Tibet

Italic text'Italic text

File:Green-square.gif	Tibet Autonomous Region within the People's Republic of China
	Historic Tibet as claimed by Tibetan exile groups
File:Green-square.gif	Tibetan areas as designated by the People's Republic of China
File:Green-square.gif	Chinese-controlled areas claimed by India as part of Aksai Chin
	Indian-controlled areas claimed by China as part of Tibet
	Other areas historically within Tibetan cultural sphere

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." Geographically, UNESCO and Encyclopædia Britannica consider Tibet to be part of Central Asia, while several academic organizations consider it part of South Asia.

The region was unified in the seventh century by King Songtsän Gampo. In the 13th century Tibet became a part of Mongol-ruled Chinese empire and four centuries later Tibet was further incorporated into the Chinese Empire in the Qing Dynasty. The Dalai Lama lineage was established in 1578, and rose to political power during the times of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617-1682).In 1751 the emperor of Qing Dynasty decreed that the Dalai Lama and the Qing Amban should exercise power jointly Between the 17th century and 1951, 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.

In 1912 the 13th Dalai Lama unilaterally declared separation from China. but two years later the Tibetans accepted nominal subordination to China. From 1912 to 1950, Tibet possessed de facto independence, although no nation has ever recognized Tibet as independent. In 1951, under Chinese military pressure, Beijing and the Tibetan government signed an agreement reintegrating Tibet. In the failure of a CIA funded rebellion in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile in India. The Dalai Lama believes that in order for it to modernize, Tibet must remain within the People's Republic of China, although he also wants China to give "a full guarantee of preservation of Tibetan culture."

Definitions of Tibet

Flag of Tibet used intermittently between 1912 and 1950. This version was introduced by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1912. The flag is outlawed in the People's Republic of China.

Tibet rebelled three times in 1989 and in retalliation all UN countries decided to boycott French Fries. Tibet launched a major offensive on the surrounding regions of Russia. See also: The French Fry Embargo of 1968.

When the People's Republic of China (PRC) refers to Tibet, it means the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR): a province-level entity which, according to the territorial claims of the PRC, includes Arunachal Pradesh. The TAR covers the Dalai Lama's former domain, consisting of Ü-Tsang and western Kham, while Amdo and eastern Kham are part of Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, and Sichuan.

When the Government of Tibet in Exile and the Tibetan refugee community abroad refer to Tibet, they mean the areas consisting of the traditional provinces of Amdo, Kham, and Ü-Tsang, but excluding Sikkim, Bhutan, and Ladakh that have also formed part of the Tibetan cultural sphere.

The difference in definition is a major source of dispute. The distribution of Amdo and eastern Kham into surrounding provinces was initiated by the Yongzheng Emperor during the 18th century and has been continuously maintained by successive Chinese governments.

Name

Himalayas

In English

The English word Tibet, like the word for Tibet in most European languages, is derived from the Arabic word Tubbat. This word is derived via Persian from the Turkic word Töbäd (plural of Töbän), meaning "the heights". In Medieval Chinese, 吐蕃 (pronounced tǔfān), is derived from the same Turkic word. 吐蕃 was pronounced /t'o-bwǝn/ in Medieval times.

The exact derivation of the name is, however, unclear. Some scholars believe that the named derived from that of a people who lived in the region of northeastern Tibet and were referred to as Töbüt or Tübüt. This was the form adapted by the Muslim writers who rendered it Tübbett, Tibbat, etc., from as early as the 9th century, and it then entered European languages from the reports of the medieval European accounts of Piano-Carpini, Rubruck, Marco Polo and the Capuchin monk Francesco della Penna.

PRC scholars favor the theory that "Tibet" is derived from tǔfān.

In Tibetan

Tibetans call their homeland Bö (བོད་), IPA: [pʰøʔ] in Lhasa dialect. It is first attested in the geography of Ptolemy as βαται (batai). In Nepal, Tibet is known as Bhot.

In Chinese

The Chinese name for Tibet, 西藏 (Xīzàng), is a phonetic transliteration derived from the region called Tsang (western Ü-Tsang). The Chinese name originated during the Qing Dynasty of China, ca. 1700. It can be broken down into xī 西 ("west"), and “zàng” 藏 (from Ü-Tsang, but also literally “Buddhist scripture,” “storage” or "treasure"). The pre-1700s historic Chinese term for Tibet was "吐蕃". In modern Standard Mandarin, the first character is pronounced tǔ. The second character is normally pronounced fān; in the context of references to Tibet, most authorities say that it should be pronounced bō (making the word "Tubo"), while some authorities make no distinction between the general pronunciation and that in the Tibetan context, making the word "Tufan". Its reconstructed Medieval Chinese pronunciation is /t'obwǝn/, which comes from the Turkic word for “heights” which is also the origin of the English term Tibet. When expressing themselves in Chinese, many exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama's government in Dharamsala, now use the term 吐博 Tǔbó. Although the second character is not historically accurate, it has the correct pronunciation (whereas ambiguity attends the pronunciation of 蕃), and thus 吐博 is deemed by some to be a more appropriate way to write Tibet in Chinese.

Pastoral nomads camping near Namtso in 2005

The government of the People's Republic of China equates Tibet with the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). As such, the name Xīzàng is equated with the TAR. In order to refer to non-TAR Tibetan areas, or to all of cultural Tibet, the term 藏区 Zàngqū (literally, "ethnic Tibetan areas") is used. However, Chinese-language versions of pro-Tibetan independence websites, such as the Free Tibet Campaign, the Voice of Tibet, and Tibet Net use 西藏 (“Xīzàng”), not 藏区 ("Zàngqū"), to mean historic Tibet.

Some English-speakers reserve Xīzàng, the Chinese word transliterated into English, for the TAR, to keep the concept distinct from that of historic Tibet.

The character 藏 (zàng) has been used in transcriptions referring to Tsang as early as the Yuan Dynasty, if not earlier, though the modern term Xizang (western Tsang) was devised in the 18th century. The Chinese character 藏 (Zàng) has also been generalized to refer to all of Tibet, including other concepts related to Tibet such as the Tibetan language (藏文, Zàngwén) and the Tibetan people (藏族, Zàngzú).

Language

A Tibetan woman in Lhasa

The Tibetic languages are spoken throughout the Tibetan plateau, Bhutan, and parts of Nepal and northern India. Spoken Tibetan includes numerous regional dialects which, in many cases, are not mutually intelligible. Moreover, the boundaries between Tibetan and certain other Himalayan languages are sometimes unclear. In general, the dialects of central Tibet (Ü-Tsang, including Lhasa), Kham, Amdo, and some smaller nearby areas are considered Tibetan dialects. The languages of some groups outside modern Tibet, such as Dzongkha (Bhutanese), Sikkimese, Sherpa, and Ladakhi, are more distant varieties descended from archaic Tibetan, and which bear varying degrees of similarity to modern Tibetan. Using this broader grouping of Tibetan dialects and forms, the Tibetan language "family" is spoken by approximately 6 million people across the Tibetan Plateau. Tibetan is also spoken by approximately 150,000 exiles who have fled from modern-day Tibet to India and other countries.

The Tibetan language has its own script, which is part of the Brahmic family of scripts.

History

Main article: History of Tibet

Further information: History of European exploration in Tibet and Foreign relations of Tibet

Tibet in 820 in relation to the other powers

Pre-History

Chinese and the "proto-Tibeto-Burman" language may have split sometime before 4000 BC, when the Chinese began growing millet in the Yellow River valley while the Tibeto-Burmans remained nomads. Tibetan split from Burman around 500 AD.

Prehistoric Iron Age hill forts and burial complexes have recently been found on the Chang Tang plateau but the remoteness of the location is hampering archaeological research. The initial identification of this culture is as the Zhang Zhung culture which is described in ancient Tibetan texts and is known as the original culture of the Bön religion.

Tibetan Empire

King Songtsen Gampo

A series of kings ruled Tibet from the 7th to the 11th century. At times, Tibetan rule may have extended as far south as Bengal and as far north as Mongolia.

Tibet appeared in an ancient Chinese historical text where it is referred to as fa. The first incident from recorded Tibetan history which is confirmed externally occurred when King Namri Lontsen sent an ambassador to the Chinese court in the early 7th century.

However general, the history of Tibet begins with the rule of Namri Songzen, who first attempts to unify Tibet. His son Songtsän Gampo (604–649 AD) united parts of the Yarlung River Valley and ruled Tibet as a kingdom. In 640 he married Princess Wencheng, the niece of the powerful Chinese emperor Taizong.

