Human rights in Tibet

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Human rights in Tibet is a contentious issue. According to a 1992 Amnesty International report, judicial standards in China, including in Tibet, were not up to "international standards". The report charged the Chinese Communist Party government with keeping political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, including the death penalty in its penal code, ill-treatment of detainees and inaction in the face of ill-treatment of detainees, including torture, the use of the death penalty, extrajudicial executions, forced abortions and sterilisation. The status of religion, mainly as it relates to figures who are both religious and political, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, is a regular object of criticism.

Reported abuses of human rights in Tibet include restricted freedom of religion, belief, and association. Specifically, Tibetans have faced arbitrary arrest and maltreatment in custody, including torture at the hands of Chinese authorities. Freedom of the Press in the PRC is still absent, and Tibet's media is tightly controlled by the Chinese leadership, making it difficult to determine accurately the scope of human rights abuses. A series of reports published in the late 1980s claimed that China was forcing Tibetans to adhere to strict birth control programs that included forced abortions, sterilizations, and even infanticide.

Before the Invasion of Tibet in 1951, Tibet was ruled by a theocracy and had a caste-like social hierarchy. Official crackdowns in the region generally center on “the three evils of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism,” which give pretext for abuses.

Human rights in pre-1950 Tibet

The social system

Likewise, to journalist and writer Israel Epstein, a foreign-born Chinese citizen and member of the Chinese communist party, "the old society" in Tibet "had nothing even remotely resembling human rights." He explains: "High and low, the belief had for centuries been enforced on the Tibetans that everyone's status was predetermined by fate, as a reward for virtues or penalty for faults on one's past incarnations. Hence it was deemed senseless for the rich (even though compassion was abstractly preached) to have qualms about sitting on the necks of the poor, and both criminal and blasphemous for the poor not to patiently bear the yoke. ‘Shangri-La’ the old Tibet was definitely not."

An ancient form of slavery preceding the development of the feudal system, was still extant in a small number of manors in old Tibet (prior to 1959): the nanggzan manors (nanggzan meaning "family slave" in Tibetan). In these, according to Chinese sociologist Liu Zhong, "exploitation was not through land-rent but through enslavement" to the manor's owner. In return for working the land, the slaves were provided with lodging, clothing and food, albeit minimal. "Some slaves had their families [with them] while others did not." This residual form of slavery was finally abolished in Central Tibet in 1959 by the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The nature of serfdom and its applicability to Eastern societies is contested amongst academics. Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein wrote in 1971 that "Tibet was characterized by a form of institutionalized inequality that can be called pervasive serfdom". However some academics have questioned the applicability of the concept to Tibet, a recent example being Heidi Fjeld who in 2003 argued that feudalism and the use of the term 'serf' was misleading in relation to the social system of Tibet and instead described it as "a caste-like social hierarchy".

In the political debate concerning the legitimacy of Communist Party rule in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, official Chinese sources assert that the Communist invasion was justified in order to end the practice of "feudal serfdom" and other alleged human rights abuses under the Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan Government in Exile and supporters of the free Tibet movement contend that efforts had been underway in the first half of the 20th century to modernise the country, and argue that human rights abuses under the Communist Party have inflicted greater suffering and repression of the Tibetan people.

Crimes and punishments

Trader Gyebo Sherpa was subjected to the severe corca whipping for selling cigarettes. He died from his wounds 2 days later in the Potala prison. Tashi Tsering, a self-described critic of traditional Tibetan society, records being whipped as a 13-year-old for missing a performance as a dancer in the Dalai Lama's dance troop in 1942, until the skin split and the pain became excruciating.

Yet, incidents of mutilation have been recorded in Tibet in the period between the start of the 20th Century and the Chinese occupation. Tibetan communist Phuntso Wangye recalled his anger at seeing freshly severed human ears hanging from the gate of the county headquarters in Damshung north of Lhasa in 1945. The top level Tibetan official Lungshar's eyes were gouged out by direct order of the Kashag or Tibetan Government was carried out in 1934. An attempt was made at anesthetizing the alleged criminal with intoxicants before performing the punishment, which unfortunately did not work well.

In 1950, the six Tibetan border guards that had been involved in the killing or wounding of Frank Bessac's companions (one of them Douglas Mackiernan) as they were fleeing into Tibet from the Communist advance, were tried and sentenced to mutilation in Lhasa's military court: "The leader was to have his nose and both ears cut off. The man who fired the first shot was to lose both ears. A third man was to lose one ear, and the others were to get 50 lashes each." (The punishment was subsequently changed to lashings on Bessac's request).

Hostility to Western missions and churches

Western missionaries, in past centuries, took the perilous and time-consuming journey to Tibet, only to be frustrated by the poor number of native converts, to be expelled from the area, or even to be killed or to die. But at different stages of Tibetan history secular rulers and religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama have been eager to protect Western missionaries and their tasks of preaching Christian beliefs to the local Tibetans. The first Western missionary known to have reached Lhasa was the Jesuit Father Antonio de Andrade, accompanied by Fratello Manuel Marques, and their first encounter with the Tibetans was cordial, with the Tibetans greeting Andrade and Marques with friendliness.

However, Christians endured a number of persecutions in old Tibet. In 1630, the Tsaparang Jesuit mission in the Guge Kingdom (presently the Gantok district of West Tibet) fell victim to an uprising by dissident local Yellow Hat lamas, led by the king's brother and abetted by the king of Ladakh, against the King who had lavished favours on the alien mission. Many Christian converts were carried off by force to Ladakh as slaves. The church and properties at Tsaparang and Rudok were sacked, and five resident Jesuits became virtual prisoners of the king of Ladakh who had become the de facto ruler of Guge. A 1640 effort to reestablish the mission in Guge collapsed when a party of three new priests was attacked as it entered Tibet before reaching Tsaparang and was forced to retreat to India.

Between 1850 and 1880, after the Qing court's decree allowing Western missionaries to purchase lands and construct churches in Chinese provinces, as many as a dozen lower ranking priests of the Paris Foreign Mission Society were killed or injured during their journeys to missionary outposts in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. In 1881, Father Brieux, then head of the Paris Foreign Mission Society in Batang in eastern Tibet, was reported to have been murdered on his way to Lhasa. After proper investigations, Qing officials discovered that the murder cases were covertly supported and even orchestrated by local lamaseries and native chieftains. Feeling threatened by the increasing number of new Christian converts in eastern Tibet, as well as by the imperial decree allowing the missionaries to openly purchase and possess land, the lamaistic monastic communities and their political patrons felt the need to take drastic measures to secure their religious, financial, and political interests.

In 1904, Qing official Feng Quan sought to curtail the influence of the Gelugpa Sect and ordered the protection of Western missionaries and their churches. Indignation over Feng Quan and the Christian presence escalated to a climax in March 1905, when thousands of the Batang lamas revolted, killing Feng, his entourage, local Manchu and Han Chinese officials, and the local French Catholic priests. The revolt soon spread to other cities in eastern Tibet, such as Chamdo, Litang and Nyarong, and at one point almost spilled over into neighboring Sichuan Province. The missionary stations and churches in these areas were burned and destroyed by the angry Gelugpa monks and local chieftains. Dozens of local Westerners, including at least four priests, were killed or fatally wounded. The scale of the rebellion was so tremendous that only when panicked Qing authorities hurriedly sent 2,000 troops from Sichuan to pacify the mobs did the revolt gradually come to an end. The lamasery authorities and local native chieftains' hostility towards the Western missionaries in Tibet lingered through the last throes of the Manchu dynasty and into the Republican period.

According to Hsiao-ting Lin, it was neither 'anti-imperialism' nor 'patriotism' – contrary to what is asserted by the 'standard' Chinese historical narratives – that led the Tibetans to expel the Western missionaries, but "the fact that Tibetan religious and political figures were desperate to prevent any possible intrusion into their local interests and privileges by Christian authorities."

Reform

According to supporters of the Tibetan Government in Exile, in his reforms the 13th Dalai Lama banned capital punishment, making Tibet one of the first countries to do so.

This is acknowledged by Sir Charles Bell, a friend of the Dalai Lama's, with the reservation, however, that "the punishment for deliberate murder is usually so severe that the convict can hardly survive for long."

Also, historian Alex C. McKay notes that isolated cases of capital punishment did take place in later years, such as the death of one Padma Chandra and the execution of a youth involved in stealing the western Tibetan administrator's horse. McKay also stresses the fact that corporal punishment continued to be inflicted for numerous offences and often proved fatal.

Republic of China invasion

The Kuomintang's Republic of China government supported Muslim warlord Ma Bufang when he launched seven expeditions into Golog, causing the deaths of thousands of Tibetans. Author Uradyn Erden Bulag called the events that followed genocidal and David Goodman called them ethnic cleansing. One Tibetan counted the number of times Ma attacked him, remembering the seventh attack which made life impossible. Ma was highly anti-communist, and he and his army wiped out many Tibetans in the northeast and eastern Qinghai, and also destroyed Tibetan Buddhist Temples. Ma also patronized the Panchen Lama, who was exiled from Tibet by the Dalai Lama's government.

