operational level, and I don't think you can find any WP policy calling for consistency or political correctness in article names. I still think there is sufficient evidence that Younghusband expedition is the most common name, if you insist on moving the article it should be moved there. Re. whether the Tibetans signed that treaty because they lost at Chamdo, I propose you look up the relevant literature. My impression is the reason was not that they desperately wanted to join the PRC. Yaan (talk) 16:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Well from the tibet-army view. The 100% most direct source possible.... is Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme. He was the commander of the Tibetan army. In a rare 1998 interview with SCMP, people in Tibet considers him a traitor who gave up Tibet to the communist party. He signed the agreement easily, and released without a problem. They keyword in the interview is "DISBAND". You can see he gave up the tibetan army due to the conditions. I don't know if you want to believe him, since he lives comfortably in Beijing after the signing. While the tibetans are obviously in misery. I am very open to the idea of renaming Invasion of Tibet (1950–1951) to "Chamdo war". Opinions anyone? Benjwong (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The British call Younghusband’s mission into Tibet as an “expedition.” But The Tibetans, the Chinese and others call this mission an “invasion.” See here The section titled British Expedition should be changed to British Invasion.

Yaan, we should both look up the relevant literatures regarding the signing of the agreement. Saying that it was signed over the Chamdo defeat makes the Tibetans look cowardly. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The document was signed in Beijing if you want to re-check references again. Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme signed it under the custody of the PLA forces basically. Benjwong (talk) 17:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The agreement was signed in Beijing in May, 1951 and was passed by the Tibetan national assembly in Tibet in September, 1951. It was the confirmation from Lhasa that makes the agreement official. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, there was nothing cowardly about the signing. He admitted to "disbanding" from the military given the situation. Went to Beijing, signed the paper. He was not doing it under pressure on the battlefield while being invaded etc. Maybe pressured by PLA custody. The "Chambo war" title is acceptable since it was a focal point. Benjwong (talk) 18:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme is a scapegoat. The agreement was ratified by high level officials, including the Dalai Lama, in Lhasa a few months after the signing. Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme did not signed Tiebt away, it was Lhasa’s confirmation that signed Tibet away. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I will answer this after Easter Holiday, as right now I am nowhere near my library. I did not succeed in gaining any google scholar hits for chamdo-war, but I am actually open for terms used in US or British academic literature. Yaan (talk) 18:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme is not the only person responsible. But to say he is a scape goat, can be POV. In the scmp interview he admits to having taken part and have some responsibility. That might be material for his article, the 17 point agreement, or the invasion itself. At least 1 source claimed he was actually classified as a POW under the PLA. But just about every source saids he is treated pretty well. For many years he was on board for many political positions under the CPC for years to follow. Benjwong (talk) 19:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It was the ratification of the Tibetan government in Lhasa that signed Tibet’s sovereignty over to Beijing. Let me give you an example here. US President Jimmy Carter signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, because it has not been ratified by the US Congress it has not been adopted by the United States. Signing a treaty or an agreement by the delegation is meaningless without the ratification of the congress/representatives of the nation. Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme and the rest of the delegation did sign the agreement, but if it had not been ratified by the Tibetan national assembly a few months later in September, 1951, it would not have been official. It was the ratification in Lhasa that signed Tibet’s sovereignty to Beijing. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok I see what you mean. Benjwong (talk) 06:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Tibet invasion or not discussion:continue

I don't think either article should be titled "invasion", for different reasons. In the case of the British in 1904, I think that it does meet the narrow definition of an "invasion", so, titling it an invasion would not be inaccurate. However, I think that, as Alexwoods argues, "invasion" also implies that the invader intends to occupy the country or something along those lines, which was not the case in the Younghusband incident. So, "expedition" would be a preferable title. In the case of the PLA in 1950, we have the opposite situation. There is no doubt that they came to occupy. But, the term "invasion" means that we are talking about one country violating the territory of a separate country. Wikipedia cannot take sides on whether China and Tibet were separate countries in 1950.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 22:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well even the word "occupy" or "occupation" is very tricky. There is the intent to occupy and the intent to occupy permanently. The british had some intent to occupy tibet. The communist party had intent to occupy permanently forever, if you want to be technical. I am leaning farther away from the word invasion currently. However I have a hard time justifying the PLA 1950 engagement as an "expedition". Which is why "Chamdo war" is ok for me. But I won't push this until there is unanimous agreement. Benjwong (talk) 06:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Btw. , what about the 2008 invasion of Anjouan article? Yaan (talk) 14:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Things are getting unnecessarily complicated.

Since the mid-18th century, during the George Bogle years, the Britons had acknowledged the Tibetan(and Chinese) authority in the region. As they afterwards crossed the Tibetan boundaries forcibly without latter's permission, such act can already regarded as invasion(no matter it is by narrow or broad definition).

"Although the Chinese and Tibetan delegations urged them not to cross the frontier, the British mission persisted and reached its destination on 7 July 1903. They settled in there to wait for high-level Tibetan plenipotentiaries and the amban. The Tibetan/Chinese position remained constant throughout this ordeal: there could be no negotiations while British troops occupied Tibetan/Chinese territory illegally. Younghusband could do nothing but wait for further instructions. While he waited, the Tibetans sent three lamas to pitch a tent opposite the colonel's, and they proceeded to spend an entire week cursing the invaders in an apparent attempt to exorcise them. Unilaterally calling a tripartite conference, invading a sovereign nation without prior provocation, and then having no one to confer with put London in a very embarrassing position. The British were being snubbed"[Grunfeld, A.T., The Making of Modern Tibet, 1996, p55] 219.79.27.59 (talk) 02:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Is this a joke?

I just found this mess of a discussion, but is this a joke? The article has called this thing an invasion in the opening sentence since its creation in 2006[17], why is it even named "expedition"? Pro-Tibet websites call it an invasion[18][19][20], books call it an invasion[21][22][23][24][25], there's even a BBC Radio report that calls it an invasion[26]. Also, hits on Google Books and Google Scholar:

• "British invasion of Tibet" - 245 on Google Books[27], 42 on Google Scholar[28]
• "British expedition to Tibet" - 134 on Google Books[29], 31 on Google Scholar[30]

I don't imagine myself spending time on this already very involved discussion, but I have no idea why that article should be named "expedition". It's laughable. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree that most common name should be used. Could someone please move the article to Younghusband Expedition? 251 hits on google scholar [31] and 644 on google books [32] should be overwhelming enough. Yaan (talk) 14:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not a joke, and expedition is clearly the more common term. Can you explain why you think it was an invasion rather than a military expedition? Alexwoods (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Tibet and India, late 700 and 800 AD

Current East-Hem depiction of Tibet/India borders in 700 AD.