Tibetan forces conquered the Tuyuhun Kingdom of modern Qinghai and Gansu to the northeast in 663 AD. Tibet also controlled the Tarim Basin and adjoining regions (now called Xinjiang), including the city of Kashgar, from 670 to 692 AD, when they were defeated by Chinese forces.

The Tibetans were allied with the Arabs and eastern Turks. In 747, Tibet's hold over Central Asia was weakened by the campaign of general Gao Xianzhi, who re-opened the direct communications between Central Asia and Kashmir. By 750 the Tibetans had lost almost all of their central Asian possessions to the Chinese. However, after Gao Xianzhi's defeat by the Arabs and Qarluqs at the Battle of Talas river (751), Chinese influence decreased rapidly and Tibetan influence resumed. Tibet conquered large sections of northern India and even briefly took control of the Chinese capital Chang'an in 763 during the chaos of the An Shi Rebellion.

There was a stone pillar, the Lhasa Shöl rdo-rings, in the ancient village of Shöl in front of the Potala in Lhasa, dating to c. 764 AD during the reign of Trisong Detsen. It also contains an account of the brief capture of Chang'an, the Chinese capital, in 763 AD, during the reign of Emperor Daizong.

In 821/822 AD Tibet and China signed a peace treaty. A bilingual account of this treaty including details of the borders between the two countries are inscribed on a stone pillar which stands outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa. Tibet continued as a Central Asian empire until the mid-9th century.

Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty

Kublai Khan

At the end of the 1230s, the Mongols turned their attention to Tibet. At that time, Mongol armies had already conquered Northern China, much of Central Asia, and were operating in Russia and what is now Ukraine. The Tibetan nobility, however, was fragmented and mainly occupied with internal strife, essentially a feudal society composed of numerous principalities constantly at war with one another.

Göden, a brother of Güyük, entered the country with military force in 1240. In 1244, Göden Khan ordered the Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen to meet him in Liangzhou for the purpose of spiritual instruction in Buddhism. Göden received various initiation rites and the Sakya sect of Tibetan Buddhism became the religion of the ruling line of Mongol khans. In return, after a second Mongol invasion in 1247 led to the submission of almost all Tibetan states, Sakya Pandita was appointed Viceroy of Tibet by the Mongol court in 1249, marking one of the occasions on which the Chinese base their claim to the rule of Tibet.

Sakya was accompanied by two of his nephews: Chana Dorje (Phyag-na Rdo-rje) would later marry a daughter of Kublai Khan, and Phagpa would become Kublai's spiritual teacher. Despite the 1247 invasion and further expeditions into Tibet in 1251/52, it is generally held that the Tibetan experience with the Mongols was much less traumatic than that of other peoples, since the Mongol expeditions to Tibet were in part influenced by Tibetan leaders who sought to unify Tibet by the hands of the Mongol armies, but who for obvious reasons influenced the Mongols in exercising restraint in their handling of the Tibetans.

Through their influence with the Mongol rulers, Tibetan lamas gained considerable influence in different Mongol clans, not only with Kublai, but for example also with the Il-Khanids. Kublai's success in succeeding Möngke as Great Khan meant that after 1260, Phagpa and the House of Sakya would only wield greater influence. Phagpa became head of all Buddhist monks in the Yuan empire, and Sakya would become the administrative center of Tibet. The lamaist clergy would receive considerable financial support, at the cost of mainly the Chinese areas ruled by the Yuan Dynasty. Tibet would also enjoy a rather high degree of autonomy compared to other parts of the Yuan empire, though further expeditions took place in 1267, 1277, 1281 and 1290/91.

In 1253, Phagpa (1235-1280) succeeded Sakya Pandita at the Mongol court. Phagpa became a religious teacher to Göden Khan's famous successor, Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan named Phagpa the Imperial Preceptor of Tibet, offering him the rule of all Tibet. This is one of the points under contention in the issue of Tibetan independence, with the pro-Tibet argument of Tibet having been ruled by Tibetan rulers, ignoring the fact that Tibet was conquered by the Mongols in 1247 and that the "Tibetan ruler" Phagpa derived the power of his rule from the Mongol Empire.

Tibet would be ruled by a succession of Sakya lamas until 1358, when central Tibet came under control of the Kagyu sect.

Ming Dynasty

Main article: Tibet during the Ming Dynasty

Modern historians still debate on the exact relationship the Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) had with Tibet. Some scholars support the view that the Ming Dynasty had full sovereignty over Tibet, while others believe that Tibet was simply an independent tributary and that the Ming merely had non-militant suzerainty over Tibet by granting lama rulers various official titles.

Late 14th - 16th Century

Between 1346 and 1354, already towards the end of the Yuan dynasty, the House of Pagmodru would topple the Sakya. The following 80 years were a period of relative stability. They also saw the birth of the Gelugpa school (also known as Yellow Hats) by the disciples of Tsongkhapa Lobsang Dragpa, and the founding of the Ganden, Drepung, and Sera monasteries near Lhasa. After the 1430s, the country entered another period of internal power struggles.

The Dalai Lama Lineage

It has been commonly wrongly believed that Altan Khan "bestowed" the "title" Dalai Lama on Sonam Gyatso, and placed him in a reincarnation line with Gendun Drup and Gendun Gyatso in 1578.

"More confusing in our time is that many writers have mistranslated Dalai Lama as "Ocean of Wisdom." The full Mongolian title, "the wonderful Vajradhara, good splendid meritorious ocean," given by Altan Khan, is primarily a translation of the Tibetan words Sonam Gyatso (sonam is "merit")."

The 14th Dalai Lama added: "The very name of each Dalai Lama from the Second Dalai Lama onwards had the word Gyatso (in it), which means 'ocean' in Tibetan. Even now I am Tenzin Gyatso, so the first name is changing but the second part (the word "ocean") became like part of each Dalai Lama's name. All of the Dalai Lamas, since the Second, have this name. So I don't really agree that the Mongols actually conferred a title. It was just a translation."

While this did not really mark the beginning of a massive conversion of Mongols to Buddhism (this would only happen in the 1630s), it did lead to the widespread use of Buddhist ideology for the legitimation of power among the Mongol nobility. Lastly, the fourth Dalai Lama was a grandson of Altan Khan.

Khoshud, Dzungars, and the Qing Dynasty

In the 1630s, Tibet would become entangled in the power struggles between the rising Manchu and various Mongol and Oirad factions. Ligden Khan of the Chakhar, on the retreat from the Manchu, set out to Tibet to destroy the Yellow Hat school. He died on the way in Koko Nur in 1634, but his vassal Tsogt Taij would continue the fight, even having his own son Arslan killed for changing sides. Tsogt Taij was defeated and killed by Güshi Khan of the Khoshud in 1637, who would in turn become the overlord over Tibet, and act as a "Protector of the Yellow Church". Güshi helped the Fifth Dalai Lama to establish himself as the highest spiritual and political authority in Tibet and destroyed any potential rivals, like the prince of Tsang. The time of the fifth Dalai Lama was, however, also a period of rich cultural development.

His death was kept secret for 15 years by the regent (Tibetan: desi, Wylie: sde-srid), Sanggye Gyatso. His reasons for doing so are not really clear, but the Sixth Dalai Lama was only enthroned in 1697. The new Dalai Lama did not really live up to expectations: he would blackmail the Panchen Lama to let him return to the lay class, and afterwards grow long hair and spend the nights outside the palace, with women of his choice. He gained fame for writing love poetry.

Lha-bzang Khan, the last Khoshut King of Tibet

In 1705, Lobzang Khan of the Khoshud used the 6th Dalai Lama's escapades as excuse to take control of Tibet. The regent was murdered, and the Dalai Lama sent to Beijing. He died on the way, in Koko Nur, ostensibly from illness. Lobzang Khan appointed a new Dalai Lama, who however was not accepted by the Gelugpa school. A rival reincarnation was found in Koko Nur.

The Dzungars invaded Tibet in 1717, deposed and killed a pretender to the position of Dalai Lama (who had been promoted by Lhabzang, the titular King of Tibet), which met with widespread approval. However, they soon began to loot the holy places of Lhasa which brought a swift response from Emperor Kangxi in 1718, but his military expedition was annihilated by the Dzungars not far from Lhasa.

Many Nyingmapa and Bonpos were executed and Tibetans visiting Dzungar officials were forced to stick their tongues out so the Dzungars could tell if the person recited constant mantras (which was said to make the tongue black or brown). This allowed them to pick the Nyingmapa and Bonpos, who recited many magic-mantras. This habit of sticking one's tongue out as a mark of respect on greeting someone has remained a Tibetan custom until recent times.