Human rights in post-1950 Tibet

Reforms

The 14th Dalai Lama's brother Jigme Norbu reports that, along with these reforms, living conditions in jails were improved, with officials being designated to see that these conditions and rules were maintained."

In the reforms that were enacted after 1959, Italian marxist philosopher Domenico Losurdo sees a chance for the Tibetan populace to access the human rights they were previously denied, besides gaining considerably improved living conditions and a significantly increased average life expectancy. This contrasts the view of Choekyi Gyaltsen, the 10th Panchen Lama, who criticised the situation in Tibet with a 70,000 character document that dealt with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. In this document, he criticized the suppression that the Chinese authorities had conducted in retaliation for the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

Difficulties

According to an Asia Watch Committee report in 1988, the question of human rights in a minority area of the People's Republic of China is inherently difficult to research and address. Official sensitivity around the Tibet issue compounds the problem. Government measures to prevent information about Tibetan protests and protesters from leaving China have hindered human rights monitoring organizations from providing an adequate account of protests and their consequences, according to the CECC.

The position of the Communist Party that any discussion of the issue by foreigners is "unacceptable interference in China's internal affairs" is itself an obstacle to scrutiny. The Chinese government has also linked negative remarks about human rights in Tibet with damage to Sino-American relations. This relates to questions about political prisoners, population transfer, and more, which are "hidden in secrecy," according to the report. Thus, gathering information on such subjects with regard to Tibet is a difficult undertaking.

Types of abuses

An aerial shot of Drapchi Prison in Lhasa, which, according to the Central Tibetan Administration, has gained a notorious reputation for its violent treatment of prisoners.

Human rights abuses documented in Tibet include the deprivation of life, disappearances, torture, poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of fair public trial, denial of freedom of speech and of press and Internet freedoms. They also include political and religious repression, forced abortions, sterilisation, and even infanticide.

The security apparatus has employed torture and degrading treatment in dealing with some detainees and prisoners, according to the U.S. State Department's 2009 report. Tibetans repatriated from Nepal have also reportedly suffered torture, including electric shocks, exposure to cold, and severe beatings, and been forced to perform heavy physical labor. Prisoners have been subjected routinely to "political investigation" sessions and punished if deemed insufficiently loyal to the state.

Physical abuses

"Police Attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects." A trilingual (Tibetan - Chinese- English) sign above the entrance to a small café in Nyalam Town, Tibet, 1993.

According to a UN report regarding the adoption of its Tibetan resolution in 1965, "The Chinese occupation of Tibet has been characterised by acts of murder, rape and arbitrary imprisonment; torture and cruel, inhuman and degraded treatment of Tibetans on a large scale."

According to a secret PLA document purportedly captured by the guerrillas fighting the Chinese army, 87,000 deaths were recorded in Lhasa between March 1959 and September 1960. Regarding this document, Chinese demographer Yan Hao wonders why "it took six years for the PLA document to be captured, and 30 years for it to be published" ("by a Tibetan Buddhist organisation in India in 1990"), adding that it was "highly unlikely that a resistance force could ever exist in Tibet as late as in 1966."

The 10th Panchen Lama said in relation to atrocities by Chinese forces: "If there was a film made on all the atrocities perpetrated in Qinghai Province, it would shock the viewers. In Golok area, many people were killed and their dead bodies rolled down the hill into a big ditch. The soldiers told the family members and relatives of the dead people that they should celebrate since the rebels have been wiped out. They were forced to dance on the dead bodies. Soon after, they were also massacred with machine guns...In Amdo and Kham, people were subjected to unspeakable atrocities. People were shot in groups of ten or twenty... Such actions have left deep wounds in the minds of the people."

Since March 10, 2008, exiled Tibetan sources have documented that 228 Tibetans have died under the crackdown, 1,294 have been injured, 4,657 arbitrarily detained, 371 sentenced and 990 disappeared. Four Tibetans were executed in Lhasa on 20 October 2009, while the Chinese authorities confirmed only two. 11 Tibetans were sentenced to life imprisonment. In the majority of cases the defendants had no independent legal counsel and when a lawyer of choice represented the defendants, the authorities blocked representations either through intimidation or on procedural grounds. Amnesty International have stated that there have been a number of detainees in prisons and detention centres in Tibet have "reported to have died in custody, or within weeks of their release, apparently as a result of ill-treatment or lack of medical care in detention."

In one case a Tibetan from Sichuan province, Paltsal Kyab, died five weeks after he had been detained by police in connection with the 2008 protests. His family was not allowed to visit him while he was detained, and received no news until being informed of his death. When claiming his body, family members found it bruised and covered with blister burns; they discovered later that he also had internal injuries, according to Amnesty International. The police told the family that he had died of an illness, though relatives claimed he was healthy when detained.

In another case a Tibetan, Jamyang Samten, said he was given electric shocks with a cattle prod, chained to a wall and hit in the stomach by a Chinese guard wearing a metal glove, and if he made a minor mistake in his interrogation, he would be beaten with a chain, saying that "The way the Chinese tortured was terrifying, they beat us using their full strength. Sometimes they forced us to take off our clothes. We were locked up in a room with our arms and legs handcuffed and they beat us. The chain injured the surface but not the inside of the body. If they hit us with the electric baton, our entire body trembled and gradually we were unable to speak." Jamyang Samten was eventually released and fled to Kathmandu in Nepal.

Director Jezza Neumann, who spent three months undercover in Tibet, said that "There are spies everywhere," and that "There are the uniformed police and army, the secret police in their suits and dark glasses and then a spy network of Chinese and Tibetans. It's like the Stasi in East Germany.

Allegations of physical genocide

According to Friends of Tibet, an organization that defines itself as a "people's movement for an Independent Tibet", the number of Tibetans killed after the Chinese occupation—a period marked by torture and starvation—now exceeds a million. The 14th Dalai Lama has alleged that 1.2 million Tibetans were killed under Chinese rule.

In her book “People who Count” (1995), Dorothy Stein indicates just how the deaths for which the Chinese are held responsible were arrived at by “Tibetan nationalists” (her words): “they are attributed to ‘figures published by the Information Office of the Central Tibetan Secretariat' in India.” "A letter to Tibetan Review by Jampel Senge (April, 1989, p. 22) says 'The census which resulted in the figure of 1.2 was conducted by the Government in Exile through exiled Tibetans who travelled to meet their relations, and through new arrivals from Tibet."

The figure of 1.2 million dead is challenged by Chinese demographer Yan Hao who says that the methodoloy used by the TGIE is defective. “How can they come to these exact death figures by analysing documents,” he questions, “if they have problems in working out an exact figure of Tibet’s total population alive at present?” “How can they break down the figures by regions” “when they have a problem in clearly defining the boundary of the greater Tibet as well as its provinces?” Yan Hao stresses that “knowledge of statistics tells us that random sampling is necessary for acquiring reliable data in any surveys” and “those conducted entirely among political refugees could produce anything but objective and unbiased results.”

Patrick French, the former director of Free Tibet Campaign in London, states that there is "no evidence" to support the figure of 1.2 million Tibetans killed as a result of Chinese rule. He estimates that as many as half a million Tibetans died from repression and famine under Chinese rule.

In a « Writenet » report prepared for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2005, Professor Colin P. Mackerras writes that the claims such as that the Chinese are swamping Tibetans in their own country and that 1.2 million Tibetans have died due to Chinese occupation should be treated with the deepest scepticism. The figures show that since the early 1960s, the Tibetan population has been increasing, probably for the first time for centuries. What seems to follow from this is that the TGIE’s allegations of population reduction due to Chinese rule probably have some validity for the 1950s but are greatly exaggerated. However, since the 1960s, Chinese rule has had the effect of increasing the population of the Tibetans, not decreasing it, largely due to a modernization process that has improved the standard of living and lowered infant, maternity and other mortality rates.

In his essay Hidden Tibet: History of Independence and Occupation published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives at Dharamsala, historian Sergius L. Kuzmin provided detailed analysis of human losses in Tibet, varying from 3 to 30% population when using different sources He indicated inadequacy of demography-based results and noted that local-level data was generalized and has only been published by the Tibetan emigrants. He concluded that, according to International Law, actions of Maoists in Tibet can be qualified as genocide, regardless of which of the above estimates of population losses one considers to be credible.

Allegations of forced abortions, sterilisations and infanticide

In The Making of Modern Tibet, historian A. Tom Grunfeld observes that "in the years following the [1960] publication of the LIC's report, the Dalai Lama, Purshottam Trikamdas and the ICJ" (International Commission of Jurists) "all claimed to have found proof of sterilization; yet they failed to produce a single person who could be clinically examined to verify these claims."