Suggested corrections for Kamarupa in 7th-8th Centuries, AD

Current East-Hem depiction of Tibet/India borders in 800 AD.

Concerns have been raised over the Tibetan Empire borders depicted in the East-Hem maps for 700 and 800 AD. Specifically regarding whether Tibet ruled large sections of northern India, including Kamarupa, Bengal, and the Gangetic plains. There are unfortunately few sources covering relations between medieval Tibet and India. Bengal and Assam are also lacking reliable sources for that time period.

Some of my sources regarding Tibet's expansion into Bengal and India:

• 1. Google Book's "History of Tibet" makes several mentions of Nepal as a Tibetan vassal, and also says that India's Pala Empire under Dharmapala accepted Tibetan overlordship. (Page 54)
• 2. The wiki-article, History of Tibet also mentions Tibetan military power extending to Bengal, in the section about Ralpacan (815-838 AD).
• 3. Huhai.net has a [map of Asia in 750 AD] that shows Tibet ruling Kamarupa, Bengal, and Pala.
• 4. DK Atlas of World History, 2000 edition, shows Tibet's borders in 800 AD, with northern India (the entire length of the Ganges, almost to the Indus river) ruled by Tibet. It's on pg. 262.

Tibet appears to have been rather active along their southern borders. We know Tibet subjugated Nanzhao twice (from 680-703, then from 750-794 AD). Nepal under the Licchavis was apparently subjugated also. This was about the same time as the collapse of the Pyu city-states in Burma, the end of the Varman Dynasty and the beginning of the Mlechchha dynasty in Kamarupa. It's possible Tibet also subjugated part of northern India. It may not have been an actual conquest; it could have been raids for plunder or marriage alliances.

(This is also being discussed on Talk:Kamarupa (History) and History of Tibet. I've posted this here to get more input. Any assistance is appreciated! I need to find out more information before I can correct the maps, if they are incorrect. Thomas Lessman (talk) 06:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Historical Sovereignty

Should the sentence "Although Tibet proclaimed its independence from China in 1911, no country has ever recognized it as a sovereign nation" be followed with "at least in recent centuries", since it's an established fact that many centuries ago Tibet had at least nominal independence? --152.3.153.2 (talk) 19:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The referenced sentence which preceeds the quote takes the quoted text out of context. The reference concerns western countries but the editor used it to include all countries. "Although Tibet proclaimed its independence from China in 1911, western countries have been hesitant to recognize Tibet's independence." Would be a lot more accurate. 170.252.11.11 (talk) 21:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Man, every article I want to edit is blocked to unestablished accounts.

This is taken almost verabitm form the source:

In the battle for supremacy in central Asia between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia, a British force under soldier Francis Younghusband eventually invaded Tibet, cut down its warriors with the Maxim gun and occupied Lhasa in 1904. [5] [6] The invasion led to a peace treaty between Britain and Tibet, a document that some Tibetan historians see as recognition of their remote mountain home as an independent entity. Imperial China was outraged by the invasion but could do nothing to stop it and waged a diplomatic battle to protect its own claims over Tibet.[6]

In 1949-1950, soon after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the 'liberation' of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army. Many Tibetan nobles and working people co-operated with the PRC government.[6] However clashes broke out over land reform and the Buddhist religion. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India.

The CIA funded a secret guerrilla war until President Richard Nixon decided to reconcile with Mao in 1969. Famines, followed by Chinese violence during the cultural revolution, intensified resistance to no avail.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3559353.ece Squatt (talk) 04:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted most of this. It doesn't belong in a lead, the article has a lengthy History section, and there is a separate article just on the history of Tibet. Squatt (talk) 23:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you deleted stuff that was not c&p-ed, and forgot the "In 1949-1950" stuff. Don't bother, I'll take care of it. Yaan (talk) 23:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Why choose to be blinded to the history of tibet during Ming Dynasty?

There are many literatures and relics reveal and prove the history of Tibet during Ming Dynasty(1368-1644) [33] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jozg (talk • contribs) 14:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you try and find some reliable sources and write something yourself? I actually did write some paragraphs about Yuan dynasty and the early 17th century, but not much about the time in-between, although it is probably interesting as well. But please keep in mind that "tributar relationship" or "appoint x to prince of y" by the ming did not necessarily translate into real influence. At least this was the case with the mongols, I assume Tibet might have been not too different. Yaan (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sovereignty of Tibet

In 1951 the Tibetan government signed an agreement that officially incorporates Tibet into China. Dalai Lama himself, as late as 2006, reiterated that: “Tibet Wants Autonomy, Not Independence.” In other words the head of the Tibetan government still recognizes Tibet as a part of China. This following statement does not reflect the reality. “In the Tibetan sovereignty debate, the government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of Tibet in Exile disagree over when, or if, Tibet became a part of China, and whether this incorporation into China is legitimate according to international law.” It is also not supported by any source. I believe it should be removed. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yaan you removed a sourced statement by saying: "no country" is not the same as "no western power", Mongolia in 1913 arguably recognized Tibet, as did El salvador in 1951 (if Nat on the talk page is correct)).” I challenge you to find any country that recognizes the sovereignty of Tibet now and then. You can not remove a statement just because you think it is incorrect. You have to approve it is incorrect here first. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the challenge is on you to find a citation for "no country" ever recognized Tibet. Mongolia and El Salvador are countries, no? I see Mongolia was not recognized by other countries in 1913 either (even that does not necessarily mean it is no country), but El Salvador in 1951 was. My problem with the particular sentence was that it created the impression that the quote ("No western power ever ...") backs up the statement "no country ever", when in fact it doesn't, and when in fact it can be argued that at least one country did recognize Tibet's souvereignity. We could of course write a whole essay about which countries did, at least implicitely, recognize Tibet's souvereignty, or we can just state those facts that do not need in-depth discussion. But in either case, we should not leave statements in the intro that are unsourced and arguably false. Yaan (talk) 18:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly right. It's not up to us to prove that LB's statement is wrong, and anyway Nat and Yaan have already done so, to my satisfaction at least. I don't want to get in an edit war, but I strongly feel that LB's change should be reverted. Alexwoods (talk) 18:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You don't have consensus for that change, and I don't think we need to get into an argument over what constitutes a Western power. Please don't continue to make unsupported changes that push your particular point of view. That's not what this is about. Alexwoods (talk) 17:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Mongolia in 1913 did briefly recognized Tibet as a sovereign nation. But the El Salvador government in November 1950 only questioned the aggression against Tibet. That is not the same as recognizing Tibet as a nation. In any case there is no country today recognizes Tibet as a sovereign nation nor question China’s sovereignty over Tibet. Am I wrong on this? Even the Dalai Lama recognizes China’s sovereignty over Tibet. What do you think about that? --Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If Nat's quote is correct, then they did use the word "nation" when referring to Tibet. They did not use the word "souvereign", though. But OTOH the word "agression" IMO would imply that they did not regard this issue as a Chinese internal affair. Yaan (talk) 17:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Mongolia claimed independence from China in 1911. The Mongolian People's Republic was established in 1924. In other words in 1913, it was not a nation yet. Just one nation, El Salvador, expressed concern over China’s possible military action against Tibet. The term aggression does not imply that they regarded Tibet as a sovereign nation. Aggression means The practice or habit of launching attacks. Or Hostile or destructive behavior or actions. Neither country has ever recognized Tibet as a sovereign nation. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to say that I am pushing my particular point of view. I am editing the article by citing creditable sources, who said that very edit needs consensus. Plus, did you have the consensus to remove this statement? Alexwoods instead of engaging in a revert war by saying that I don’t have the consensus why don’t you debate with me over the accuracy of that statement? --Littlebutterfly (talk) 17:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope we can get over the sovereignty issue so the human rights abuses of the Tibetans, the more important issue, can be addressed here. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Tufan