A second, larger, expedition sent by Emperor Kangxi expelled the Dzungars from Tibet in 1720 and the troops were hailed as liberators. They brought Kelzang Gyatso with them from Kumbum to Lhasa and he was installed as the seventh Dalai Lama in 1721.

The Qing put Amdo under their rule in 1724, and incorporated eastern Kham into neighbouring Chinese provinces in 1728. The Qing government sent a resident commissioner (amban) to Lhasa. Tibetan factions rebelled in 1750 and killed the ambans. Then, a Qing army entered and defeated the rebels and installed an administration headed by the Dalai Lama. The number of soldiers in Tibet was kept at about 2,000. The defensive duties were partly helped out by a local force which was reorganized by the resident commissioner, and the Tibetan government continued to manage day-to-day affairs as before.

While the ancient Sino-Tibetan relationships are complex, there can be no question regarding the subordination of Tibet to Manchu-ruled China following the chaotic era of the 6th and 7th Dalai Lamas. Already in 1725 two high Chinese commissioners had been appointed to control the temporal affairs of the country. In 1751, the Manchu (Qing) Emperor Qianlong established the Dalai Lama as both the spiritual leader and political leader of Tibet who lead a government (Kashag) with four Kalöns in it.

In 1788, Gurkha forces sent by Bahadur Shah, the Regent of Nepal, invaded Tibet, occupying a number of frontier districts. The young Panchen Lama fled to Lhasa and the Manchu Qianlong Emperor sent troops to Lhasa, upon which the Nepalese withdrew agreeing to pay a large annual sum.

In 1791 the Nepalese Gurkhas invaded Tibet a second time, seizing Shigatse and destroyed, plundered, and desecrated the great Tashilhunpo Monastery. The Panchen Lama was forced to flee to Lhasa once again. The Qianlong Emperor then sent an army of 17,000 men to Tibet. In 1793, with the assistance of Tibetan troops, they managed to drive the Nepalese troops to within about 30 km of Kathmandu before the Gurkhas conceded defeat and returned all the treasure they had plundered. Soon the Chinese emperor decreed that the selection of the Dalai Lama and other high lamas such as the Panchen Lama was under the supervision of Qing government's Amban Commissioners in Lhasa. An imperial edict ordered that future dalai lamas were to be chosen from the names of children drawn from a "golden urn".

European contact

Main article: British expedition to Tibet

António de Andrade

Sándor Kőrösi Csoma

Francis Younghusband

The first Europeans to arrive in Tibet were Portuguese missionaries in 1624 by the hand of António de Andrade, and were welcomed by the Tibetans who allowed them to build a church. The 18th century brought more Jesuits and Capuchins from Europe who gradually met opposition from Tibetan lamas who finally expelled them from Tibet in 1745. However, at the time not all Europeans were banned from the country — in 1774 a Scottish nobleman, George Bogle, came to Shigatse to investigate trade for the British East India Company, introducing the first potatoes into Tibet.

However by the 19th century the situation of foreigners in Tibet grew more ominous. The British Empire was encroaching from northern India into the Himalayas and Afghanistan and the Russian Empire of the tsars was expanding south into Central Asia and each power became suspicious of intent in Tibet. In 1840, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma arrived in Tibet, hoping that he would be able to trace the origin of the Magyar ethnic group. By the 1850s Tibet had banned all foreigners from Tibet and shut its borders to all outsiders.

In 1865 Great Britain began secretly mapping Tibet. Trained Indian surveyor-spies disguised as pilgrims or traders counted their strides on their travels across Tibet and took readings at night. Nain Singh, the most famous, measured the longitude and latitude and altitude of Lhasa and traced the Yarlung Tsangpo River.

British Invasion

At the beginning of the twentieth century the British and Russian Empires competed for supremacy in Central Asia. Tibet was the biggest prize of this rivalry. To forestall the Russians, in 1904, a British expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband was sent to Lhasa to force a trading agreement and to prevent Tibetans from establishing a relationship with the Russians.

On July 19, 1903, Younghusband arrived at Gangtok, the capital city of the Indian state of Sikkim, to prepare for his mission. A letter from the under-secretary to the government of India to Younghusband on July 26, 1903 stated that “In the event of your meeting the Dalai Lama, the government of India authorizes you to give him the assurance which you suggest in your letter.” The British took a few months to prepare for the expedition which pressed into Tibetan territories in early December 1903. The entire British force numbered over 3,000 fighting men and was accompanied by 7,000 sherpas, porters and camp followers.

The Tibetans were aware of the expedition. To avoid bloodshed the Tibetan general at Yetung 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.”

Despite the mutual agreement, the British expedition did take the lives of a few thousand unprepared Tibetan soldiers and civilians. The biggest massacre took place on March 31, 1904 at a mountain pass halfway to Gyantse near a village called Guru. Colonel Younghusband tricked the 2,000 Tibetan soldiers guarding the pass into extinguishing the burning ropes of their basic rifles before firing at them with the Maxim machine guns and rifles. The Tibetan casualty, according to Younghusband’s account, was “500 killed and wounded.” Others have claimed that the Tibetan casualty was as high as 1,300.

According to the British, their intention was to disarm Tibetan soldiers who were being surrounded. The slaughter was triggered by the Tibetans who fired the first shot. But the accounts of those who pulled the triggers make it clear that the British had the intention of killing as many as possible. “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.”

In a telegraph to his superior in India, the day after the massacre, Younghusband stated: “I trust the tremendous punishment they have received will prevent further fighting, and induce them to at last to negotiate.”

Sera Monastery, Lhasa, Tibet (2006)

When the mission reached Lhasa, the Dalai Lama had already fled to Urga in Mongolia (and was consequently deposed by the Chinese government). As Younghusband found the option of returning to India empty-handed untenable, he proceeded to draft a treaty unilaterally, and have it signed in the Potala by the regent, Ganden Tri Rinpoche, and any other local officials he could gather together as an ad hoc government. The Tibetan ministers Younghusband dealt with had apparently, unknown to him, just been appointed to their posts. The regular ministers had been imprisoned for suspected pro-British leanings and it was feared they would be too accommodating to Younghusband. A treaty was signed by lay and ecclesiastical officials of the said Tibetan government, and by representatives of the three monasteries of Sera, Drepung, and Ganden and the British force left the city of Lhasa on 23 September, 1904.

The treaty made provisions for the frontier between Sikkim and Tibet to be respected, for free trade between British and Tibetan subjects, and for an indemnity to be paid from the Qing court to the British Government for its expenses in dispatching armed troops to Lhasa. It also made provision for a British trade agent to reside at the trade mart at Gyangzê. The provisions of this 1904 treaty were confirmed in a 1906 treaty signed between Britain and China, in which the British, for a fee from the Qing court, also agreed "not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet.". The position of British Trade Agent at Gyangzê was occupied from 1904 until 1944. It was not until 1937, with the creation of the position of "Head of British Mission Lhasa", that a British officer had a permanent posting in Lhasa itself. A Nepalese agency had also been established in Lhasa after the invasion of Tibet by the Gurkha government of Nepal in 1855.

In the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906 which confirmed the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty of 1904, Britain agreed "not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet" while China engaged "not to permit any other foreign state to interfere with the territory or internal administration of Tibet". In the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, drafted by the British, Britain also recognized the "suzerainty of China over Thibet" and, in conformity with such admitted principle, engaged "not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government."

Qing control reasserted

The Qing put Amdo under their rule in 1724, and incorporated eastern Kham into neighbouring Chinese provinces in 1728. Chinese government ruled these areas indirectly through the Tibetan noblemen. Tibetans claimed that Tibetan control of the Batang region of Kham in eastern Tibet appears to have continued uncontested from the time of an agreement made in 1726 until soon after the British invasion, which alarmed the Qing rulers in China. They sent an imperial official to the region to begin reasserting Qing control, but the locals revolted and killed him. The Qing government in Beijing then appointed Zhao Erfang, the Governor of Xining, "Army Commander of Tibet" to reintegrate Tibet into China. He was sent in 1905 (though other sources say this occurred in 1908) on a punitive expedition. His troops destroyed a number of monasteries in Kham and Amdo, and a process of sinification of the region was begun. Several observers and historians point out that some of the reforms implemented in this process also were beneficial to the local population.

After the Dalai Lama's title's had been restored in November 1908 and he was about to return to Lhasa from Amdo in the summer of 1909, the Chinese decided to send military forces to Lhasa to keep control over him. The Dalai Lama once again fled, this time to India, and was once again deposed by the Chinese. The situation was soon to change, however, as, after the fall of the Qing dynasty in October 1911, Zhao's soldiers mutinied and beheaded him.