A demographical survey of Pala – an area located in Western Changtang about 300 miles north-west of Lhasa – conducted by tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein brings to light that from 1959 to 1990 large families remained the norm and that no reproductive restraints were imposed on nomadic herders: "Despite repeated claims in the West that the Chinese had imposed a strict policy of birth control in Tibet, where ‘forced abortions, sterilisations and infanticides are everyday occurrences’ (New York Times, 31 January 1992), there was no policy of restricting reproduction in Pala, let alone evidence of forced abortions, sterilisations or infanticide." An analysis of the fertility histories collected from 71 females aged from 15 to 59 provides strong evidence in support of the conclusion that no population control policy restricting couples to 2 or even 3 births was or is operative. Besides, no Pala nomads have ever been fined for any subsequent children, and all such children and their families enjoy full rights in the community

In a study of fertility and family planning in rural Tibet published in 2002, Melvyn C. Goldstein, Ben Jiao, Cynthia M. Beall and Phuntsog Tsering claim that there was no evidence in any of the sites surveyed that Lhasa was applying a two-child birth rule in rural Tibet. Although a Tibet Information Network report stated this policy was in place, when Ngamring county, which was cited in the report, was visited, no such policy was evident. The Ngamring county government had striven to increase the use of family planning in the 1990s, but in the summer of 2000 no local nomads or officials in the area of study had heard anything about a two-child limit, nor had any of the officials interviewed at the Ngamring country seat. And finally, no fines had been imposed for fourth and subsequent births. For its authors, "the study highlights the dangers of using refugee reports and anecdotal evidence to interpret highly politicized situations."

In China's Birth Control Policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region - Myths and Realities, Melvyn C. Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall report that "A series of published reports claim that China was and is compelling Tibetans to adhere to a strict birth control program that includes forced abortions, sterilizations, and even infanticide.

In 1992, Paul Ingram, speaking on behalf of an NGO group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child claimed that "Few people or organisations seem willing to admit that the Chinese FORCE [sic] Tibetan women to be sterilised, or to have abortions, or will entertain the perspective that their policy is one of planned cultural genocide against the Tibetan people, supplemented by an enormous influx of Chinese settlers. Yet there is a great deal of evidence and detailed testimony, which indicates that this has been Chinese policy in Tibet for many years," saying that it was "Nazi-like".

Jezza Neumann, director of Undercover in Tibet (aired on Dispatches), interviewed a Tibetan woman who described her agony at an alleged forced sterilisation operation without anaesthetic, saying that "I was forcibly taken away against my will. I was feeling sick and giddy and couldn't look up. Apparently they cut the fallopian tubes and stitched them up. It was agonisingly painful. They didn't use anaesthetic. They just smeared something on my stomach and carried out the sterilisation. Apart from aspirin for the pain, there were no other drugs. I was so frightened, I can't even remember how I felt. Some people were even physically damaged by the operation. They have limps and have to drag their hips." Unconfirmed reports also suggest mobile sterilisation units are inserting a new type of contraceptive coil into village women that cannot be removed by them.

Infringements on freedom of religion

Tibetans in Tibet state that there are clear limits on their right to practice Buddhism. The most stringently enforced are the ban on public prayers for the 14th Dalai Lama. Also, permission from authorities is required for any large public gathering, Buddhist gatherings not exempted.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Yang Jiechi, told a press conference in March 2009 that the Dalai Lama is "by no means a religious figure but a political figure." Xinhua, quoting a Tibetologist, echoed this theme, referring to the Dalai Lama's efforts in establishing a government in exile, establishing a Constitution, and other things. Ending the "Dalai clique"'s use of monasteries for subversion against the state is a core part of the campaign that promotes the CCP's “stability and harmony in the religious field”. The state supervisory organ for Buddhism, the Buddhist Association of China, changed their charter in 2009 to denounce the Dalai Lama for agitating for Tibetan independence. The Central People's Government has asserted a right to approve the next Dalai Lama, according to "historical conventions" used in the Qing Dynasty since 1793.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reported instances of "patriotic education" in 2005, from the testimony of "young Tibetan monks who escaped from Tibet". In them, monks were given political literature and a script to recite to County Religious Bureau officials when they were due to visit. They were instructed to practice denouncing the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" and to pledge allegiance to China, and were quizzed on the literature. Officials also extolled the monks to accept the legitimacy of Gyaincain Norbu, the government choice for 11th Panchen Lama.

According to the CECC, educational, legal, and propaganda channels are used to pressure Tibetan Buddhists to change their religious beliefs into a doctrine that promotes government positions and policy. This has resulted instead in continuing Tibetan demands for freedom of religion and the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. In June 2009, a monastic official who also holds the vice chairmanship of the CPPCC for Tibet, told monks at Galden Jampaling Monastery in Qamdo that their freedom of religion was a result of the Party's benevolence. The TCHRD has claimed that Chinese authorities in 2003 threatened residents of a Tibetan-inhabited county with expropriation if they did not hand over portraits of the Dalai Lama within a month.

The CCP further increased its influence over the teaching and practice of Tibetan Buddhism in 2009, including intensifying a media campaign to discredit the Dalai Lama as a religious leader and preventing Tibetans from respecting him as such. Chinese official statements also indicated that the government would select a successor to the Dalai Lama, currently aged 74, when he passes away. Tibetans are expected to "embrace such a development."

'Reshaping' Tibetan Buddhism

In February 2009 The “Tibet Branch” of the Buddhist Association of China changed their charter to pressure Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns to treat the Dalai Lama as a "de facto criminal" and threat to Tibetan Buddhism, according to a report in China’s state-controlled media. The revised charter urged monks and nuns to “see clearly that the 14th Dalai Lama is the ringleader of the separatist political association which seeks ‘Tibet independence,’ a loyal tool of anti-China Western forces, the very root that causes social unrest in Tibet and the biggest obstacle for Tibetan Buddhism to build up its order.” The CECC argues that incorporating language classifying the Dalai Lama as a “separatist” into the charter of a government-designated religious organization increases the risk of punishment for monks and nuns who maintain religious devotion to the Dalai Lama even if they do not engage in overt political activity.

On March 10, 2010, the Dalai Lama stated that "the Chinese authorities are conducting various political campaigns, including patriotic re-education campaign, in many monasteries in Tibet. They are putting the monks and nuns in prison-like conditions, depriving them the opportunity to study and practice in peace. These conditions make the monasteries function more like museums and are intended to deliberately annihilate Buddhism."

The CCP continued to state that Chinese policies in Tibetan areas are a success, and in 2008 and 2009 took a stance of pressuring other governments to abandon support of the Dalai Lama and instead to support the Party line on Tibetan issues.

The Dalai Lama's advocacy on behalf of the Tibetan people and culture is used in official propaganda to argue that he is not a legitimate religious leader, but a political actor. Ending the Dalai Lama’s role as supreme religious leader is a core part of the campaign that promotes the CCP's “stability” and “harmony” in the Tibetan areas of China. This was carried out by state-run media and senior government officials. Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, for example, told a press conference in March 2009 that the Dalai Lama is “by no means a religious figure but a political figure.”

The official response to continued criticism of CCP policy from Tibetans includes "aggressive campaigns" of “patriotic education” (“love the country, love religion”) and legal education. Patriotic education sessions require monks and nuns to pass examinations on political texts, affirm that "Tibet is historically a part of China," accept the legitimacy of the Panchen Lama installed by the Chinese government, and denounce the Dalai Lama.

In June 2009, a monastic official who also holds the rank of Vice Chairman of the TAR Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) spoke to monks at Jampaling (Qiangbalin) Monastery in Changdu (Chamdo) prefecture, TAR, and emphasized the dependency of “freedom of religion” on Party control and patriotism toward China. “Without the Party’s regulations,” he told the monks, “there would be no freedom of religion for the masses. To love religion, you must first love your country.”

According to the CECC, Chinese officials justify such campaigns as "legitimate and necessary" by seeking to characterize and conflate a range of Tibetan objections to state policy as threats to China’s unity and stability. An example given to substantiate this is comments made by Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Party Secretary Zhang Qingli and Vice Minister of Public Security Zhang Xinfeng, speaking during a February 2009 teleconference on “the work of maintaining social stability.” They called for “large numbers of party, government, military, and police personnel in Tibet to immediately go into action” and “resolutely smash the savage attacks by the Dalai clique and firmly win the current people’s war against separatism and for stability.” Principal speakers at the teleconference stressed the importance of "education campaigns" in achieving such objectives.

A Tibetan activist group reported that Chinese authorities in Kardze County and Lithang County in Kardze Tibet Autonomous Prefecture ("TAP"), Sichuan Province, as part of the anti-Dalai Lama campaign, threatened the local populace with confiscation of their land if they do not hand over portraits of the Dalai Lama within a month.

Writing in 2005, jurist Barry Sautman asserts that the ban on the public display of photos of the 14th Dalai Lama began in 1996 in the TAR but is not enforced in the Tibetan areas of the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.