Why is the name "Tufan" used in the above maps, and Tufan redirects to Tibet, yet the word "Tufan" appears nowhere in the Tibet article? Can we fix this, please? Badagnani (talk) 18:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Tufan was the chinese term for Tibet pre-seventeen century. I just added it to the article. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This is distinct from Turfan, correct? Just a coincidence in the similarity between those two toponyms? Badagnani (talk) 18:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Funny, I was just wondering that. The Turfan page doesn't have any discussion of the etymology. I wonder if Turfan is pronounced something like 'Tubo' in Uighyur or other Turkic languages. Alexwoods (talk) 19:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It should be "Tubo" - the "Tufan-Tubo" confusion was dealt with in the Names-Chinese section. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The Names-Chinese section of what? Badagnani (talk) 01:08, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

This article. See Tibet#In Chinese. I have edited the section so that both Tubo and Tufan would show up in a Ctrl+F search. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Nancy Pelosi Comment...

"U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on March 21, 2008 criticized China for its crackdown on anti-government protesters in Tibet and called on "freedom-loving people" worldwide to denounce China.[94]"

First of all, this article is full of bias.. Definately needs some work, but anyways. Under the "Rule of the People's Republic of China", when I reached the end of the paragraph and read the NANCY PELOSI comment, I was disgusted. Take this US propaganda out of this article. The US is waging a war that has shattered the Geneva Convention as well as torturing "enemy combatants" in some of the most vile and inhumane ways imaginable. Nancy Pelosi is a tool whose freedom-loving comment should be dismissed as nonsense and she should take a look at HER PEOPLE in HER OWN country and try and figure out where all their freedom has gone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.141.99.43 (talk) 15:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You say that as if she was guilty of the freedom-violations of the party she opposes. How ironic that a PRC propagandist like you would denounce her while 5the Chinese government continues to fund the current US war which has incurred those democratic-freedom losses at hoe . What are teh Chinese government's motives for bankrolling the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? What is the Chinese government's position on torture and internment without charges? Are there no Guantanamos in China? The fact of the matter is the Chinese government doesn't care about losses of freedom in the US any more than it cares about nurturing democracy at hom. And it's all too happy to make lots of usurious money from financing US imperialism and the US' own erosion of domestic civil liberties. But pointing at someone else's failings (and/or financing them) is always so much easier than having to discuss your own anyway; this article is not about the US, it's about Tibet. Pelosi visited the DL not to arrange mutually eneficial bank loans, which is what Republicans do when they talk to Beijing; she's there because of the Chinese state violence against Tibetan people currently underway. She's discussing freedom and democracy, not how to prevent them - which is Beijing's agenda when it talks to Washington....Skookum1 (talk) 16:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

"this article is not about the US, it's about Tibet." Exactly. We could debate all the issues you have just raised which are all valid. I'll admit that my first statement was a bit too rigid and very thin. But, who's "idea" of freedom and democracy is she discussing? Those words mean infinitely different things to different people. Why is it then that a statement by a US figurehead, in an article genuinely about Tibet, is given a voice? Who, is She? It shouldn't be there. It gives the reader the idea that if HE or SHE is, personally, a "freedom-loving person" that HE or SHE should denounce China. I'm Canadian, I am not a "PRC propagandist". I'm someone who thinks that people should learn the history and context of issues and develop their OWN stance before being poisoned by a sentence that can be exhaled in less than 5 seconds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.141.99.43 (talk) 17:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that quote does not belong mainly because it is vague and not unique. You can find a quote like this everyday on a website. Benjwong (talk) 07:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

intro

I just radically cut the intro section. I don't think anything is gained by making sections longer and longer, or by discussing stuff in the intro that should be discussed elsewhere. Btw. this is true for the "Rule of the PRC" subsection, and actually for the whole history section, as well. Yaan (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to remove paragraphs from the lead, they should have been carefully merged (with consensus and discussion) into the text of the article, rather than blanked. The fact that you proposed this here *after* you blanked doesn't show good faith. Badagnani (talk) 17:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh come on. The intro is so completely overblown that no-one will read it, and most of the stuff in the intro is already discussed further down. I'll re-post my version of the intro here, and then I'll discuss some of the problems with the old one.

My version (updated 4 times):

Tibet is a plateau region in Central Asia. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft), it is the highest region on Earth and is commonly referred to as the "Roof of the World." Tibet is currently administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC). The heartland around Lhasa and Shigatse forms the Tibet Autonomous Region, while other areas traditionally inhabited by Tibetans form parts of Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu.

Many parts of the region were united in the seventh century by King Songtsän Gampo. From the early 1600s the Dalai Lamas, commonly known as spiritual leaders of the region, have been heads of a centralised Tibetan administration (at least nominally),. In the 18th century, Tibet came under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. With the collapse of that dynasty and the foundation of the Republic of China in 1911, Tibet gained de-facto independence. This de-facto independence was, however, never recognized by any major powers, and especially not by China. Following the occupation of Chamdo by the PLA in 1951 and the signing of the 17-Point Agreement, the PRC incorporated the area in 1951. After an uprising in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India.

