Foreign Relations of Tibet - Chinese Sovereignty

Chinese Sovereignty

Neither the Nationalist government of the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China have ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet. The PRC ascribes Tibetan efforts to establish independence as due to the machinations of "British imperialism" . According to the Chinese, the Tibetan cabinet, the Kashag, set up a "bureau of foreign affairs" in July, 1942 and demanded that the Chinese mission in Lhasa, the Office of the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, deal only with it. The Chinese successfully withstood this.

In 1950 the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet, meeting little resistance from the small and ill-equipped Tibetan army. In 1951 the 17 Point Agreement, signed under threat of a wholesale Chinese invasion by representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, provided for rule by a joint Chinese-Tibetan authority. This agreement was successfully put into effect in Tibet but in June 1956, rebellion broke out in the Tibetan populated borderlands of Amdo and Kham when the government tried to impose the socialist transformation policies in these regions that they had in other provinces of China. Since Amdo and Kham had not been under the control of Lhasa in 1950 but under the control of Chinese warlords, they were not considered by the Chinese to be part of Tibet and thus not subject to the "go slow" agreement. This unrest provided the opportunity for the CIA to support an armed Tibetan rebellion which eventually spread to Lhasa. The rebellion was crushed by 1959 and the Dalai Lama fled in disguise to India. Isolated actions continued until 1969. The Panchen Lama was set up as a figurehead in Lhasa while the Dalai Lama eventually created a Government of Tibet in Exile.