Tibetan-Muslim sectarian violence

In Tibet, the majority of Muslims are Hui people. Tension between Tibetans and Muslims stems from events during the Muslim warlord Ma Bufang's rule in Qinghai such as Ngolok rebellions (1917–49) and the Sino-Tibetan War. In the past riots have broken out between Muslims and Tibetans. The repression of Tibetan separatism by the Chinese government is supported by Hui Muslims. In addition, Chinese-speaking Hui have problems with Tibetan Hui (the Tibetan speaking Kache minority of Muslims).

The main Mosque in Lhasa was burned down by Tibetans and Chinese Hui Muslims were violently assaulted by Tibetan rioters in the 2008 Tibetan unrest. Sectarian violence between Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims does not get widespread attention in the media.

Repercussions of 2008 unrest

In March 2008, what began as routine monastic commemorations of Tibetan Uprising Day descended into riots, beatings, and arson by Tibetans against Han, Hui, and even other Tibetans, killing 18 civilians and 1 police officer. Casualties sustained during the subsequent police crackdown are unknown, according to the U.S. Department of State. Many members of the People's Armed Police (PAP) remained in communities across the Tibetan Plateau during the year, and the fallout from the protests continued to impact on human rights outcomes for Tibetan people.

According to numerous sources, the U.S. Department of State says, many detained after the riots were subject to extrajudicial punishments such as severe beatings and deprivation of food, water, and sleep for long periods. In some cases detainees sustained broken bones and other serious injuries at the hands of PAP and Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers. According to eyewitnesses, the bodies of persons killed during the unrest or subsequent interrogation were disposed of secretly rather than returned to their families. Many monasteries and nunneries remained under virtual lock-down, while the authorities renewed the “Patriotic Education” campaign, according to Amnesty International, involving written denunciations against the Dalai Lama.

Tibetan members of the CCP were also targeted, including being forced to remove their children from Tibet exile community schools where they obtain religious education. In March 2010 as many as 50 Tibetans were arrested for sending reports, photos, and video abroad during the unrest, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). One individual received a 10-year prison sentence.

It was Chinese government and Communist Party interference with the norms of Tibetan Buddhism, and "unremitting antagonism toward the Dalai Lama," that were key factors behind the protests, according to a special report by the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Many members of the People's Armed Police (PAP) remained in communities across the Tibetan Plateau during the year, and the fallout from the protests continued to impact on human rights outcomes for Tibetan people. Amnesty International was "deeply concerned at the human rights violations" that occurred during these events and called on the Human Rights Council to address the human rights situation during the 2008 unrest.

Verifiabilty of exile pronouncements

Psychologist and writer Colin Goldner alleges that although human rights abuses carried out by the People's Liberation Army, especially during the Cultural Revolution, cannot be justified, the pronouncements of Tibetan exiles cannot be trusted, because "These are, if not totally invented out of thin air, as a rule hopelessly exaggerated and/or refer to no longer actual happenings. The contention of the Dalai Lama's exiled government that 'the daily life of the Tibetans in their own land' are dictated by 'torture, mental terror, discrimination and a total disrespect for of human dignity' is pure propaganda meant to collect sympathy points or monetary contributions; such accusations do not reflect today's realities in Tibet. Likewise, the accusations of forced abortions and blanket area sterilizations of Tibetan women, of a flooding of the land by Chinese colonists, of systematic destruction of the Tibetan cultural heritage do not agree with the facts."

Amnesty International have stated that there have been "consistent reports", including "testimonies by former detainees and relatives of detainees who left Tibet illegally" that indicated that people held in police stations and detainees in prisons and detention centres in Tibet have been "systematically tortured and ill-treated." The chairman of the Committee Against Torture stated that "allegations of torture were numerous and mutually corroborative: torture did not seem like an isolated phenomenon." China's report on its implementation of the Convention Against Torture did not address these allegations that torture had occurred in Tibet, with many of the questions the members of the Committee Against Torture had relating to this towards China "remained largely unanswered".

American sinologist Allen Carlson is of the opinion that it is nearly impossible, without substantial field research in Tibet, to verify the numerous allegations of violations advanced by China critics. He does, however, state, "my analysis of Beijing’s policies and practices has left me with the impression that the Chinese leadership has no reservations about using whatever means necessary to secure Chinese rule over Tibet."

According to Amnesty International "The Chinese authorities have turned down as “inconvenient” requests for visits to the TAR by several UN human rights experts."

Reported sentencings of Tibetans in Chinese courts

Tibetans are often punished by Chinese authorities for activities that would not be considered crimes under international law, such as exercising their freedom of speech.

Name	Date of Report	Claimed Offence	Punishment
Tsering Tenzin	2011-08-31	Intentional homicide (over another monk's death by self-immolation) - Helped a monk kill himself, by setting himself on fire, considered a form of extreme protest.	13 years
Tenchum	2011-08-31	Intentional homicide (over another monk's death by self-immolation) - Helped a monk kill himself, by setting himself on fire, considered a form of extreme protest.	10 years
Drongdru	2011-08-31	Intentional homicide (over another monk's death by self-immolation) - Helped a monk kill himself, by setting himself on fire, considered a form of extreme protest.	11 years
Pema Yeshi	2010-02-24	Inciting separatism and disturbing social order.	2 year suspended death
Sonam Gonpo	2010-02-24	Inciting separatism and disturbing social order.	Life
Tsewang Gyatso	2010-02-24	Inciting separatism and disturbing social order.	16 years
Gangkye Drubpa Kyab	2012-02-20	Unknown	Detention
Dawa Dorjee	2012-02-20	Unknown	Detention
Norbu Tsering	2012-02-20	Unknown	2 years

History of Tibet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tibetan history, as it has been recorded, is particularly focused on the history of Buddhism in Tibet. This is partly due to the pivotal role this religion has played in the development of Tibetan and Mongol cultures and partly because almost all native historians of the country were Buddhist monks.

Geographical setting

Tibet lies between the core areas of the ancient civilizations of China and of India. Extensive mountain ranges to the east of the Tibetan Plateau mark the border with China, and the towering Himalayas of Nepal and India form a barrier between Tibet and India. Tibet is nicknamed "the roof of the world" or "the land of snows".
Linguists classify the Tibetan language and its dialects as belonging to the Tibeto-Burman languages, the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family.

Prehistory

Some archaeological data suggests archaic humans passed through Tibet at the time India was first inhabited, half a million years ago. Modern humans first inhabited the Tibetan Plateau at least twenty-one thousand years ago. This population was largely replaced around 3000 BC by Neolithic immigrants from northern China. However, there is a "partial genetic continuity between the Paleolithic inhabitants and the contemporary Tibetan populations".

Megalithic monuments dot the Tibetan Plateau and may have been used in ancestor worship. Prehistoric Iron Age hill forts and burial complexes have recently been found on the Tibetan Plateau but the remote high altitude location makes archaeological research difficult.

Early history (c. 500 BC- AD 618)

Zhangzhung kingdom (c. 500 BC– AD 625)

According to Namkhai Norbu some Tibetan historical texts identify the Zhang Zhung culture as a people who migrated from the Amdo region into what is now the region of Guge in western Tibet. Zhang Zhung is considered to be the original home of the Bön religion.

By the 1st century BC, a neighboring kingdom arose in the Yarlung Valley, and the Yarlung king, Drigum Tsenpo, attempted to remove the influence of the Zhang Zhung by expelling the Zhang's Bön priests from Yarlung. He was assassinated and Zhang Zhung continued its dominance of the region until it was annexed by Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century.

Tibetan tribes (2nd century AD)

In AD 108, "the Kiang or Tibetans, who were then entirely savage and lived a nomadic life west and south of the Koko-nor, attacked the Chinese posts of Gansu, threatening to cut the Dunhuang road. Liang Kin, at the price of some fierce fighting, held them off." Similar incursions were repelled in AD 168-169 by the Chinese general Duan Gong.

First kings of the pre-Imperial Yarlung Dynasty (2nd-6th century)

The pre-Imperial Yarlung Dynasty rulers are more mythological than factual, and there is insufficient evidence of their definitive existence.

Nyatri Tsenpo is considered by traditional histories to have been the first king of the Yarlung Dynasty, named after the river valley where its capital city was located, circa fifty-five miles south-east from present-day Lhasa. The dates attributed to the first Tibetan king, Nyatri Tsenpo (Wylie: Gnya'-khri-btsan-po), vary. Some Tibetan texts give 126 BC, others 414 BC.

Nyatri Tsenpo is said to have descended from a one-footed creature called the Theurang, having webbed fingers and a tongue so large it could cover his face. Due to his terrifying appearance he was feared in his native Puwo and exiled by the Bön to Tibet. There he was greeted as a fearsome being, and he became king.

The Tibetan kings were said to remain connected to the heavens via a dmu cord (dmu thag) so that rather than dying, they ascended directly to heaven, when their sons achieved their majority. According to various accounts, king Drigum Tsenpo (Dri-gum-brtsan-po) either challenged his clan heads to a fight, or provoked his groom Longam (Lo-ngam) into a duel. During the fight the king's dmu cord was cut, and he was killed. Thereafter Drigum Tsenpo and subsequent kings left corpses and the Bön conducted funerary rites.