Current version:

Tibet is a plateau region in Central Asia and the home to the indigenous Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000 ft), it is the highest region on Earth and is commonly referred to as the "Roof of the World." Tibet proclaimed its independence from China in 1911. However, "at no time did any western power come out in favor of its independence or grant it diplomatic recognition.” The People's Republic of China (PRC), citing historical records and the Seventeen Point Agreement signed by the Tibetan government in 1951, claims Tibet as a part of China (with a small part, depending on definitions, controlled by India). Currently every country in the world recognizes China's sovereignty over Tibet. Dalai Lama, the head of the Tibetan government in exile, does not reject China’s sovereignty over Tibet: “Tibet Wants Autonomy, Not Independence.”-All of this can be conveniently summed up as "China now controls Tibet". Anything else is completely irrelevant to the intro.

Geographically, UNESCO and Encyclopædia Britannica consider Tibet to be part of Central Asia, while several academic organizations controversially [emph. mine] consider it part of South Asia.-The very first sentence in the intro states Tibet is in Central Asia, and while there are sources that consider it part of South Asia does not mean we need to make the intro longer. If anything, we should write something like "Tibet is a region in South/Central Asia". Also, just because there are different viewpoints about which part of Asia Tibet belongs to does not mean there is a controversy. Might be just a case of some people saying orange is red, while others say it's yellow.

Many parts of the region were united in the seventh century by King Songtsän Gampo. From the early 1600s the Dalai Lamas, commonly known as spiritual leaders of the region, have been heads of a centralised Tibetan administration (at least nominally), and are believed to be the emanations of Avalokiteśvara (Chenrezig, Wylie spyan ras gzigs] in Tibetan), the bodhisattva of compassion.-This section seems to be dedicated to history, so what is the religious stuff doing here? how is this relevant to an intro to Tibet?

In 1751, the Manchurian (Qing) government, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912, established the Dalai Lama as both the spiritual leader and political leader of Tibet who led a government (Kashag) with four Kalöns in it. Between the 17th century and 1959, the Dalai Lama and his regents were the predominant political power administering religious and administrative authority over large parts of Tibet from the traditional capital Lhasa.-Can be summed up as "Tibet came to be ruled by the Qing". Whether the Qing are Chinese or should not be discussed in the intro section to this article. Government structure before 1911 also seems not relevant to the intro.

P.S. : this arguably also contradicts the preceding statement ("From the early 1600s the Dalai Lamas, commonly known as spiritual leaders of the region, have been heads of a centralised Tibetan administration (at least nominally)"), and is arguably misleading (the fifth Dalai Lama was already a spiritual and political leader, and died long before 1751). What the Manchu did in 1751 was, IIRC, change the modus after which new Dalai Lamas (and similar incarnations) were to be "found". But that also belongs to the history section. Yaan (talk) 23:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

In the battle for supremacy in central Asia between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia, a British force under soldier Francis Younghusband eventually invaded Tibet, cut down its warriors with the Maxim gun and occupied Lhasa in 1904. The invasion led to a peace treaty between Britain and Tibet, a document that some Tibetan historians see as recognition of their remote mountain home as an independent entity. Imperial China was outraged by the invasion but could do nothing to stop it and waged a diplomatic battle to protect its own claims over Tibet.-Unencyclopedic tone and irrelevant to an intro.

In 1949-1950, soon after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the 'liberation' of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army. Many Tibetan nobles and working people co-operated with the PRC government. However clashes broke out over land reform and the Buddhist religion. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India. - again, unencyclopedic tone, moreover plagiarism: unattributed (no quotation marks) c&p from the source given [34].

The CIA funded a secret guerrilla war until President Richard Nixon decided to reconcile with Mao in 1972. Famines, followed by Chinese violence during the cultural revolution, intensified resistance to no avail.-Does not seem entirely relevant to the intro section either. compare the intro section of People's Republic of China - no metion of GPCR or GLF.

Generally, I think for the intro section "7th century - Dalai Lamas - Qing - post-1911 - 1950/51 - 1959" is enough history. Intro sections are not to replace the article, IMO. Yaan (talk) 18:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The intro is too long, let’s first decide what should be included then work on it together. Yaan, I reject your version for its pov wording. The intro should provide some basics of Tibet: Geographic location, population, ethnic groups, religions, administration type and economy. The sovereignty issue can be briefly mentioned here, but material about its history should be moved to the history section. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Care to tell me what exactly you consider POV? I really tried to be NPOV, so I'd like to know where you think I failed.

I don't think it is inappropriate to have a bit of history in the intro section, quite a number of similar articles do have some. Administrative details are covered in the (separate) TAR article, the "Tibet is where Tibetans live" is covered by mentioning Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu. I am not so sure about mentioning the souvereignity issues (this seems to require more than one or two sentences), in any case "administer" should be neutral enough and at the same time raise eyebrows. ethnic groups, religions, and economy should of course be added, but are also mising in the current version. Yaan (talk) 19:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The last three sentences in your version are pushing an anti-China POV. In order to be neutral and accurate, when addressing the sovereignty issue, the intro must make clear that Tibet has not been treated as an independent nation by any country since 1911. It should also include the Dalai Lama’s position on the sovereignty issue. I find the deletion of his statement troubling. It shows your POV.

It is appropriate to include some history in the intro but it should not be just about history. Some material covers both the sovereignty issue and history. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 23:26, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I am a bit reluctant to add too much stuff on the souvereignity issue. If we believe the Dalai Lama, then there is no issue at all, and if we believe Beijing, then the Dalai Lama is a dangerous separatist. Of course we could add some more words on the current status, but then I'd think a good place would be behind the history stuff. I'll cull most of what is left of history in the intro for now, because in the current state this does not make much sense. But I'm definitely for adding some consensus version later. Yaan (talk) 23:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the changes you just made. I just removed a few more sentences. I am not asking for more on the sovereignty issue; what is there now is just right. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 23:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Then I'll let it rest for now and move it into main space if there are no grave objections over the next day(s). Now we need someone to add some words on demographics and economy. Yaan (talk) 23:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Yaan, when I said that “I like the changes you just made” I was referring to the changes you made to the article at this time 23:21, 22 March 2008. Your version above on this page doesn’t work for me. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 00:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure you mean 23:21? Because at my computer, the 23:21 (UTC?) version reads "The heartland around Lhasa and Shigatse forms the Tibet Autonomous Region, while areas in Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu are also inhabited by Tibetans." and "In the 18th century, Tibet came under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. After the collapse of that dynasty in 1911 [Maybe better: After the collapse of that dynasty and the foundation of the Republic of China in 1911], Tibet gained de-facto independence, but China never gave up her claims on the area. After an armed conflict in 1950 and the signing of the 17-Point Agreement in 1951, the PRC occupied the area. After an uprising in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India." - i.e. no mention that no country ever recognized Tibet's independence, two consecutive sentences begin with "After" etc. Maybe it's easier you just point to the exact phrase you do not like and tell what's wrong? Regards, Yaan (talk) 11:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, which wording did you like? Yaan (talk) 14:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yaan, sorry I got sidetracked. I was referring to your change on the “Tibet” page not here. How do you like the current version? Can you build from that? It has been there for a while, ther editors might not like their contribution being replaced. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 07:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

