British Expedition To Tibet - Subsequent Interpretations

Subsequent Interpretations

Chinese historians write of Tibetans heroically opposing the British out of loyalty not to Tibet, but to China. They assert that the British troops looted and burned, that the British interest in trade relations was a pretext for annexing Tibet, a step toward the ultimate goal of annexing all of China; but that the Tibetans destroyed the British forces, and that Younghusband escaped only with a small retinue. The Chinese government has turned Gyantze Dzong into a "Resistance Against the British Museum" promoting these views, as well as other themes such as the brutal life endured by Tibetan serfs who fiercely loved their Chinese mother country. China also treats the invasion as part of the its "century of humiliation" at the hands of Western and Japanese powers and the defence as a Chinese resistance, while many Tibetans look back to it as an exercise of Tibetan self-defence and an act of independence from the Qing dynasty as the dynasty was falling apart.