In a later myth, first attested in the Maṇi bka' 'bum, the Tibetan people are the progeny of the union of the monkey Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo. But the monkey was a manifestation of the bodhisattva Chenresig, or Avalokiteśvara (Tib. Spyan-ras-gzigs) while the ogress in turn incarnated Chenresig's consort Dolma (Tib. 'Grol-ma).

Tibetan Empire (618–842)

Historical timeline of Tibet (627 - 2013)

The Tibetan Empire at its greatest extent between the 780s and the 790s AD

The Yarlung kings gradually extended their control, and by the early 6th century most of the Tibetan tribes were under its control, when Namri Songtsen (570?–618?/629), the 32nd King of Tibet of the Yarlung Dynasty, gained control of all the area around what is now Lhasa by 630, and conquered Zhangzhung. With this extend of power the Yarlung kingdom turned into the Tibetan Empire.

The government of Namri Songtsen sent two embassies to China in 608 and 609, marking the appearance of Tibet on the international scene. From the 7th century AD Chinese historians referred to Tibet as Tubo (吐蕃), though four distinct characters were used. The first externally confirmed contact with the Tibetan kingdom in recorded Tibetan history occurred when King Namri Löntsän (Gnam-ri-slon-rtsan) sent an ambassador to China in the early 7th century.

Traditional Tibetan history preserves a lengthy list of rulers whose exploits become subject to external verification in the Chinese histories by the 7th century. From the 7th to the 11th century a series of emperors ruled Tibet – see List of emperors of Tibet - of whom the three most important in later religious tradition were Songtsen Gampo, Trisong Detsen and Ralpacan, "the three religious kings" (mes-dbon gsum), who were assimilated to the three protectors (rigs-gsum mgon-po), respectively Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī and Vajrapāni. Songtsen Gampo (c. 604 – 650) was the first great emperor who expanded Tibet's power beyond Lhasa and the Yarlung Valley, and is traditionally credited with introducing Buddhism to Tibet.

Throughout the centuries from the time of the emperor the power of the empire gradually increased over a diverse terrain so that by the reign of the emperor in the opening years of the 9th century, its influence extended as far south as Bengal and as far north as Mongolia.

The varied terrain of the empire and the difficulty of transportation, coupled with the new ideas that came into the empire as a result of its expansion, helped to create stresses and power blocs that were often in competition with the ruler at the center of the empire. Thus, for example, adherents of the Bön religion and the supporters of the ancient noble families gradually came to find themselves in competition with the recently introduced Buddhism.

Era of Fragmentation and Cultural Renaissance (9th-12th century)

Fragmentation of political power (9th-10th century)

Map showing major religious regimes during the Era of Fragmentation in Tibet

The Era of Fragmentation is a period of Tibetan history in the 9th and 10th century. During this era, the political centralization of the earlier Tibetan Empire collapsed. The period was dominated by rebellions against the remnants of imperial Tibet and the rise of regional warlords. Upon the death of Langdarma, the last emperor of a unified Tibetan empire, there was a controversy over whether he would be succeeded by his alleged heir Yumtän (Yum brtan), or by another son (or nephew) Ösung (’Od-srung) (either 843–905 or 847–885). A civil war ensued, which effectively ended centralized Tibetan administration until the Sa-skya period. Ösung's allies managed to keep control of Lhasa, and Yumtän was forced to go to Yalung, where he established a separate line of kings. In 910, the tombs of the emperors were defiled.

The son of Ösung was Pälkhortsän (Dpal 'khor brtsan) (865–895 or 893–923). The latter apparently maintained control over much of central Tibet for a time, and sired two sons, Trashi Tsentsän (Bkra shis brtsen brtsan) and Thrikhyiding (Khri khyi lding), also called Kyide Nyigön (Skyid lde nyi ma mgon) in some sources. Thrikhyiding migrated to the western Tibetan region of upper Ngari (Stod Mnga ris) and married a woman of high central Tibetan nobility, with whom he founded a local dynasty.

After the breakup of the Tibetan empire in 842, Nyima-Gon, a representative of the ancient Tibetan royal house, founded the first Ladakh dynasty. Nyima-Gon's kingdom had its centre well to the east of present-day Ladakh. Kyide Nyigön's eldest son became ruler of the Mar-yul Ladakh region, and his two younger sons ruled western Tibet, founding the Kingdom of Guge and Pu-hrang. At a later period the king of Guge's eldest son, Kor-re, also called Jangchub Yeshe-Ö (Byang Chub Ye shes' Od), became a Buddhist monk. He sent young scholars to Kashmir for training and was responsible for inviting Atiśa to Tibet in 1040, thus ushering in the Chidar (Phyi dar) phase of Buddhism in Tibet. The younger son, Srong-nge, administered day-to-day governmental affairs; it was his sons who carried on the royal line.

Tibetan Renaissance (10^th-12^th century)

Atiśa

According to traditional accounts, Buddhism had survived surreptitiously in the region of Kham. The late 10th and 11th century saw a revival of Buddhism in Tibet. Coinciding with the early discoveries of "hidden treasures" (terma), the 11^th century saw a revival of Buddhist influence originating in the far east and far west of Tibet.

Muzu Saelbar (Mu-zu gSal-'bar), later known as the scholar Gongpa Rabsal (bla chen dgongs pa rab gsal) (832–915), was responsible for the renewal of Buddhism in northeastern Tibet, and is counted as the progenitor of the Nyingma (Rnying ma pa) school of Tibetan Buddhism. In the west, Rinchen Zangpo (958-1055) was active as a translator and founded temples and monasteries. Prominent scholars and teachers were again invited from India.

In 1042 Atiśa (982-1054 CE) arrived in Tibet at the invitation of a west Tibetan king. This renowned exponent of the Pāla form of Buddhism from the Indian university of Vikramashila later moved to central Tibet. There his chief disciple, Dromtonpa founded the Kadampa school of Tibetan Buddhism, under whose influence the New Translation schools of today evolved.

The Sakya, the Grey Earth school, was founded by Khön Könchok Gyelpo (Wylie: 'khon dkon mchog rgyal po, 1034–1102), a disciple of the great Lotsawa, Drogmi Shākya (Wylie: brog mi lo tsā wa ye shes). It is headed by the Sakya Trizin, traces its lineage to the mahasiddha Virūpa, and represents the scholarly tradition. A renowned exponent, Sakya Pandita (1182–1251CE), was the great-grandson of Khön Könchok Gyelpo.

Other seminal Indian teachers were Tilopa (988–1069) and his student Naropa (probably died ca. 1040 CE).The Kagyu, the Lineage of the (Buddha's) Word, is an oral tradition which is very much concerned with the experiential dimension of meditation. Its most famous exponent was Milarepa, an 11th-century mystic. It contains one major and one minor subsect. The first, the Dagpo Kagyu, encompasses those Kagyu schools that trace back to the Indian master Naropa via Marpa Lotsawa, Milarepa and Gampopa

Mongol conquest and Yuan administrative rule (1240–1354)

Tibet within the Yuan dynasty under the top-level department known as the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng Yuan).

During this era, the region was dominated by the Sakya lama with the Mongols support, so it is also called the Sakya dynasty. The first documented contact between the Tibetans and the Mongols occurred when the missionary Tsang-pa Dung-khur (gTsang-pa Dung-khur-ba) and six disciples met Genghis Khan, probably on the Tangut border where he may have been taken captive, around 1221–2. He left Mongolia as the Quanzhen sect of Daoism gained the upper hand, but remet Genghis Khan when Mongols conquered Tangut shortly before the Khan's death. Closer contacts ensued when the Mongols successively sought to move through the Sino-Tibetan borderlands to attack the Jin dynasty and then the Southern Song, with incursions on outlying areas. One traditional Tibetan account claims that there was a plot to invade Tibet by Genghis Khan in 1206, which is considered anachronistic; there is no evidence of Mongol-Tibetan encounters prior to the military campaign in 1240. The mistake may have arisen from Genghis' real campaign against the Tangut Xixia.

The Mongols invaded Tibet in 1240 with a small campaign led by the Mongol general Doorda Darkhan that consisted of 30,000 troops, suffering 500 casualties. The Mongols withdrew their soldiers from Tibet in 1241, as all the Mongol princes were recalled back to Mongolia in preparation for the appointment of a successor to Ögedei Khan. They returned to the region in 1244, when Köten delivered an ultimatum, summoning the abbot of Sakya (Kun-dga' rGyal-mtshan) to be his personal chaplain, on pains of a larger invasion were he to refuse. Sakya Paṇḍita took almost 3 years to obey the summons and arrive in Kokonor in 1246, and met Prince Köten in Lanzhou the following year. The Mongols had annexed Amdo and Kham to the east, and appointed Sakya Paṇḍita Viceroy of Central Tibet by the Mongol court in 1249.