March 2008 riots and expelling of foreign reporters

I think its worth mentioning that after the riots last week the Chinese government expelled all foreign reporters and added even more military to the region; see here (by Deutsche Welle; text in English). That again is against the Freedom of Speech which again is (Quote):

under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights

(As I am still rather unexperienced with Wikipedia, I don't know if this kind of arguing is considered Bias'ed or not. Please enlighten me) 210.203.62.126 (talk) 11:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You can add whatever the report says. Your violation of human rights laws argument will be considered as original research and POV since it is not mentioned in the article. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 16:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Utter b.s. "violation of human rights laws"are clearly underway, unless you've got Chinese state-approved blinkers on. Giving the article newscitations of these events is NOT POV, although LittleButterfly and other apologists want to pretend it is. The Chiense government does not recognize international human rights standards, so how could it admit to their xistence within its frontiers, period? "Who, us??" is almost as cute as"what laws??" Best to include Xinhua and People's Daily news copy along side the true stuff published in other countries; i.e. present both POVs; the one that's a lie will show itself up for what it is....my guesstimate is taht the PRC has teh equivalent of a small Canadian city in population (10-25k) working monitoring the web and pages such as this one to keep the lies hobbling the truth; an entire industry of denial , and it probably pays pretty well too....probably includes a free condo in Lhasa, too.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not say that there is no “human rights violation.” But we must support that claim with a citation. I believe this is how Wikipedia works. Personal attacks are incivility.--Littlebutterfly (talk) 19:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

March 16,2008 police search door-to-door is because riots also attacked mosque provoking Hui muslims, police confiscated swords from them and asked Akhond to appease them not to revenge on innocent Tibetans. And to see how Western media framed Chinese, CCP has every reason to forbid them to enter before everything is settled down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Celestialsz (talk • contribs) 11:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Removing two paragraphs

The following two paragraphs interrupt the flow and they needs more context. I am removing it from the article. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

1) On 5 June 1959 Purshottam Trikamdas, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, presented a report on Tibet to the International Commission of Jurists (an NGO). The press conference address on the report states in paragraph 26 that "From the facts stated above the following conclusions may be drawn: … (e) To examine all such evidence obtained by this Committee and from other sources and to take appropriate action thereon and in particular to determine whether the crime of Genocide — for which already there is strong presumption — is established and, in that case, to initiate such action as envisaged by the Genocide Convention of 1948 and by the Charter of the United Nations for suppression of these acts and appropriate redress;[82]

2) In 1989, the Panchen Lama was allowed to return to Shigatse, where he addressed a crowd of 30,000 and described what he saw as the suffering of Tibet and the harm being done to his country in the name of socialist reform under the rule of the PRC in terms reminiscent of the petition he had presented to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1962.[82] 5 days later, he died of a massive heart attack at the age of 50.[83]

If you think they interrupt the flow, then it would be reasonable to move them. You are deleting them because you disagree with them, right? Also, please leave cosmetic editing to people with a better command of English. Alexwoods (talk) 18:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with them. They just don't belong in that section and needed some context. Why don't you find a place for it. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 19:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If you think they don't belong there, then you can find a place for them. Stop cutting stuff out of this article that you don't like. Alexwoods (talk) 19:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I was going to do that after editing the Rule of the People's Republic of China section. I did not remove them stealthily, I created this section so others and I will be reminded. I think I deserve more credit than you think. On the other hand, you deleted the following statement without saying a word. "Establishing the educational system and health care system, among others projects, “by 1994, China had invested over $4 billion in Tibet and had initiated over sixty major new infrastructure projects there. In 1996 alone, Beijing pumped another $600 million into this essentially nonproductive protectorate. [Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood, page 28] Do you care to provide a justification for its removal?

I also removed this statement "Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China have ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet." Ironically you put it back in.--Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Compliments to China

I can tell that China has become very worldly, since they've obviously become savvy enough to infiltrate Wikipedia to spread their communist, fascist, hate and self-serving dogma. They invaded a peaceful and autonomous country, and they think they can pass it off as some sort of mercy mission. Commie scum.

Sorry if I sound biased, but the truth's the truth. And if you yank this for my failing to be politically correct, you're just as bad as the manipulators that made this article so pro-China. Maybe we should start an article on China's manipulation of Wikipedia.

--208.16.91.142 (talk) 18:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to say, I agree. There are so many partisan editors and they do so much wikilawyering. Many China-related articles are more or less converging on the Communist Party version of the events. Alexwoods (talk) 19:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Who is NOT a partisan editor here? The hope is that after the two parties are done dueling it out, what's left lies somewhere in the middle. The only bigotry was just posted by Mr. 208.16.91.142, and we all recognize it when we see it. 157.229.111.24 (talk) 06:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not a communist and I don’t think it works. However, I recognize and respect the choice that people in communist countries have made. They have the freedom to practice Communism in their countries. “Fascist, hate and self-serving dogma,” all these should be used on capitalistic Western countries like Britain, Germany and the United states etc. They have committed the worst sins against humankind—the slave of blacks, the genocide of Jews and the American Indians, etc.

Tibet was not an independent country in 1911--no country recognized it as one--nor was it peaceful. Tibetans had invaded China from the 7th to 9th century even took the Chinese capital in the Tang dynasty. Before Tibet claimed its independence from China in 1911, the Chinese had treated the Tibetans nicely in providing them with food and protection. No Tibetans has ever made any claim about Chinese abuses in Tibet before 1911. Yet when China was being invaded by the British and other imperialistic western powers, Tibet abandoned China and establishing relationship with western aggressors such as Britain. The Tibetans who made the decision were selfish and ungrateful.