The Republic of China

On 1 January 1912 the Republic of China was established and one month later the regent of Qing Emperor Xuantong abdicated. In April 1912 the Chinese garrison of troops in Lhasa surrendered to the Tibetan authorities while the new Chinese Republican government wished to make the commander of the Chinese troops in Lhasa its new Tibetan representative.

13th Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet from India in July 1912. By the end of 1912, the Chinese troops in Tibet had returned, via India, to China Proper.

The Tibet-Mongolia Treaty of 1913

In early 1913, Agvan Dorzhiev and two other Tibetan representatives signed a treaty in Urga, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. However, Agvan Dorzhiev's authority to sign such a treaty has always been - and still is - disputed by some authorities including legal experts.

The 13th Dalai Lama himself denied he authorized Agvan Dorzhiev to conclude any treaties on behalf of Tibet. The Tibetan government never ratified this treaty and no Tibetan version of this treaty was published by Tibetan government. A Russian diplomat pointed out to the British ambassador that since Agvan Dorzhiev himself is a Russian subject, his legal ability to sign such a treaty is in question.

Some British authors have even disputed the mere existence of the treaty, but scholars of Mongolia generally are positive it exists, as were contemporary authors . The Mongolian text of the treaty has, for example, been published by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1982.

The Simla Convention of 1914

In 1914, representatives of China, Tibet and Britain negotiated a treaty in India: the Simla Convention. During the convention, the British tried to divide Tibet into Inner and Outer Tibet. When negotiations broke down over the specific boundary between Inner and Outer, the British demanded instead to advance their line of control, enabling them to annex 9,000 square kilometers of traditional Tibetan territory in southern Tibet i.e Tawang region, which corresponds to the north-west parts of modern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, while recognizing Chinese suzerainty over Tibet and affirming the latter's status as part of Chinese territory, with a promise from the Government of China that Tibet will not be converted into a Chinese province. Tibetan representatives signed without Chinese approval, more so as an act of defiance now that the Chinese army had left; after the collapse of Chinese authority in Tibet in 1912. China maintains that it was signed under British pressure; however, the representative of China's central government declared that the secretive annexation of territory was not acceptable. The boundary established in the convention, the McMahon Line, was considered by the British and later the independent Indian government to be the boundary; however, the Chinese view since then has been that since China, which had suzerainty over Tibet, did not sign the treaty, the treaty was meaningless, and the annexation and control of parts of Arunachal Pradesh by India is illegal. This paved the way to the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the boundary dispute between China and India today.

File:Tenzin Gyatzo foto 1.jpg

14th Dalai Lama 1935-

World War I and the Decentralisation of China

The subsequent outbreak of World War I and the division of China into military cliques ruled by warlords caused the Western powers and the infighting factions within China to lose interest in Tibet, and the 13th Dalai Lama ruled undisturbed until his death in 1933. At that time, the government of Tibet controlled all of Ü-Tsang (Dbus-gtsang) and western Kham (Khams), roughly coincident with the borders of Tibet Autonomous Region today. Eastern Kham, separated by the Yangtze River was under the control of Chinese warlord Liu Wenhui. The situation in Amdo (Qinghai) was more complicated, with the Xining area controlled after 1928 by the Hui warlord Ma Bufang, who constantly strove to exert control over the rest of Amdo (Qinghai).

In 1934, soon after the 13th Dalai Lama died, the Kashag reaffirmed their 1914 position that Tibet remains nominally part of China, provided the former shall manage its own political affairs.

Writing in 1940, after his visit to Tibet in 1936–7, British Army officer Freddie Spencer Chapman said:

"Since the expulsion of the Chinese, following the revolution of 1910, there has been no official representative in Lhasa. In 1934, however, when General Huang Mu Sung returned to China, he left a wireless transmission set in the charge of a certain Mr. Tsang. As the Tibetans have no other form of wireless transmission, Tsang became a rather important person. This was especially clear during the recent disturbances on the Sino-Tibetan frontier, for it takes ten days or a fortnight for a mounted messenger from Lhasa to reach Derge or Chamdo. If Tsang did not like the message he changed it; if he disapproved of it altogether, he just didn't send it."

In 1935 the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso was born in Amdo in eastern Tibet and was recognized as the latest reincarnation. He was taken to Lhasa in 1937 where he was later given an official ceremony in 1939. In 1943, U.S. government officially recognized Tibet as a part of China. In 1944, during World War II, two Austrian mountaineers, Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter came to Lhasa, where Harrer became a tutor and friend to the young Dalai Lama, giving him sound knowledge of Western culture and modern society, until he was forced to leave in 1959.

Rule of the People's Republic of China

Main article: People's Liberation Army invasion of Tibet (1950–1951)

Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China have ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet. The People's Liberation Army first entered Chamdo on October 7 1950. The highly mobile units of the PLA quickly surrounded the outnumbered Tibetan forces, and by October 19 1950, 5,000 Tibetan troops had surrendered. Since the signing of the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951, Tibet has been officially incorporated into the People's Republic of China. According to this Agreement between the Tibetan and Chinese central governments, the Dalai Lama-ruled Tibetan area was supposed to be a highly autonomous area of China. Before 1951, according to anthropologists, a vast majority of the people of Tibet were serfs ("mi ser"), often bound to land owned by monasteries and aristocrats. Tibetans in exile have claimed that the serfs and their masters formed only a small part of Tibetan society, and argued that Tibet would have modernized itself without China's intervention. However, the Chinese government claims that most Tibetans were still serfs in 1951,, and have proclaimed that the Tibetan government inhibited the development of Tibet during its self-rule from 1913 to 1959, and opposed modernization efforts by the Chinese government.

This 1951 agreement was initially put into effect in the Tibetan regions under Dalai Lama's administration (Ü-Tsang and western Kham). However, Eastern Kham and Amdo (Qinghai) were considered by the Chinese to be outside the administration of the government of Tibet in Lhasa, and were thus treated like any other Chinese province with land redistribution implemented in full. Most lands were taken away from noblemen and monasteries and re-distributed to serfs. As a result, a rebellion led by noblemen and monasteries broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in June 1956. The insurrection, supported by the American CIA, eventually spread to Lhasa. It was crushed by 1959. During this campaign, tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed. The 14th Dalai Lama and other government principals fled to exile in India, but isolated resistance continued in Tibet until 1972 when the CIA abruptly withdrew its support. After the Lhasa rebellion in 1959, the Chinese government lowered the level of autonomy of Central Tibet, and implemented full-scale land redistribution in all areas of Tibet.

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;

In 1989, the Panchen Lama was finally 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. 5 days later, he died of a massive heart attack at the age of 50.

The PRC continues to portray its rule over Tibet as an unalloyed improvement, but foreign governments continue to make occasional protests about aspects of PRC rule in Tibet as groups such as Human Rights Watch report alleged human rights violations. All governments, however, recognize the PRC's sovereignty over Tibet today, and none have recognized the Government of Tibet in Exile in India.

In 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered to hold talks with the 14th Dalai Lama on the Tibet issue, provided he dropped the demand for independence. The Dalai Lama said in an interview with the South China Morning Post "We are willing to be part of the People's Republic of China, to have it govern and guarantee to preserve our Tibetan culture, spirituality and our environment." He had already said he would accept Chinese sovereignty over Tibet but insisted on real autonomy over its religious and cultural life. The Tibetan government-in-exile called on the Chinese government to respond. The move was seen to be unpopular with some Tibetans in exile, particularly among the younger generation.

In January 2007 the Dalai Lama, in an interview on a private television channel, said "What we demand from the Chinese authority is more autonomy for Tibetans to protect their culture." He added that he had told the Tibetan people not to think in terms of history and to accept Tibet as a part of China.

2008 Tibetan protests against the Chinese powerholders -- initiated by Buddhist monks -- flared up again in 2008. The Chinese government reacted strongly, imposing curfews and strictly limiting access to Tibetan areas. The international response was likewise immediate and robust, with a number of leaders condemning the crackdown and large protests (including some in support of China's actions) in many major cities.