Tibet was incorporated into the Mongol Empire, retaining nominal power over religious and regional political affairs, while the Mongols managed a structural and administrative rule over the region, reinforced by the rare military intervention. This existed as a "diarchic structure" under the Mongol emperor, with power primarily in favor of the Mongols. Within the branch of the Mongol Empire in China known as the Yuan dynasty, Tibet was managed by the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs or Xuanzheng Yuan, separate from other Yuan provinces such as those governed the former Song dynasty China. One of the department's purposes was to select a dpon-chen, usually appointed by the lama and confirmed by the Yuan emperor in Beijing. "The Mongol dominance was most indirect: Sakya lamas remained the sources of authority and legitimacy, while the dpon-chens carried on the administration at Sakya. However there was no doubt as to who had the political clout. When a dispute developed between dpon-chen Kung-dga' bzari-po and one of 'Phags-pa's relatives at Sakya, the Chinese troops were dispatched to execute the dpon-chen."

In 1253, Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (1235–1280) succeeded Sakya Pandita at the Mongol court. Phagpa became a religious teacher to Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan appointed Chögyal Phagpa as his Imperial Preceptor (originally State Preceptor) in 1260, the year when he became Khagan. Phagpa developed the priest-patron concept that characterized Tibeto-Mongolian relations from that point forward. With the support of Kublai Khan, Phagpa established himself and his sect as the preeminent political power in Tibet. Through their influence with the Mongol rulers, Tibetan lamas gained considerable influence in various Mongol clans, not only with Kublai, but, for example, also with the Il-Khanids.

In 1265, Chögyal Phagpa returned to Tibet and for the first time made an attempt to impose Sakya hegemony with the appointment of Shakya Bzang-po (a long time servant and ally of the Sakyas) as the dpon-chen ('great administrator') over Tibet in 1267. A census was conducted in 1268 and Tibet was divided into thirteen myriarchies (administrative districts, nominally containing 10,000 households). By the end of the century, Western Tibet lay under the effective control of imperial officials (almost certainly Tibetans) dependent on the 'Great Administrator', while the kingdoms of Guge and Pu-ran retained their internal autonomy.

The Sakya hegemony over Tibet continued into the middle of the 14th century, although it was challenged by a revolt of the Drikung Kagyu sect with the assistance of Duwa Khan of the Chagatai Khanate in 1285. The revolt was suppressed in 1290 when the Sakyas and eastern Mongols burned Drikung Monastery and killed 10,000 people.

Between 1346 and 1354, towards the end of the Yuan dynasty, the House of Pagmodru would topple the Sakya. The rule over Tibet by a succession of Sakya lamas came to a definite end in 1358, when central Tibet came under control of the Kagyu sect. "By the 1370s, the lines between the schools of Buddhism were clear."

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.

Tibetan independence (14th-18th century)

With the decline of the Yuan dynasty, Central Tibet was ruled by successive families from the 14th to the 17th century, to be succeeded by the Dalai Lama's rule in the 17th and 18th century. Tibet would be de facto independent from the mid-14th century on, for nearly 400 years. In spite of the weakening of central authority, the neighbouring Ming Dynasty of China made little effort to impose direct rule, although it had nominal claims of the Tibetan territory by establishing the U-Tsang Regional Military Commission and Do-Kham Regional Military Commission in 1370s. They also kept friendly relations with some of the Buddhism religious leaders known as Princes of Dharma and granted some other titles to local leaders including the Grand Imperial Tutor.

Family rule (14th-17th century)

Phagmodrupa (14th - 15th century)

The Phagmodru (Phag mo gru) myriarchy centered at Neudong (Sne'u gdong) was granted as an appanage to Hülegü in 1251. The area had already been associated with the Lang (Rlang) family, and with the waning of Ilkhanate influence it was ruled by this family, within the Mongol-Sakya framework headed by the Mongol appointed Pönchen (Dpon chen) at Sakya. The areas under Lang administration were continually encroached upon during the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Jangchub Gyaltsän (Byang chub rgyal mtshan, 1302–1364) saw these encroachments as illegal and sought the restoration of Phagmodru lands after his appointment as the Myriarch in 1322. After prolonged legal struggles, the struggle became violent when Phagmodru was attacked by its neighbours in 1346. Jangchub Gyaltsän was arrested and released in 1347. When he later refused to appear for trial, his domains were attacked by the Pönchen in 1348. Janchung Gyaltsän was able to defend Phagmodru, and continued to have military successes, until by 1351 he was the strongest political figure in the country. Military hostilities ended in 1354 with Jangchub Gyaltsän as the unquestioned victor, who established the Phagmodrupa Dynasty in that year. He continued to rule central Tibet until his death in 1364, although he left all Mongol institutions in place as hollow formalities. Power remained in the hands of the Phagmodru family until 1434.

The rule of Jangchub Gyaltsän and his successors implied a new cultural self-awareness where models were sought in the age of the ancient Tibetan Kingdom. The relatively peaceful conditions favoured the literary and artistic development. During this period the reformist scholar Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) founded the Gelug sect which would have a decisive influence on Tibet's history.

Rinpungpa family (15th-16th century)

Internal strife within the Phagmodrupa dynasty and the strong localism of the various fiefs and political-religious factions led to a long series of internal conflicts. The minister family Rinpungpa, based in Tsang (West Central Tibet), dominated politics after 1435.

Tsangpa dynasty (16th-17th century)

In 1565 they were overthrown by the Tsangpa Dynasty of Shigatse which expanded its power in different directions of Tibet in the following decades and favoured the Karma Kagyu sect. They would play a pivotal role in the events which led to the rise of power of the Dalai Lama's in the 1640s.

Ganden Phodrang government (17th-18th century)

Legal Document of the Tibetan Ruler Lhabzang Khan

The Ganden Phodrang was the Tibetan regime or government that was established by the 5th Dalai Lama with the help of the Güshi Khan of the Khoshut in 1642. Lhasa became the capital of Tibet in the beginning of this period, with all temporal power being conferred to the 5th Dalai Lama by Güshi Khan in Shigatse.

Beginnings of the Dalai Lama lineage

The rise of the Dalai Lama's was intimately connected with the military power of Mongolian clans.  Altan Khan, the king of the Tümed Mongols, first invited Sonam Gyatso, the head of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism (later known as the third Dalai Lama), to Mongolia in 1569 and again in 1578, during the reign of the Tsangpa family. Gyatso accepted the second invitation. They met at the site of Altan Khan's new capital, Koko Khotan (Hohhot), and the Dalai Lama taught a huge crowd there.

Sonam Gyatso publicly announced that he was a reincarnation of the Tibetan Sakya monk Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (1235–1280) who converted Kublai Khan, while Altan Khan was a reincarnation of Kublai Khan (1215–1294), the famous ruler of the Mongols and Emperor of China, and that they had come together again to cooperate in propagating the Buddhist religion. While this did not immediately lead to 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. Last but not least, Yonten Gyatso, the fourth Dalai Lama, was a grandson of Altan Khan.

Rise of the Gelugpa school

Yonten Gyatso (1589–1616), the fourth Dalai Lama and a non-Tibetan, was the grandson of Altan Khan. He died in 1616 in his mid-twenties. Some people say he was poisoned but there is no real evidence one way or the other.

Lobsang Gyatso (Wylie transliteration: Blo-bzang Rgya-mtsho), the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, (1617–1682) was the first Dalai Lama to wield effective political power over central Tibet.
The Fifth Dalai Lama's first regent Sonam Rapten is known for unifying the Tibetan heartland under the control of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, after defeating the rival Kagyu and Jonang sects and the secular ruler, the Tsangpa prince, in a prolonged civil war. His efforts were successful in part because of help from Güshi Khan, the Oirat leader of the Khoshut Khanate. Under Sonam Rapten's regime, him being a fanatical and militant proponent of the Gelugpa, the other schools were then persecuted. Jonang sources today claim that the Jonang monasteries were either closed or forcibly converted, and that school remained in hiding until the latter part of the 20th century. However, before leaving Tibet for China in 1652 the Dalai Lama issued a proclamation or decree to Sonam Rapten banning all such sectarian policies that had been implemented by his administration after the 1642 civil war, and ordered their reversal. With Güshi Khan as a largely uninvolved devotee, the 5th Dalai Lama and his intimates especially Sonam Rapten (until his death in 1658) established a civil administration which is referred to by historians as the Lhasa state. This Tibetan regime or government is also referred to as the Ganden Phodrang.

In 1652, the 5th Dalai Lama visited the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty. He was not required to kowtow like other visitors, but still had to kneel before the Emperor; and he was later sent an official seal.

The fifth Dalai lama initiated the construction of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, and moved the centre of government there from Drepung.

The Potala Palace in Lhasa

The death of the fifth Dalai Lama in 1682 was kept hidden for fifteen years by his assistant, confidant, Desi Sangye Gyatso (De-srid Sangs-rgyas Rgya-'mtsho). The Dalai Lamas remained Tibet's titular heads of state until 1959.