Westerners believe they know everything about Tibet but in fact their knowledge of Tibet only starts at 1951. And their sources are anti-communist propaganda.--Littlebutterfly (talk) 19:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It is arrogant of you to presume that the people who disagree with you are Westerners and that because they are they know less about Tibet than you do, and it's ridiculous to claim that the only sources of information about Tibet are anti-Communist propoganda. You should stop editing this article. Your motives are propagandist, you are poorly informed and racist, and your English is not good enough. Alexwoods (talk) 19:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Her English seems plenty good to me. You guys should argue more. You make it heck of a lot more fun to read discussion pages than the actual entries on wiki. 157.229.111.24 (talk) 06:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, it is you and those who agree with you that are impolite and arrogant. Calling people who hold a different point of view as “communist, fascist, hate and self-serving dogma” and “Commie scum” shows just that. You asking me to stop editing this article and calling me “poorly informed and racist” also show your arrogance. No one should use this kinds of language here. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 20:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Please don't conflate me with the anonymous editor who started this section. I never called you scum. Your racism and devotion to dogma and propaganda speak for themselves, and it is precisely your attempts to deny a voice to perspectives that are not your own that is so objectionable. Alexwoods (talk) 20:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's see. North Korea brutally invaded South Korea, and then the Chinese helped them fight. So, the Chinese killed Americans. I think that's a good place to start the accusations that the PR of China is "commie scum." A great place, I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.16.91.142 (talk) 20:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You are a silly man. How many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died in the Irap war?--Littlebutterfly (talk) 20:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

At least we call it an invasion. China can't defend it's actions, so they have to lie about every word.--208.16.91.142 (talk) 20:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

This talk page is for the improvement of this article. It might be best if all parties just discuss the specific things in the article that they are concerned with and not comment on eachother. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 20:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

User 208.16.91.142 needs to get off the tibet articles in general. The user is slowing down progress period. Benjwong (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ben, 208.16.91.142 has made very few changes to the actual article. I don't think his / her edits can be called disruptive. I don't think rants belong on the talk page either, but they are easy to ignore. Alexwoods (talk) 21:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

How do we know that you are not 208.16.91.142. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:52, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, keep the discussion about improving the article, and find some other discussion forum to continue your argument. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 21:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Littlebutterfly

Littlebutterfly is making some really objectionable changes. For instance, he took out two paragraphys that he doesn't agree with, but that are enclyopedic and substantiated, because he claimed that they didn't 'flow', yet when I put them back he accused me of making radical changes without discussion. He only ever edits this one article and virtually all of his changes are removing things that put China in a bad light, regardless of whether they are true. I am going to keep reverting him, but it would be nice if others would help out. Alexwoods (talk) 20:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I created a section for those two paragraphs on this page, see above, before removing them. They need more context. You are provoking/inciting a revert war here. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I am considering getting an admin here. 208.16.91.142 who has little history of contribution is filling every tibet article with personal comments. Also may I remind everyone that we treat this like other research topics, and not rush it. It is common for some topics to be debated for months. Benjwong (talk) 20:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea. Alexwoods (talk) 20:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

i petitioned for a block from all Tibetan articles, i rarely edit on this article on this article but this definitely needed to be reported Rubico (talk) 01:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Clearing a confusion, the anon IP 208.16.91.142 is not me. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Alexwoods

Alexwoods has established himself as an aggressive editor recently. He called me names, misrepresented my edits on this page and even made lies about my edits see here.

It was the revert war he started that led to the full protection of the Tibet article. See his violation of the 3RR rules on two articles. His 4 reverts on the Tibet page: revert 4 revert 3 revert 2 revert 1

His 4 reverts on the People's Liberation Army operations in Tibet (1950–1951) page revert 4, revert 3, revert2, revert 1

I engaged him on his talk page with good faith, see subsection fresh start. His response here was less than friendly: “I undid your changes, and I'll continue to do so.”

Such uncooperative and uncivilized attitude violates the Wikipedia spirit.--Littlebutterfly (talk) 18:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You have already made your 3RR report. Copying and pasting it everywhere and ranting about it will not help you, especially as you broke 3RR yourself.

I suggest you take Seraphim's advice and try to work together with him. Just because you had a disagreement doesn't mean you cannot sort something out. John Smith's (talk) 18:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Alexwoods also removed additions of pictures on Anti-CNN.com as a reference by comparing of original and CNN published portions of the pictures to the article CNN controversies about 2008 Unrest in Tibet, saying it was partisan website or website promotion. I am not associated with Anti-CNN.com in anyway. He also removed Anti-CNN.com from all of the histories of the article. This is not fair. I thought the spirit of wikipedia was the complete recording of entire revision history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.11.111.249 (talk) 00:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

1. We need English language sources, as this is the Anglophone Wikipedia. 2. We only trust published academic sources and well respected news agencies. Sources such as CNN and the BBC are well respected news agencies. Anti-CNN is not a news site. It is created by a Chinese college students because they don't like that CNN is more or less taking the Tibetans side (though probably do not even have access to CNN). A university student ≠ scholarly source. Removing anti-CNN from the page actually makes the page better. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 00:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Anti-CNN has both Chinese and English captions. It is mainly an Internet archive data site. Yes, there are comments, but it's capture of what CNN did is very telling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.37.248 (talk) 02:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Anti-CNN is a screed. It doesn't have any references, only images that it claims are from Western news sites. It also doesn't show bias, but (allegedly) mistaken labels only. The comments that it adds are mainly along the lines of "Lies!" It is not a trustworthy source, and the infractions that it details are generally supported either by Xinhua cites or by admissions by the news organizations that pictures were mislabelled, so we don't even need it. Alexwoods (talk) 15:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit war

I've fully protected the article. Please discuss changes here and try to come to a compromise. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 20:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I've extended the protection of the article because there has been no discussion about the disputed changes. The protection will now last until 15:12 28th March. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 01:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

ROC/Taiwanese admission of Tibetan soveignty

The article states currently

"Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China have ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet.[76]"

The source is from 1996.

Since then:

http://www.friends-of-tibet.org.nz/news/october_2007_update_4.htm

Therefore this should be removed since the ROC has changed its stance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonykovar (talk • contribs) 02:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

"Separate entity" =/= "sovereign state". President Chen is referring to his view that Taiwan is a separate entity from China - and therefore, it is a separate entity from Tibet. Whether Tibet is a separate entity from Taiwan has little to do with whether Tibet is a separate entity from China, and still less to do with whehther the ROC is renouncing its claim to sovereignty over Tibet.

See Political status of Taiwan and related articles for all the subtle shades of meaning in terms such as "separate entities" used in relation to Taiwan. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed it, but it was restored by Alexwoods. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 07:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

You removed it as part of a batch edit with no discussion of why you were doing so. Alexwoods (talk) 14:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

ROC since 1949 only has control of Taiwan and not any part of mainland China, and certainly not Tibet. During ROC rule of entire China, from 1911 to 1949, ROC never renounced claim to Tibet. In fact, it was only after the year 2000, after Taiwan President started to try to achieve Taiwan independence, did he start to modify ROC's stand on this. He renounced claim to mainland China before Tibet. Therefore what President Chen did should not have any standing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.37.248 (talk) 03:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

qing control reasserted

{{editprotected}} I would like to see one of the ref's in the "Qing control reasserted" subsection (ref. no. 58, to be exact) be altered to: [begin ref text] "It may be freely conceded that China's work in Tibet had its own good points. The Chinese officials of the modern school, who came in now, lessened the bribes taken by the Tibetan officials from the poorer classes, and in the ordinary, non-political cases gave straighter justice than that dealt out by the Tibetan magistry. There was no doubt some foundation for the Amban's claim that the poorer classes in Tibet were in favour of China": Bell, Charles, Tibet Past and Present, Oxford University Press, 1924 , p93 [end ref text]. The quote is only from p. 93, Bell uses British english, the last sentence is completely in past tense.