Evaluation by the Tibetan exile community

File:Rinpoche.JPG

The Chairman of the Cabinet of the CTA, Samdhong Rinpoche

In 1991 the Dalai Lama stated that Chinese settlers in Tibet were creating "Chinese Apartheid," stating, "The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us." The Central Tibetan Administration states that the number that have died in the Great Leap Forward, of violence, or other indirect causes since 1950 is approximately 1.2 million. According to Patrick French, the former director of the London-based Free Tibet Campaign and a supporter of the Tibetan cause who was able to view the data and calculations, the estimate is not reliable because the Tibetans were not able to process the data well enough to produce a credible total. French says this total was based on refugee interviews, but prevented outsider access to the data. French, who did gain access, found no names, but "the insertion of seemingly random figures into each section, and constant, unchecked duplication." Furthermore, he found that of the 1.1 million dead listed, only 23,364 were female (implying that 1.07 million of the total Tibetan male population of 1.25 million had died). Tibetologist Tom Grunfeld also finds that the figure is "without documentary evidence." There were, however, many casualties, perhaps as many as 400,000. This figure is extrapolated from a calculation Warren W. Smith made from census reports of Tibet which show 200,000 "missing" from Tibet. Even the controversial The Black Book of Communism expresses doubt at the 1.2 million figure, but does note that according to the Chinese census the total population of ethnic Tibetans in the PRC was 2.8 million in 1953, but only 2.5 million in 1964. It puts forward a figure of 800,000 deaths and alleges that as many as 10% of Tibetans were interned, with few survivors. Chinese demographers have estimated that 90,000 of the 300,000 "missing" Tibetans fled the region.

File:Tibetanparliament asaf.jpg

The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile in Dharamsala, India.

The government of Tibet in Exile also says that, fundamentally, the issue is that of the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people. The Dalai Lama has stated his willingness to negotiate with China for genuine autonomy. According to the government in exile and Tibetan independence groups, most Tibetans still call for full Tibetan independence. The Dalai Lama said that he sees the millions of government-imported Han immigrants and preferential socioeconomic policies, as presenting an urgent threat to the Tibetan nation by stealing economic resources and smothering Tibetan culture. Tibetan exile groups say that despite recent attempts to restore the appearance of original Tibetan culture to attract tourism, the traditional Tibetan way of life is now irrevocably changed. Tashi Wangdi, the Representative of the Dalai Lama, stated in an interview that China's Western China Development program "is providing facilities for the resettlement of Han Chinese in Tibet. At every point of development, and any casual visitor such as a tourist can see it, all the development is in Chinese towns and cities. The local people have become more and more marginalized."

A Tibetan refugee market in Ladakh, India.

The Chinese government says that when Hu Yaobang, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, visited Lhasa in 1980 he was unhappy when he found out the region was lacking autonomy and was lagging behind neighbouring provinces. Policies were changed, including the revitalization of Tibetan culture and religion and language. Since then the central government's policy in Tibet has claimed to have granted most religious freedoms, despite the observation of the more stringent government control implemented over Tibetan monasteries. However, in 1998 three monks and five nuns died while in custody, after suffering beatings and torture for having shouted slogans supporting the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence. Projects that the PRC claims to have benefited Tibet as part of the China Western Development economic plan, such as the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, have roused fears of facilitating military mobilisation and Han migration. There is still ethnic imbalance in appointments and promotions to the civil and judicial services in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, with disproportionately few ethnic Tibetans appointed to these posts.

Evaluation by the Communist Party of China

The government of the PRC maintains that the Tibetan Government did almost nothing to improve the Tibetans' material and political standard of life during its rule from 1913–59, and that they opposed any reforms proposed by the Chinese government. According to the Chinese government, this is the reason for the tension that grew between some central government officials and the local Tibetan government in 1959. The government of the PRC also rejects claims that the lives of Tibetans have deteriorated, and stated that the lives of Tibetans have been improved immensely compared to self rule before 1950. From 1951 to 2007, the Tibetan population in Lhasa administered Tibet has increased from 1.2 million to almost 3 million. 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. The TAR has 22,500 km of highways, as opposed to none in 1950. All secular education in the TAR was created after the revolution. The TAR now has 25 scientific research institutes as opposed to none in 1950. Infant mortality has dropped from 43% in 1950 to 0.661% in 2000. (The United Nations reports an infant mortality rate of 35.3 per thousand in 2000.) Life expectancy has risen from 35.5 years in 1950 to 67 in 2000. The collection and publishing of the traditional Epic of King Gesar, which is the longest epic poem in the world and had only been handed down orally before. Allocation of 300 million Renminbi since the 1980s for the maintenance and protection of Tibetan monasteries. The Cultural Revolution and the cultural damage it wrought upon the entire PRC is generally condemned as a nationwide catastrophe, whose main instigators, in the PRC's view, the Gang of Four, have been brought to justice. The China Western Development plan is viewed by the PRC as a massive, benevolent, and patriotic undertaking by the wealthier eastern coast to help the western parts of China, including Tibet, catch up in prosperity and living standards.

Geography

Yamdrok tso lake

Main article: Geography of Tibet

Tibet is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest region. Most of the Himalaya mountain range, one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world at only 4 million years old, lies within Tibet. Its most famous peak, Mount Everest, is on Nepal's border with Tibet. The average altitude is about 3,000 m in the south and 4,500 m in the north.

The atmosphere is severely dry nine months of the year, and average snowfall is only 18 inches (46 cm), due to the rain shadow effect whereby mountain ranges prevent moisture from the ocean from reaching the plateaus. Western passes receive small amounts of fresh snow each year but remain traversable all year round. Low temperatures are prevalent throughout these western regions, where bleak desolation is unrelieved by any vegetation beyond the size of low bushes, and where wind sweeps unchecked across vast expanses of arid plain. The Indian monsoon exerts some influence on eastern Tibet. Northern Tibet is subject to high temperatures in the summer and intense cold in the winter.

Snow mountains in Tibet

Historic Tibet consists of several regions:

• Amdo (A mdo) in the northeast, incorporated by China into the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan.
• Kham (Khams) in the east, divided between Sichuan, northern Yunnan and Qinghai.
  • Western Kham, part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region
• Ü-Tsang (dBus gTsang) (Ü in the center, Tsang in the center-west, and Ngari (mNga' ris) in the far west), part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region

Tibetan cultural influences extend to the neighboring states of Bhutan, Nepal, adjacent regions of India such as Sikkim and Ladakh, and adjacent provinces of China where Tibetan Buddhism is the predominant religion.

On the border with India, the region popularly known among Chinese as South Tibet is claimed by China and administered by India as the state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Several major rivers have their source in the Tibetan Plateau (mostly in present-day Qinghai Province), including:

• Yangtze
• Yellow River
• Indus River
• Mekong
• Brahmaputra River — the main river that flows through Tibet. In Tibetan, referred to as the Yarlung Tsangpo
• Ganges
• Salween
• Yarlung Tsangpo River

The Indus, Brahmaputra rivers originate from a lake (Tib: Tso Mapham) in Western Tibet, near Mount Kailash. The mountain is a holy pilgrimage for both Hindus and Tibetans. The Hindus consider the mountain to be the abode of Lord Shiva. The Tibetan name for Mt Kailash is Khang Rinpoche.

Cities, towns and villages

Further information: List of towns and villages in the Tibet Autonomous Region

Shigatse

Jokhang temple, Lhasa

Chamdo

Lhasa is Tibet's traditional capital and the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region. Lhasa contains the world heritage site the Potala Palace and Norbulingka, the residences of the Dalai Lama. Lhasa contains a number of significant temples and monasteries which are deeply engrained in its history including Jokhang and Ramoche Temple.

Shigatse is the region's second largest city, west of Lhasa. Gyantse, Chamdo are also amongst the largest.

Other cities in Historic Tibet include, Nagchu, Nyingchi, Nedong, Barkam, Sakya, Gartse, Pelbar, Lhatse, and Tingri; in Sichuan, Kangding (Dartsedo); in Qinghai, Jyekundo or Yushu, Machen, and Golmud. There is also a large Tibetan settlement in South India near Kushalanagara. India created this settlement for Tibetan refugees that escaped Chinese persecution and fled to India.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Tibet

The Tibetan yak is an integral part of Tibetan life.

File:The farmer's market near the Potala in Lhasa.jpg

A fresh fruit and vegetable market in Lhasa

Barren rocks and deserts cover much of Tibet, and the temperature extremes further limit the region’s agricultural production. “Tibet as a whole averages fewer than fifty frost-free days each year.” In this vast land there is little arable land available. The main crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes and assorted fruits and vegetables. Livestock raised are sheep, goals, camels, yaks and horses. The scarce resources made it very difficult for the population to grow in the old Tibet. In the nine centuries before 1950, the population stood still at about one million. The official Tibetan census in 1953 only recorded a population of 1,273,969.

Pre-1950 Tibet was a theocracy with a feudal serfdom system. Most of the arable land was organized into manorial estates owned by rich theocratic lamas and secular landlords. Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in Tibet with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs.

The majority of the population in old Tibet was serfs under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land—or the monastery’s land—without pay. And yet they were heavily taxed. The serfs were taxed upon getting married, the birth of each child and for every death in the family, etc. The monasteries often lent money to people who could not pay their taxes at 20 to 50 percent interest. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. Noble families and monasteries, on the other hand, received many privileges from the government including interest-free loans.