During the rule of the Great Fifth, two Jesuit missionaries, the German Johannes Gruber and Belgian Albert Dorville, stayed in Lhasa for two months, October and November, 1661 on their way from Peking to Portuguese Goa, in India. They described the Dalai Lama as a "powerful and compassionate leader" and "a devilish God-the-father who puts to death such as refuse to adore him." Another Jesuit, Ippolito Desideri, stayed five years in Lhasa (1716–1721) and was the first missionary to master the language. He even produced a few Christian books in Tibetan. Capuchin fathers took over the mission until all missionaries were expelled in 1745.

In the late 17th century, Tibet entered into a dispute with Bhutan, which was supported by Ladakh. This resulted in an invasion of Ladakh by Tibet. Kashmir helped to restore Ladakhi rule, on the condition that a mosque be built in Leh and that the Ladakhi king convert to Islam. The Treaty of Temisgam in 1684 settled the dispute between Tibet and Ladakh, but its independence was severely restricted.

Qing conquest and administrative rule (1720–1912)

The Qing rule over Tibet was established after a Qing expedition force defeated the Dzungars who occupied Tibet in 1720, and lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912. The Qing emperors appointed imperial residents known as the Ambans to Tibet, who commanded over 2,000 troops stationed in Lhasa and reported to the Lifan Yuan, a Qing government agency that oversaw the region during this period. During this era, the region was dominated by the Dalai Lamas with the support from the Qing dynasty established by the Manchus in China.

Qing rule

Tibet within the Qing dynasty in 1820.

Qing conquest

The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty sent an expedition army to Tibet in response to the occupation of Tibet by the forces of the Dzungar Khanate, together with Tibetan forces under Polhanas (also spelled Polhaney) of Tsang and Kangchennas (also spelled Gangchenney), the governor of Western Tibet, they expelled the Dzungars from Tibet in 1720. They brought Kelzang Gyatso with them from Kumbum to Lhasa and he was installed as the 7th Dalai Lama. Qing protectorate over Tibet was established at this time, with a garrison at Lhasa, and Kham was annexed to Sichuan. In 1721, the Qing established a government in Lhasa consisting of a council (the Kashag) of three Tibetan ministers, headed by Kangchennas. The Dalai Lama's role at this time was purely symbolic, but still highly influential because of the Mongols' religious beliefs.

After the succession of the Yongzheng Emperor in 1722, a series of reductions of Qing forces in Tibet occurred. However, Lhasa nobility who had been allied with the Dzungars killed Kangchennas and took control of Lhasa in 1727, and Polhanas fled to his native Ngari. Qing troops arrived in Lhasa in September, and punished the anti-Qing faction by executing entire families, including women and children. The Dalai Lama was sent to Lithang Monastery in Kham. The Panchen Lama was brought to Lhasa and was given temporal authority over Tsang and Ngari, creating a territorial division between the two high lamas that was to be a long lasting feature of Chinese policy toward Tibet. Two ambans were established in Lhasa, with increased numbers of Qing troops. Over the 1730s, Qing troops were again reduced, and Polhanas gained more power and authority. The Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa in 1735, temporal power remained with Polhanas. The Qing found Polhanas to be a loyal agent and an effective ruler over a stable Tibet, so he remained dominant until his death in 1747.

At multiple places such as Lhasa, Batang, Dartsendo, Lhari, Chamdo, and Litang, Green Standard Army troops were garrisoned throughout the Dzungar war. Green Standard Army troops and Manchu Bannermen were both part of the Qing force who fought in Tibet in the war against the Dzungars. It was said that the Sichuan commander Yue Zhongqi (a descendant of Yue Fei) entered Lhasa first when the 2,000 Green Standard soldiers and 1,000 Manchu soldiers of the "Sichuan route" seized Lhasa. According to Mark C. Elliott, after 1728 the Qing used Green Standard Army troops to man the garrison in Lhasa rather than Bannermen. According to Evelyn S. Rawski both Green Standard Army and Bannermen made up the Qing garrison in Tibet.^[72] According to Sabine Dabringhaus, Green Standard Chinese soldiers numbering more than 1,300 were stationed by the Qing in Tibet to support the 3,000 strong Tibetan army.

The Qing had made the region of Amdo and Kham into the province of Qinghai in 1724, and incorporated eastern Kham into neighbouring Chinese provinces in 1728. The Qing government sent a resident commissioner (amban) to Lhasa. Polhanas' son Gyurme Namgyal took over upon his father's death in 1747. The ambans became convinced that he was going to lead a rebellion, so they killed him. News of the incident leaked out and a riot broke out in the city, the mob avenged the regent's death by killing the ambans. The Dalai Lama stepped in and restored order in Lhasa. The Qianlong Emperor (Yongzheng's successor) sent Qing forces to execute Gyurme Namgyal's family and seven members of the group that killed the ambans. The Emperor re-organized the Tibetan government (Kashag) again, nominally restoring temporal power to the Dalai Lama, but in fact consolidating power in the hands of the (new) ambans.

Expansion of control over Tibet

Induction of Lungtok Gyatso, 9th Dalai Lama, in the presence of Ambans around 1808.

The defeat of the 1791 Nepalese invasion increased the Qing's control over Tibet. From that moment, all important matters were to be submitted to the ambans. It strengthened the powers of the ambans. The ambans were elevated above the Kashag and the regents in responsibility for Tibetan political affairs. The Dalai and Panchen Lamas were no longer allowed to petition the Qing Emperor directly but could only do so through the ambans. The ambans took control of Tibetan frontier defense and foreign affairs. The ambans were put in command of the Qing garrison and the Tibetan army (whose strength was set at 3000 men). Trade was also restricted and travel could be undertaken only with documents issued by the ambans. The ambans were to review all judicial decisions. However, according to Warren Smith, these directives were either never fully implemented, or quickly discarded, as the Qing were more interested in a symbolic gesture of authority than actual sovereignty. In 1841, the Hindu Dogra dynasty attempted to establish their authority on Ü-Tsang but were defeated in the Sino-Sikh War (1841–1842).

In the mid 19th century, arriving with an Amban, a community of Chinese troops from Sichuan who married Tibetan women settled down in the Lubu neighborhood of Lhasa, where their descendants established a community and assimilated into Tibetan culture. Hebalin was the location of where Chinese Muslim troops and their offspring lived, while Lubu was the place where Han Chinese troops and their offspring lived.

European influences in Tibet

António de Andrade

 

Sándor Kőrösi Csoma

The first Europeans to arrive in Tibet were Portuguese missionaries who first arrived in 1624 led by António de Andrade. They were welcomed by the Tibetans who allowed them to build a church. The 18th century brought more Jesuits and Capuchins from Europe. They gradually met opposition from Tibetan lamas who finally expelled them from Tibet in 1745. Other visitors included, in 1774 a Scottish nobleman, George Bogle, who came to Shigatse to investigate trade for the British East India Company, introducing the first potatoes into Tibet. After 1792 Tibet, under Chinese influence, closed its borders to Europeans and during the 19th century only 3 Westerners, the Englishman Thomas Manning and 2 French missionaries Huc and Gabet, reached Lhasa, although a number were able to travel in the Tibetan periphery.

During the 19th century 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. Each power became suspicious of intent in Tibet. But Tibet attracted the attention of many explorers. In 1840, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma arrived in Darjeeling, hoping that he would be able to trace the origin of the Magyar ethnic group, but died before he was able to enter Tibet. In 1865 Great Britain secretly began mapping Tibet. Trained Indian surveyor-spies disguised as pilgrims or traders, called pundits, counted their strides on their travels across Tibet and took readings at night. Nain Singh, the most famous, measured the longitude, latitude and altitude of Lhasa and traced the Yarlung Tsangpo River.

British invasions of Tibet (1903-1904) and Qing control reasserted

The 13th Dalai Lama in 1910

At the beginning of the 20th century the British and Russian Empires were competing for supremacy in Central Asia. Unable to establish diplomatic contacts with the Tibetan government, and concerned about reports of their dealings with Russia, in 1903-04, 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. In response, the Qing foreign ministry asserted that China was sovereign over Tibet, the first clear statement of such a claim. Before the British troops arrived in Lhasa, the 13th Dalai Lama fled to Outer Mongolia, and then went to Beijing in 1908.
The British invasion was one of the triggers for the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion at Batang monastery, when anti-foreign Tibetan lamas massacred French missionaries, Manchu and Han Qing officials, and Christian converts before the Qing crushed the revolt.

The Anglo-Tibetan Treaty of Lhasa of 1904 was followed by the Sino-British treaty of 1906. Beijing agreed to pay London 2.5 million rupees which Lhasa was forced to agree upon in the Anglo-Tibetan treaty of 1904. In 1907, Britain and Russia agreed that in "conformity with the admitted principle of the suzerainty of China over Tibet" both nations "engage not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government."