In fact Bell goes on with quoting Tibetans as saying that the British "did not interfere with the old customs, but [the Chinese] were trying to uproot them", so his account is of course pretty compatible with the accounts of attempts at sinification, and also with the accounts on destryoing monasteries, see p. 95 and 97. Yaan (talk) 17:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The page is scheduled to become unprotected tomorrow; in the meantime, administrators like me will be hesitant to make any content changes. Take this time to discuss the changes, and try to resolve the disputes that led to protection. Once the page become unprotected, you will be able to edit it without administrator assistance. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Chinese POV

This article seems to be written seriously from a Chinese government POV. I would not be surprised if some of those editing it are official Chinese agents.

It completely waters over the genocide of Tibetans and their culture by the Chinese, the destruction of monasteries as well as the policy of settlement of Han Chinese into Tibet to alter the demographics. The introduction keeps repeating that no one disputes Chinese control over Tibet. Thou protesteth too much, PRC. 67.160.0.134 (talk) 08:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Be Bold and add in any content that you feel is missing, backed up by Reliable sources. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I have seen this recent systematic pattern occur over a large swath of tibet articles, im coming to the conclusion that its a deliberate POV pushing by a large group to put a good face on the recent tibetan protests ahead of the 2008 olimpics, which begs the question of who is doing it? Rubico (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The intro certainly seems to bear out that suspicion. It hops right from the seventh century to the bizarre assertion - one that is not, by the way, backed up by either the rest of the article or Dalai Lama - that the Qing government somehow invented the office of Dalai Lama. The only conceivable reason for that statement to be in the intro is to underscore the Chinese claim, an issue that is dealt with in detail later in the article and elsewhere on Wikipedia. Alexwoods (talk) 15:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That statement should be removed. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 19:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that chinese culture was also trashed between 1950 and 1970s. To single out tibetan culture as the only victim is almost beginner-ish. We didn't start the People's Republic of China article with the cultural revolution. Benjwong (talk) 04:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Framing the Chinese

“True face of western media,” this clip on YouTube shows how major Western media are framing the Chinese for abusing the Tibetans in recent riots. Shame on these western media! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQnK5FcKas&feature=related --Littlebutterfly (talk) 19:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk pages are here for the purpose of discussing improvements to the article. In what way do you believe the preceding to be an appropriate?—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 23:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This material should be added to be article. But because it comes from Youtube I am not very sure. Any opinion? --Littlebutterfly (talk) 00:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes it must be true because its on the internet! anyone can upload videos to youtube and call them legitimate. only sources that are verifiable and accepted within the academic community should be used Rubico (talk) 17:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

This video in providing evidence shows clearly that some western media, such as the Washington Post, manipulated information to frame the Chinese. It should not be excluded just because it is on Youtude. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)--Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

1. There are print sources showing that Western media sources misrepresented Nepalese police as Chinese; the YouTube source is thus unnecessary as there are print ones.
2. Such apparent mistakes (some of which have been apologized for by the news outlets) don't necessarily show that those outlets were attempting to "frame" China
3. Evidence that in some cases Western news media misrepresented Nepalese police as Chinese ones (specifically in that they show Tibetan civilians being beaten) do not "prove" that no Chinese police have been beating Tibetan civilians.

Badagnani (talk) 21:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Anglophone Wikipedia is supposed to depict the views of Anglophone people and use English-language sources; therefore a western "bias" will exist and should be tolerated. The CCP's view are also far more biased and filled with propaganda. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 19:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Grunfield souce

i have seen prevalent use of this book The making of modern Tibet in citing in this article. many of the citations fail to take into account that after page 255 or so the book addresses the various points of view from both the government in exile and the Peoples republic of china regarding Tibetan independence. therefore any reference taken from this section of the book without making this clear is POV pushing and out of context Rubico (talk) 19:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, you should find a formal copy and read carefully, before Grunfeld listed the 18 Chinese counter-arguements he clearly states, on p255 which Google Books doesn't provide, that:

"The view of the government of China - whether Mongol, Manchu , or Han, whether Imperial, republican, or communist - has remained constant for centuries", p255

It is crystal clear with no POV. Okay, now your turn, tell me the exact date when the Chinese government renouncd its position on Tibet as part of Chinese Nation? 219.79.27.59 (talk) 16:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

text about Chinese invasion in the intro

I removed the following text. This material is already included in the Chinese invasion subpage. Plus, it contains weasel words and errors, see the high lighted parts. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 21:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC) “The Chinese army of 40,000 men routed the unprepared defending Tibetan army of only 5,000 near the city of Chamdo. The defeat and occupation of Tibet subsequently led to he signing of the Seventeen point agreement by the Tibetan Government.”

this was written because there is NO refrence to the annexation of tibet by china in the intro, which i think should be adressed. the tibetan army WAS unprepared in that they had inadequate training, and outdated wepons, if you want to clarify that then go ahead, but you should not remove the entire phrase

[35]

and what do you call it when an invading army occupies another... lets see, occupation? its the same chain of events when the mongols 'invaded' tibet and china, then 'occupied' it until eventually annexed them into the Mongol empire. its a statement of fact not a weasel word. im reverting these edits and will attempt to clarify them, constructive editing is always helpful Rubico (talk) 00:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Tibet was recognized as a part of China by every country in the world before the Chinese army entered Tibet in 1951. This makes the PLA operation not an invasion. In any case your statement is not backed by any creditable source, this alone justifies its removal. --Littlebutterfly (talk) 01:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

what do you consider an invasion being? the PRC entered with a 40,000 strong army, i dont think they were expecting a welcoming party. further the autonomous government of tibet(at the time) managed to muster a independent force of over 5,000. which resisted the Chinese forces, if you don't consider that an invasion i would like to hear what you think is Rubico (talk) 01:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I smell both heavy proindependence and pro-PRC POV on the most recent edits.