In Pre-1950 Tibet the principal export was wool. Tibetans transported thousands of loads of wool by mules and donkeys to India and Nepal; from there this popular item was shipped throughout Asia, Europe and America.

Tibet's GDP in 2001 was 13.9 billion yuan (USD1.8billion). The Central government exempts Tibet from all taxation and provides 90% of Tibet's government expenditures. The Chinese central government spends about $2.5 billion in Tibet annually, mostly on infrastructure projects. The Tibetan economy is dominated by subsistence agriculture. Due to limited arable land, livestock raising is the primary occupation mainly on the Tibetan Plateau, among them are sheep, cattle, goats, camels, yaks and horses. However, the main crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes and assorted fruits and vegetables.

In recent years, due to the increased interest in Tibetan Buddhism, tourism has become an increasingly important sector, and is actively promoted by the authorities. The Tibetan economy is heavily subsidized by the Central government and government cadres receive the second-highest salaries in China.

Tourism brings in the most income from the sale of handicrafts. These include Tibetan hats, jewelry (silver and gold), wooden items, clothing, quilts, fabrics, Tibetan rugs and carpets.

File:Tibettrain.jpg

The world's highest railway connecting Tibet with eastern Chinese provinces for the first time by rail. Operational since July 2006.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway which links the region to Qinghai in China proper was opened in 2006. The Chinese government claims that the line will promote the development of impoverished Tibet. But opponents argue the railway will harm Tibet. For instance, Tibetan opponents contend that it would only draw more Han Chinese residents, the country's dominant ethnic group, who have been migrating steadily to Tibet over the last decade, bringing with them their popular culture. Opponents believe that the large influx of Han Chinese will ultimately extinguish the local culture.

Other opponents argue that the railway will damage Tibet's fragile ecology and that most of its economic benefits will go to migrant Han Chinese. As activists call for a boycott of the railway, the Dalai Lama has urged Tibetans to "wait and see" what benefits the new line might bring to them. According to the Government-in-exile's spokesmen, the Dalai Lama welcomes the building of the railway, "conditioned on the fact that the railroad will bring benefit to the majority of Tibetans."

In January of 2007, the Chinese government issued a report outlining the discovery of a large mineral deposit under the Tibetan Plateau. The deposit has an estimated value of $128 billion and may double Chinese reserves of zinc, copper, and lead. China sees this as a way to alleviate the country's dependence on foreign mineral imports necessary for its growing economy. However, critics worry that mining these vast resources will harm Tibet's fragile ecosystem as well take valuable resources away from the Tibetan people.

Demographics

Ethnolinguistic Groups of Tibetan language, 1967 (See entire map, which includes a key)

Ethnic Tibetan autonomous entities set up by the People's Republic of China. Opponents to the PRC dispute the actual level of autonomy.

Traditional Kham houses

Historically, the population of Tibet consisted of primarily ethnic Tibetans. Other ethnic groups in Tibet include Menba (Monpa), Lhoba, Mongols and Hui. According to tradition the original ancestors of the Tibetan people, as represented by the six red bands in the Tibetan flag, are: the Se, Mu, Dong, Tong, Dru and Ra.

The issue of the proportion of the Han Chinese population in Tibet is a politically sensitive one. The Central Tibetan Administration, an exile group, says that the People's Republic of China has actively swamped Tibet with Han Chinese migrants in order to alter Tibet's demographic makeup.[1]

View of the Tibetan exile community

Between the 1960s and 1980s, many prisoners (over 1 million, according to Harry Wu) were sent to laogai camps in Qinghai (Amdo), where they were then employed locally after release. Since the 1980s, increasing economic liberalization and internal mobility has also resulted in the influx of many Han Chinese into Tibet for work or settlement, as well as an exodus of some ethnic Tibetans moving into other provinces, though the actual number of this floating population remains disputed.

The Government of Tibet in Exile claims that, despite official statistics to the contrary, in reality non-ethnic Tibetans (including Han Chinese and Hui Muslims) outnumber ethnic Tibetans. It claims that this is as a result of an active policy of demographically swamping the Tibetan people and further diminishing any chances of Tibetan political independence.[2] The Dalai Lama has recently been reported as saying that the Tibetans had been reduced to a minority "in his homeland", by reference to population figures of Lhasa, and accusing China of "demographic aggression".

The Government of Tibet in Exile questions all statistics given by the PRC government, since they do not include members of the People's Liberation Army garrisoned in Tibet, or the large floating population of unregistered migrants.[3] The Qinghai-Tibet Railway (Xining to Lhasa) is also a major concern, as it is believed to further facilitate the influx of migrants.[4]

The Government of Tibet in Exile quotes an issue of People's Daily published in 1959 to claim that the Tibetan population has dropped significantly since 1959. According to the article, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China show that the autonomous region of Tibet was populated by 1,273,969 persons. In the Tibetan sectors of Kham, 3,381,064 Tibetans were counted. In Qinghai and other Tibetan sectors that are incorporated in Gansu, 1,675,534 Tibetans were counted. According to the total of these three numbers, the Tibetan population attained 6,330,567 in 1959.

In 2000, the number of Tibetans as a whole of these regions was about 5,400,000 according to National Bureau of Statistics.

However, the source of the 1959 Tibetan population quoted by the Government of Tibet in Exile is questionable. According to 1954 Chinese census report, the total population of the autonomous region of Tibet was 1,273,969; the total population of Kham was 3,381,064; and the total population of Qinghai was 1,675,534. These numbers were taken by the Government of Tibet in Exile as the population of Tibetans in each province.

View of the People's Republic of China

The PRC government does not view itself as an occupying power and has vehemently denied allegations of demographic swamping. The PRC also does not recognize Greater Tibet as claimed by the government of Tibet in Exile, saying that the idea was engineered by foreign imperialists as a plot to divide China amongst themselves (Mongolia being a striking precedent, gaining independence with Soviet, backing and subsequently aligning itself with the Soviet Union) and that those areas outside the TAR were not controlled by the Tibetan government before 1959 in the first place, having been administered instead by other surrounding provinces for centuries.

The PRC gives the number of Tibetans in Tibet Autonomous Region as 2.4 million, as opposed to 190,000 non-Tibetans, and the number of Tibetans in all Tibetan autonomous entities combined (slightly smaller than the Greater Tibet claimed by exiled Tibetans) as 5.0 million, as opposed to 2.3 million non-Tibetans. In the TAR itself, much of the Han population is to be found in Lhasa. Population control policies like the one-child policy only apply to Han Chinese, not to minorities such as Tibetans.

Jampa Phuntsok, chairman of the TAR, has also said that the central government has no policy of migration into Tibet due to its harsh high-altitude conditions, that the 6% Han in the TAR is a very fluid group mainly doing business or working, and that there is no immigration problem.

With regards to the historical population of ethnic Tibetans, the Chinese government claims that according to the First National Census conducted in 1954, there were 2,770,000 ethnic Tibetans in China, including 1,270,000 in the TAR; whereas in the Fourth National Census conducted in 1990, there were 4,590,000 ethnic Tibetans in China, including 2,090,000 in the TAR. These figures are used to support the claim that the Tibetan population has doubled since 1951.

Such claims are consistent the general trend of ethnic minorities experiencing significantly higher population growth rates than the majority Han population. Recent surveys indicate that the population growth rate for ethnic minorities is about 7 times greater than that for the Han population.