The Qing government in Beijing then appointed Zhao Erfeng, 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. 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. All remaining Qing forces left Tibet after the Xinhai Lhasa turmoil.

De facto independence (1912–1951)

Tibetan Passport 1947 / 1948 - issued to Tsepon Shakabpa, then Chief of the Finance Department of the Government of Tibet

The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet from India in July 1912 (after the fall of the Qing dynasty), and expelled the Amban and all Chinese troops. In 1913, the Dalai Lama issued a proclamation that stated that the relationship between the Chinese emperor and Tibet "had been that of patron and priest and had not been based on the subordination of one to the other." "We are a small, religious, and independent nation", the proclamation continued.

For the next thirty-six years, Tibet enjoyed de facto independence while China endured its Warlord era, civil war, and World War II. Some Chinese sources argue that Tibet was still part of China throughout this period. Some other authors argue that Tibet was also de jure independent after Tibet-Mongolia Treaty of 1913, before which Mongolia has been recognized by Russia.

Tibet continued in 1913–1949 to have very limited contacts with the rest of the world, although British representatives were stationed in Gyantse, Yatung and Gartok (western Tibet) after the Younghusband Mission. These so-called "Trade Agents" were in effect diplomatic representatives of the British Government of India and in 1936-37 the British also established a permanent mission in Lhasa. This was in response to a Chinese "condolence mission' sent to the Tibetan capital after the demise of the 13th Dalai Lama which remained in Lhasa as, in effect, a Republican Chinese diplomatic post. After 1947 the British mission was transferred to the newly independent Indian government control although the last British representative, Hugh Richardson remained in Lhasa until 1950 serving the Indian government. The British, like the Chinese, encouraged the Tibetans to keep foreigners out of Tibet and no foreigners visited Lhasa between the departure of the Younghusband mission in 1904 and the arrival of a telegraph officer in 1920. Just over 90 European and Japanese visited Lhasa during the years 1920-1950, most of whom were British diplomatic personnel. Very few governments did anything resembling a normal diplomatic recognition of Tibet.^{[citation needed]} In 1914 the Tibetan government signed the Simla Accord with Britain, ceding the several small areas on the southern side of the Himalayan watershed to British India. The Chinese government denounced the agreement as illegal.

In 1932, the National Revolutionary Army, composed of Muslim and Han soldiers, led by Ma Bufang and Liu Wenhui defeated the Tibetan army in the Sino-Tibetan War when the 13th Dalai Lama tried to seize territory in Qinghai and Xikang. It was also reported that the central government of China encouraged the attack, hoping to solve the "Tibet situation", because the Japanese had just seized Manchuria. They warned the Tibetans not to dare cross the Jinsha river again. A truce was signed, ending the fighting. The Dalai Lama had cabled the British in India for help when his armies were defeated, and started demoting his Generals who had surrendered.

People's Republic of China rule (1950 to present)

"Police Attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects." A trilingual (Tibetan – Chinese – English) sign above the entrance to a small cafe in Nyalam, Tibet, 1993.

In 1949, seeing that the Chinese Communists, with the decisive support from Joseph Stalin, were gaining control of China, the Kashag expelled all Chinese connected with the Chinese government, over the protests of both the Kuomintang and the Communists. The People's Republic of China (PRC), founded in October 1949 by the victorious Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong, lost little time in asserting a new Chinese presence in Tibet. In October 1950, the People's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of Chamdo, defeating sporadic resistance from the Tibetan army. In 1951, Tibetan representatives participated in negotiations in Beijing with the Chinese government. This resulted in a Seventeen Point Agreement which formalized China's sovereignty over Tibet, but was repudiated by the present Tibetan Government-In-Exile.

From the beginning, it was obvious that incorporating Tibet into Communist China would bring two opposite social systems face-to-face. In Tibet, however, the Chinese Communists opted not to place social reform as an immediate priority. On the contrary, from 1951 to 1959, traditional Tibetan society with its lords and manorial estates continued to function unchanged. Despite the presence of twenty thousand Chinese soldiers in Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama's government was permitted to maintain important symbols from its de facto independence period.

The Communists quickly abolished slavery and serfdom in their traditional forms. They also claim to have reduced taxes, unemployment, and beggary, and to have started work projects. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries, and they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.

The Tibetan region of Eastern Kham, previously Xikang province, was incorporated in the province of Sichuan. Western Kham was put under the Chamdo Military Committee. In these areas, land reform was implemented. This involved communist agitators designating "landlords" — sometimes arbitrarily chosen — for public humiliation in thamzing (Wylie: ‘thab-‘dzing, Lhasa dialect IPA: [tʰʌ́msiŋ]) or "Struggle Sessions", torture, maiming, and even death.

Tanggula Railway Station, located at 5,068 m (16,627 ft), is the highest station in the world

By 1956 there was unrest in eastern Kham and Amdo, where land reform had been implemented in full. These rebellions eventually spread into western Kham and Ü-Tsang.

In 1956-57, armed Tibetan guerrillas ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and several airlifts. Meanwhile, in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama's eldest brother, Thubten Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed. Ginsburg and Mathos reached the conclusion, that "As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed." According to other data, many thousands of common Tibetans participated in the rebellion. Declassified Soviet archives provides data that Chinese communists, who received a great assistance in military equipment from the USSR, broadly used Soviet aircraft for bombing monasteries and other punitive operations in Tibet.

In 1959, China's military crackdown on rebels in Kham and Amdo led to the "Lhasa Uprising." Full-scale resistance spread throughout Tibet. Fearing capture of the Dalai Lama, unarmed Tibetans surrounded his residence, and the Dalai Lama fled to India.

The period from 1959-1962 was marked by extensive starvation during the Great Chinese Famine brought about by drought and by the Chinese policies of the Great Leap Forward which affected all of China and not only Tibet. The Tenth Panchen Lama was a keen observer of Tibet during this period and penned the 70,000 Character Petition to detail the sufferings of the Tibetans and sent it to Zhou Enlai in May 1962.

In 1962, China and India fought a brief war over the disputed Aksai Chin region. Although China won the war, Chinese troops withdrew north of the McMahon Line.

Military crackdown in Ngaba after 2008 Tibetan unrest

In 1965, the area that had been under the control of the Dalai Lama's government from the 1910s to 1959 (Ü-Tsang and western Kham) was renamed the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Autonomy provided that the head of government would be an ethnic Tibetan; however, actual power in the TAR is held by the First Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, who has never been a Tibetan. The role of ethnic Tibetans in the higher levels of the TAR Communist Party remains very limited.

The destruction of most of Tibet's more than 6,000 monasteries occurred between 1959 and 1961 by the communist party of China. During the mid-1960s, the monastic estates were broken up and secular education introduced. During the Cultural Revolution. Red Guards inflicted a campaign of organized vandalism against cultural sites in the entire PRC, including Tibet's Buddhist heritage. According to at least one Chinese source, only a handful of the religiously or culturally most important monasteries remained without major damage.

In 1989, the Panchen Lama 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 as some foreign governments continue to make protests about aspects of PRC rule in Tibet as groups such as Human Rights Watch report alleged human rights violations. Most governments, however, recognize the PRC's sovereignty over Tibet today, and none have recognized the Government of Tibet in Exile in India.

Riots flared up again in 2008. Many ethnic Hans and Huis were attacked in the riot, their shops vandalized or burned. The Chinese government reacted swiftly, imposing curfews and strictly limiting access to Tibetan areas. The international response was likewise immediate and robust, with some leaders condemning the crackdown and large protests and some in support of China's actions.

Tibetans in exile

Fourteenth Dalai Lama with George W. Bush in the White house on May 23, 2001.

 

Following the Lhasa uprising and the Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet in 1959, the government of India accepted the Tibetan refugees. India designated land for the refugees in the mountainous region of Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile are now based.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso

The plight of the Tibetan refugees garnered international attention when the Dalai Lama, spiritual and religious leader of the Tibetan government in exile, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Prize on the basis of his unswerving commitment to peaceful protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. He is highly regarded as a result and has since been received by government leaders throughout the world. Among the most recent ceremonies and awards, he was given the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush in 2007, and in 2006 he was one of only six people to ever receive an honorary Canadian citizenship (see Honorary Canadian citizenship). The PRC consistently protests each official contact with the exiled Tibetan leader.

The community of Tibetans in exile established in Dharamsala and Bylakuppe near Mysore in Karnataka, South India, has expanded since 1959. Tibetans have duplicated Tibetan monasteries in India and these now house tens of thousands of monks. They have also created Tibetan schools and hospitals, and founded the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives — all aimed at continuing Tibetan tradition and culture. Tibetan festivals such as Lama dances, celebration of Losar (the Tibetan New Year), and the Monlam Prayer Festival, continue in exile.

In 2006, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama declared that "Tibet wants autonomy, not independence." However, the Chinese distrust him, believing that he has not really given up the quest for Tibetan independence.

Talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government began again in May, 2008 with little result.