We should not ignore that historical fact that, like it or not fellows, two years after they declared independence in 1912, the Tibetan government voluntarily signed the Simla Convention reaffirming Chinese suzerainty. See also what Tibetan plenipotentiary Lochen Shartra affirmed in the Simla Conference's note exchange:

"It is understood by the High Contracting Parties that Tibet forms part of Chinese territory."(July 1914. Source)

Please give us one reason why a suzerain state cannot send its army to its territory or tell us when did China, both ROC and PRC, renounce its authority over the region then.

Not one single state recognized Tibet as independent, not even British or India the de facto strongest supporters of Tibet's independence movement. Since November 1949, India's Nehru had reaffirmed recognition of Chinese authority over the region saying India had always recognized Chinese suzerainty over Tibet.(See Dutt S., With Nehru in the Foreign Office, Calcutta, 1977, p80). In the case of UK, before the PLA took action on Oct 1950:

"Our reluctance to recognise Tibetan passports arises from our long established acceptance of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet"[UK Commonwealth Relations Office, 22 June 1950, FO371/85567](emphasis added)

Tibet enjoyed defacto independence (when ROC was torned by civil wars and the Sino-Japanese war), but it doesn't mean Chinese authorities had no rights sending troops into this, in 1914 Simla's wording, 'Chinese territory'

Ever heard of the theory of Succession of states? 219.79.27.59 (talk) 16:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that china has always had a certain amount of suzerainty over at least the eastern portion of Tibet, but suzerainty does not equate to sovereignty, you neglected to quote some other statements in the simla convention, for instance:

"The Governments of Great Britain and China recognizing that Tibet is under the suzerainty of China, and recognizing also the autonomy of Outer Tibet, engage to respect the territorial integrity of the country, and to abstain from interference in the administration of Outer Tibet (including the selection and installation of the Dalai Lama), which shall remain in the hands of the Tibetan Government at Lhasa."

do you really believe that this is not a formal recognition of a independent Tibetan government in western Tibet? 160.36.194.155 (talk) 18:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

oops sorry that last coment by 160.36.194.155 was me... not signed in Rubico (talk) 19:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Independently-functioned governments do not necessarily represent independent states. Is Hong Kong SAR, who currently also enjoys the above terms of autonomy, now independent of China? That is autonomous, not independent.

Title of the Dalai Lama was finally granted by the Beijing government, it shows, at least nominally, Chinese authority: "After the selection and installation of the Dalai Lama by the Tibetan Government, the latter will notify the installation to the Chinese Government whose representative at Lhasa will then formally communicate to His Holiness the titles consistent with his dignity, which have been conferred by the Chinese Government."[note exchange, Simla]. And according to Simla Convention's second article, autonomy only applies to "western Tibet"[more correctly Outer Tibet], it means China had right to put Inner Tibet under Beijing's direct administration, not simply Suzerainty. And, as you maybe reluctant to read, Tibet {both Inner and Outer) "forms part of Chinese territory".

Australian journalist Gregory Clark has made some notes on said suzerainty-sovereignty and independent-autonomous distinctions (especially Point 2 in bold):

-- Rights and Wrongs --

The behaviour of the Communist Chinese towards Tibet has been criticised on many grounds. The West, including Australia, has described it as "aggression", with the implication that China acted illegally in sending troops into Tibet. To what extent is this true?

The outline of Tibet's history and status which has been given is of necessity limited. Nevertheless several points seem to be relevant. They are:

(1) Tibet, although enjoying independence at certain periods of its history, had never been recognised by any single foreign power as an independent state. The closest it has ever come to such recognition was the British formula of 1943: suzerainty, combined with autonomy and the right to enter into diplomatic relations.

(2) 'It is difficult to make a case for rejection of Chinese rights in Tibet on the ground that a distinction exists between the concepts of "suzerainty" and "sovereignty". If an area of territory is not recognised as an independent entity, then regardless of how its status is described -- colony, protectorate, vassal state, autonomous region -- some form of external control is implied. Once the principle of Chinese control over Tibet is admitted, the Chinese have the right in international practice to stipulate what form their relationship with Tibet should take.

(3) Even if the British position on Tibet's right to diplomatic relations is accepted -- and there is no reason why the Chinese should accept it -- this does not necessarily amount to reconition of Tibet's de facto independence, as is sometimes claimed. The various republics of the U.S.S.R. have in theory the same right, a right which was given some practical content in 1945 by the separate representation of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Republics in the United Nations.

(4) Finally, once the principle of Chinese control over Tibet is admitted, then the use of force by the Chinese within the boundaries of Tibet cannot be considered illegal.

["Question of Tibet" in Clark, G.'s In Fear of China]

219.79.252.210 (talk) 10:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sloppy Formatting

Can someone fix the picture resolutions in the Culture section? I can barely read the article as it is. 92.12.48.20 (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

References

Reference [130] is only in Chinese. This should be noted.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

U.S. government recognized Tibet as a part of China in 1943

U.S. government recognized Tibet as a part of China in 1943.

Editor, please add the above sentence into the last paragraph of introduction or into 4.8.(relations with republic of china). This sentence is a very important historical fact when we see if China's occupation on Tibet is legal from international point of view, since U.S. recognized Tibet as a part of China before Communist China appeared and before Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950.

The orgional sentence U.S. government said on 15 May 1943 is: For its part, the Government of the United States has borne in mind the fact that...the Chinese constitution lists Tibet among areas constituting the territory of the Republic of China. This Government has at no time raised a question regarding either of these claims.

Did Tibet ever offically declare independence from China?

Tibetans calimed that Tibet proclaimed its independence from China in 1911. Chinese calimed that, up to now, Tibetans did not show any valid evidence to support their calim that Tibet had ever declared its independence from Qing China.

Editor, please change the first sentence of the last paragraph in the introduction part into the above sentences. The reason this change is necessary is that, Tibet's declaration of independence is not a any proven historical fact.

The two facts usually used to support the independence claim are not valid.

The first one: Die Tibet signed a treaty with mongolia in 1913 to recognize each other's independence? As you can see from the part of "relations with republic of china", no evidence to prove that Tibetan government authorized Dorzhiev to sign a treaty, and/or ever ratified such a treaty, no matter if such a treaty existed or not.

The second one: Did 13th Dalai ever procalimed Tibet independence from China in 1913? In his speech, he condemed Chinese attemption (only attemption) to colonize Tibet and said Tibet is an independent territory. He did not say, from now on, Tibet becomes an independent country. However, if you read the context of his origional speech, it is very clear that he means Tibet has always been an independent territory, which is not true. So, this can not be used to support the calim of independence declaration. Actually, up to now, Tibetan government in exile's official view is still that: Tibet never was a part of China. There is no need to proclaim independence for an already independent country.