Major ethnic groups in Greater Tibet by region, 2000 census.
	Total	Tibetans		Han Chinese		others
Tibet Autonomous Region:	2,616,329	2,427,168	92.8%	158,570	6.1%	30,591	1.2%
- Lhasa PLC	474,499	387,124	81.6%	80,584	17.0%	6,791	1.4%
- Qamdo Prefecture	586,152	563,831	96.2%	19,673	3.4%	2,648	0.5%
- Shannan Prefecture	318,106	305,709	96.1%	10,968	3.4%	1,429	0.4%
- Xigazê Prefecture	634,962	618,270	97.4%	12,500	2.0%	4,192	0.7%
- Nagqu Prefecture	366,710	357,673	97.5%	7,510	2.0%	1,527	0.4%
- Ngari Prefecture	77,253	73,111	94.6%	3,543	4.6%	599	0.8%
- Nyingchi Prefecture	158,647	121,450	76.6%	23,792	15.0%	13,405	8.4%
Qinghai Province:	4,822,963	1,086,592	22.5%	2,606,050	54.0%	1,130,321	23.4%
- Xining PLC	1,849,713	96,091	5.2%	1,375,013	74.3%	378,609	20.5%
- Haidong Prefecture	1,391,565	128,025	9.2%	783,893	56.3%	479,647	34.5%
- Haibei AP	258,922	62,520	24.1%	94,841	36.6%	101,561	39.2%
- Huangnan AP	214,642	142,360	66.3%	16,194	7.5%	56,088	26.1%
- Hainan AP	375,426	235,663	62.8%	105,337	28.1%	34,426	9.2%
- Golog AP	137,940	126,395	91.6%	9,096	6.6%	2,449	1.8%
- Gyêgu AP	262,661	255,167	97.1%	5,970	2.3%	1,524	0.6%
- Haixi AP	332,094	40,371	12.2%	215,706	65.0%	76,017	22.9%
Tibetan areas in Sichuan province
- Ngawa AP	847,468	455,238	53.7%	209,270	24.7%	182,960	21.6%
- Garzê AP	897,239	703,168	78.4%	163,648	18.2%	30,423	3.4%
- Muli AC	124,462	60,679	48.8%	27,199	21.9%	36,584	29.4%
Tibetan areas in Yunnan province
- Dêqên AP	353,518	117,099	33.1%	57,928	16.4%	178,491	50.5%
Tibetan areas in Gansu province
- Gannan AP	640,106	329,278	51.4%	267,260	41.8%	43,568	6.8%
- Tianzhu AC	221,347	66,125	29.9%	139,190	62.9%	16,032	7.2%
Total for Greater Tibet:
With Xining and Haidong	10,523,432	5,245,347	49.8%	3,629,115	34.5%	1,648,970	15.7%
Without Xining and Haidong	7,282,154	5,021,231	69.0%	1,470,209	20.2%	790,714	10.9%

This table includes all Tibetan autonomous entities in the People's Republic of China, plus Xining PLC and Haidong P. The latter two are included to complete the figures for Qinghai province, and also because they are claimed as parts of Greater Tibet by the Government of Tibet in exile.

P = Prefecture; AP = Autonomous prefecture; PLC = Prefecture-level city; AC = Autonomous county.

Excludes members of the People's Liberation Army in active service.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Tibet

A young monk at Labrang

Religion

Tibetan Buddhism

Main article: Tibetan Buddhism

Religion is extremely important to the Tibetans; Tibet is the traditional center of Tibetan Buddhism, a distinctive form of Vajrayana, which is also related to the Shingon Buddhist tradition in Japan. Tibetan Buddhism is practiced not only in Tibet but also in China, Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, the Buryat Republic, the Tuva Republic, and in the Republic of Kalmykia.

Bön

Main article: Bön

Bön is the ancient indigenous religion of Tibet. It has been eclipsed by Tibetan Buddhism in most areas but still practiced in China.

Islam

Main article: Islam in Tibet

In Tibetan cities, there are also small communities of Muslims, known as Kachee (Kache), who trace their origin to immigrants from three main regions: Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan), Ladakh and the Central Asian Turkic countries. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Persia. After 1959 a group of Tibetan Muslims made a case for Indian nationality based on their historic roots to Kashmir and the Indian government declared all Tibetan Muslims Indian citizens later on that year. There is also a well established Chinese Muslim community (gya kachee), which traces its ancestry back to the Hui ethnic group of China. It is said that Muslim migrants from Kashmir and Ladakh first entered Tibet around the 12th century. Marriages and social interaction gradually led to an increase in the population until a sizable community grew up around Lhasa.

Buddhist monasteries in Tibet

Main article: List of Buddhist monasteries in Tibet

Tibet is home to numerous Buddhist monasteries.

Ganden Monastery

Tashilhunpo

Tibetan art

Main article: Tibetan art

A thangka painting in Sikkim

Tibetan representations of art are intrinsically bound with Tibetan Buddhism and commonly depict deities or variations of Buddha in various forms from bronze Buddhist statues and shrines, to highly colorful thangka paintings and mandalas.

Architecture

File:Sand mandala tibet 1.JPG

Tibetan sand mandala

Main article: Tibetan culture § Architecture

Tibetan architecture contains Chinese and Indian influences, and reflects a deeply Buddhist approach. The Buddhist wheel, along with two dragons, can be seen on nearly every Gompa in Tibet. The design of the Tibetan Chörtens can vary, from roundish walls in Kham to squarish, four-sided walls in Ladakh.

The most distinctive feature of Tibetan architecture is that many of the houses and monasteries are built on elevated, sunny sites facing the south, and are often made out of a mixture of rocks, wood, cement and earth. Little fuel is available for heat or lighting, so flat roofs are built to conserve heat, and multiple windows are constructed to let in sunlight. Walls are usually sloped inwards at 10 degrees as a precaution against frequent earthquakes in the mountainous area.

The Potala Palace

Standing at 117 meters in height and 360 meters in width, the Potala Palace is considered as the most important example of Tibetan architecture. Formerly the residence of the Dalai Lama, it contains over one thousand rooms within thirteen stories, and houses portraits of the past Dalai Lamas and statues of the Buddha. It is divided between the outer White Palace, which serves as the administrative quarters, and the inner Red Quarters, which houses the assembly hall of the Lamas, chapels, 10,000 shrines, and a vast library of Buddhist scriptures.

Music

Main article: Music of Tibet

Boudhanath, Nepal. 1973

The music of Tibet reflects the cultural heritage of the trans-Himalayan region, centered in Tibet but also known wherever ethnic Tibetan groups are found in India, Bhutan, Nepal and further abroad. First and foremost Tibetan music is religious music, reflecting the profound influence of Tibetan Buddhism on the culture.

Tibetan music often involves chanting in Tibetan or Sanskrit, as an integral part of the religion. These chants are complex, often recitations of sacred texts or in celebration of various festivals. Yang chanting, performed without metrical timing, is accompanied by resonant drums and low, sustained syllables. Other styles include those unique to the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, such as the classical music of the popular Gelugpa school, and the romantic music of the Nyingmapa, Sakyapa and Kagyupa schools.

Nangma dance music is especially popular in the karaoke bars of the urban center of Tibet, Lhasa. Another form of popular music is the classical gar style, which is performed at rituals and ceremonies. Lu are a type of songs that feature glottal vibrations and high pitches. There are also epic bards who sing of Tibet's national hero Gesar.

Festivals

Main article: Tibetan Festivals

The Monlam Prayer Festival

Tibet has various festivals which commonly are performed to worship the Buddha throughout the year. Losar is the Tibetan New Year Festival and the Monlam Prayer Festival follows it in the first month of the Tibetan calendar which involves many Tibetans dancing and participating in sports events and sharing picnics.

Tibetan New Year is the most important festival in Tibet. It is an occasion when Tibetan families reunite and expect that the coming year will be a better one. Known as Losar, the festival starts from the first to the third day of the first Tibetan month. Preparations for the festive event are manifested by special offerings to family shrine deities, painted doors with religious symbols, and other painstaking jobs done to prepare for the event. Tibetans eat Guthuk (barley crumb food with filling) on New Year's Eve with their families. Eating Guthuk is fun since the barley crumbs are stuffed with a different filling to fool someone in the family. The Festival of Banishing Evil Sprits is observed after dinner. Signs that the New Year is approaching when one sees lit torches, and people running and yelling to get rid of evil spirits from their houses. Before dawn on New Year's Day, housewives get their first buckets of water for their homes and prepare breakfast. After breakfast, people dress up to go to monasteries and offer their prayers. People visit their neighborhoods and exchange their Tashi Delek blessings in the first two days. Feast is the theme during the occasion. On the third day, old prayer flags are replaced with new ones. Other folk activities may be held in some areas to celebrate the events.

Monlam, the Great Prayer Festival, falls on the fourth up to the eleventh day of the first Tibetan month. The event was established in 1049 by Tsong Khapa, the founder of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama's order. It is the grandest religious festival in Tibet. Religious dances are performed and thousands of monks gather for chanting before the Jokhang Temple. Examinations taking form of sutra debates for the Geshe degree, the highest degree in Buddhist theology, are also held. Pilgrims crowd to listen to the sermons while others give religious donations.

Cuisine

Main article: Tibetan cuisine

A monk churning Butter tea

The most important crop in Tibet is barley, and dough made from barley flour called tsampa, is the staple food of Tibet. This is either rolled into noodles or made into steamed dumplings called momos. Meat dishes are likely to be yak, goat, or mutton, often dried, or cooked into a spicy stew with potatoes. Mustard seed is cultivated in Tibet, and therefore features heavily in its cuisine. Yak yoghurt, butter and cheese are frequently eaten, and well-prepared yoghurt is considered something of a prestige item. Butter tea is very popular to drink and many Tibetans drink up to 100 cups a day.

Other

Historically, Tibet is considered the home of the ancient art of paper folding known as Origami. The tradition started as an artistic way of folding chanted or meditated mantras into decorative shapes in order to help spread their influence over the world.

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.

Human Rights

The Tibetan people are denied most rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the rights to self-determination, freedom of speech, assembly, movement, expression, and travel. According to UN Development Programme data, Tibet is ranked the lowest among China’s 31 provinces , and is ranked 153 out of the 160 countries on the Human Development Index.

Despite having ratified a number of UN conventions, including those relating to torture and racial discrimination, the Chinese authorities have repeatedly violated these conventions in Tibet. Amnesty International has stated that political prisoners are often beaten and tortured, and sometimes summarily executed. Since the 1988 ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture by China, 69 Tibetans are recorded as having died as a result of torture in Chinese prisons. Human rights groups have confirmed by name over 700 Tibetan political prisoners in Tibet, many of them detained without charge or trial. Unarmed demonstrators are occasionally shot without warning by Chinese police.

There is no evidence to support China's claim that Tibet is autonomous, as all local legislation is subject to approval of the central government in Beijing. Local government is subject to the regional party, which in Tibet has never been run by a Tibetan.

China does not allow independent human rights organisations into Tibet, and foreign delegations invited to Tibet are denied independent access to meet with Tibetans. More than 11,000 monks and nuns have been expelled from Tibet since 1996 for opposing "patriotic re-education" sessions conducted at monasteries and nunneries under the "Strike Hard" campaign.

China continues to encourage the transfer of Chinese settlers into Tibet. This threatens the survival of the Tibetan religious, cultural and national identity.

Unemployment among Tibetans is high. An unequal taxation system further exacerbates the conditions of poverty for Tibetans in rural areas. Many basic rights, such as the right to housing, education and health, remain unfulfilled. In schools, discussion of Tibetan cultural, religious and social issues is discouraged, and Chinese culture is promoted.

Tibet in popular culture

The popular Tintin books include Tintin in Tibet, in which Tintin travels to the Himalayas in 1958 to find and rescue Chang (a Chinese orphan boy he had previously befriended), whose plane had crashed, presumably with no survivors. During the adventure, Tintin encounters avalanches, levitating monks and the Yeti (abominable snowman).

Dreaming Lhasa (2005) is the first officially recognized film from the Tibetan diaspora

In recent years there have been a number of films produced about Tibet, most notably Hollywood films such as Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt, and Kundun, a biography of the 14th Dalai Lama, directed by Martin Scorsese. Both of these films were banned by the Chinese government because of Tibetan nationalist overtones. Other films include Samsara, The Cup and the 1999 Himalaya, a French-American produced film with a Tibetan cast set in Nepal and Tibet. In 2005, exile Tibetan filmmaker Tenzing Sonam and his partner Ritu Sarin made Dreaming Lhasa, the first internationally recognized feature film to come out of the diaspora to explore the contemporary reality of Tibet.

Banco de Gaia album Last Train to Lhasa

Tibetans are well-represented in contemporary Chinese culture. Tibetan singers are particularly known for their strong vocal abilities, which many attribute to the high altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau. Tseten Dolma (才旦卓玛) rose to fame in the 1960s for her music-and-dance suite "The Earth is Red". Kelsang Metok (格桑梅朵) is a popular singer who combines traditional Tibetan songs with elements of Chinese and Western pop. Phurbu Namgyal (Pubajia or 蒲巴甲) was the 2006 winner of Haonaner, the Chinese version of American Idol. In 2006, he starred in Sherwood Hu's Prince of the Himalayas, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in ancient Tibet and featuring an all-Tibetan cast.

Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, is a film made by National Geographic about a Chinese reporter that goes to Tibet to report on the issue involving the endangerment of Tibetan Antelope. It won numerous awards at home and abroad.

In 1995 a British electronic music act Banco de Gaia released the album Last Train to Lhasa, dedicated to the music of Tibet, with many samples of Tibetan chantings.

Gallery

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  Monks at Sakya Monastery
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  Gyantse
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  Monks at Sera
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  Drepung Monastery
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  Yarlung Tsangpo
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  Former quarters of the Dalai Lama
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  Thangka painting
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  Tibetan children in Lithang

Further reading

• Allen, Charles (2004). Duel in the Snows: The True Story of the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa. London: John Murray, 2004. ISBN 0-7195-5427-6.
• Bell, Charles (1924). Tibet: Past & Present. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Dowman, Keith (1988). The Power-Places of Central Tibet: The Pilgrim's Guide. Routledge & Kegan Paul. London, ISBN 0-7102-1370-0. New York, ISBN 0-14-019118-6.
• Melvyn C. Goldstein; with the help of Gelek Rimpoche. A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers (1993), ISBN 81-215-0582-8. University of California (1991), ISBN 0-520-07590-0.

A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951. University of California Press, 1991, ISBN 0-520-07590-0

• Melvyn C. Goldstein: A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 2: The Calm Before the Storm: 1951-1955, University of California Press 2007 ISBN 978-0520249417
• Melvyn C. Goldstein: The Snowlion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1997.
• Melvyn Goldstein, William Siebenschuh, and Tashi Tsering. The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashi Tsering. Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe, Inc. 1997.
• Grunfeld, Tom (1996). The Making of Modern Tibet. ISBN 1-56324-713-5.
• Gyatso, Palden (1997). "The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk". Grove Press. NY, NY. ISBN 0-8021-3574-9
• Human Rights in China: China, Minority Exclusion, Marginalization and Rising Tensions, London, Minority Rights Group International, 2007
• McKay, Alex (2003). The History of Tibet. Routledge. ISBN 0700715088
• McKay, Alex (1997). Tibet and the British Raj: The Frontier Cadre 1904-1947. London: Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-0627-5.
• Norbu, Thubten Jigme; Turnbull, Colin (1968). Tibet: Its History, Religion and People. Reprint: Penguin Books (1987).
• Pachen, Ani; Donnely, Adelaide (2000). Sorrow Mountain: The Journey of a Tibetan Warrior Nun. Kodansha America, Inc. ISBN 1-56836-294-3.
• Parenti, Michael (2004)."Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth".
• Petech, Luciano (1997). China and Tibet in the Early XVIIIth Century: History of the Establishment of Chinese Protectorate in Tibet. T'oung Pao Monographies, Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 9-00403-442-0.
• Samuel, Geoffrey (1993). Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Smithsonian ISBN 1-56098-231-4.
• Schell, Orville (2000). Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood. Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-4381-0.
• Smith, Warren W. (Jr.) (1996). Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3155-2.
• Stein, R. A. (1962). Tibetan Civilization. First published in French; English translation by J. E. Stapelton Driver. Reprint: Stanford University Press (with minor revisions from 1977 Faber & Faber edition), 1995. ISBN 0-8047-0806-1.
• Tsering Shakya (1999): The Dragon in the Land of Snows. A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947, London 1999, ISBN 0140196153*

Thurman, Robert (2002). Robert Thurman on Tibet. DVD. ASIN B00005Y722.

• Wilby, Sorrel (1988). Journey Across Tibet: A Young Woman's 1,900-mile (3,060 km) Trek Across the Rooftop of the World. Contemporary Books. ISBN 0-8092-4608-2.
• Wilson, Brandon (2004). Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith. Pilgrim's Tales. ISBN 0977053660, ISBN 0977053679. (second edition 2005)
• Wang Jiawei (2000). "The Historical Status of China's Tibet". ISBN-7-80113-304-8.
• Tibet wasn't always ours, says Chinese scholar by Venkatesan Vembu, Daily News & Analysis, 22 February 2007
• Sharife Khadija :Tibet's Natural Resources as China's Pillar Industry "http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/khadijasharife/2008/04/18/tibet-shifting-climates-on-the-roof-of-the-world-p2/

See also

• Amdo and Kham in eastern Tibet
• Évariste Régis Huc (Abbé Huc) visited Tibet in 1845–6, and wrote his observations in Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine pendant les années 1844–1846.
• Francis Younghusband led a punitive military expedition to Tibet in 1904.
• Alexandra David-Neel visited Lhasa in 1924, and wrote several books about the country and its culture.
• Human rights in the People's Republic of China
• Central Tibetan Administration aka Tibetan Government in Exile
• International Tibet Independence Movement aka Free Tibet Movement
• List of active autonomist and secessionist movements
• Tibetan American
• Tibetan Buddhism
• South Tibet
• Nangpa La killings
• Ladakh
• Baltistan
• Phuntsog Nyidron

External links

• Template:Wikitravel
• The Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library