Tibet (1912–1951)

Tibet () was a ''de facto'' independent state in East Asia that lasted from the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912 until its annexation by the People's Republic of China in 1951.;

The Tibetan Ganden Phodrang regime was a protectorate under Qing rule until 1910 when the Qing dynasty decided to assert greater control over the region. In 1912 the provisional government of the Republic of China (ROC) succeeded the Qing and received an imperial edict inheriting the claims over all of its territories. However, the newly formed ROC was unable to assert any real authority in Tibet. The 13th Dalai Lama declared that Tibet's relationship with China ended with the fall of the Qing dynasty and proclaimed independence, although this was not formally recognized by other countries. Tibet and Outer Mongolia signed a disputed treaty proclaiming mutual recognition of their independence from China.

After the 13th Dalai Lama's death in 1933, a condolence mission sent to Lhasa by the Kuomintang-ruled Nationalist government to start negotiations about Tibet's status was allowed to open an office and remain there, although no agreement was reached.

In 1945–1949, the Nationalist government of the Republic of China lost the renewed Chinese Civil War against the Chinese Communist Party. In Tibet, the era of ''de facto'' independence ended after Tibet was annexed by the newly formed People's Republic of China in 1950–1951.

History

Fall of the Qing dynasty (1911)

Tibet came under the rule of the Qing dynasty of China in 1720 after the Qing expelled the forces of the Dzungar Khanate. But by the end of the 19th century, Chinese authority in Tibet was no more than symbolic.: "From 792on, the Qing dynasty became increasingly preoccupied with problems in the interior, and court officials in Peking found it less and less easy to intervene in Tibetan affairs.... by the second half of the nineteenth century, the Qing ambans, who represented the Qing emperor and Qing authority, could do little more than exercise ritualistic and symbolic influence." Following the Xinhai Revolution in 1911–1912, Tibetan militia launched a surprise attack on the Qing garrison stationed in Tibet after the Xinhai Lhasa turmoil. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the Qing officials in Lhasa were then forced to sign the "Three Point Agreement" for the surrender and expulsion of Qing forces in central Tibet. In early 1912, the Government of the Republic of China replaced the Qing dynasty as the government of China and the new republic asserted its sovereignty over all the territories of the previous dynasty, which included 22 Chinese provinces, Tibet, and Outer Mongolia. This claim was provided for in the Imperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor signed by the Empress Dowager Longyu on behalf of the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor: "...the continued territorial integrity of the lands of the five races, Manchu, Han, Mongol, Hui, and Tibetan into one great Republic of China" (...). The Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China adopted in 1912 specifically established frontier regions of the new republic, including Tibet, as integral parts of the state.

Following the establishment of the new Republic, China's provisional President, Yuan Shikai, sent a telegram to the 13th Dalai Lama, restoring his earlier titles. The Dalai Lama spurned these titles, replying that he "intended to exercise both temporal and ecclesiastical rule in Tibet." In 1913, the Dalai Lama, who had fled to India when the Qing sent a military expedition to establish direct Chinese rule over Tibet in 1910, returned to Lhasa and 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 stated.

In January 1913, Agvan Dorzhiev and three other Tibetan representativesUdo B. Barkmann, ''Geschichte der Mongolei'', Bonn 1999, p380ff signed a treaty between Tibet and Mongolia in Urga, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. The British diplomat Charles Bell wrote that the 13th Dalai Lama told him that he had not authorized Agvan Dorzhiev to conclude any treaties on behalf of Tibet. Because the text was not published, some initially doubted the existence of the treaty, but the Mongolian text was published by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1982.

Simla Convention (1914)

In 1913–1914, a conference was held in Simla between the British India, Tibet, and the Republic of China. The British suggested dividing Tibetan-inhabited areas into an Outer and an Inner Tibet (on the model of an earlier agreement between China and Russia over Mongolia). Outer Tibet, approximately the same area as the modern Tibet Autonomous Region, would be autonomous under Chinese suzerainty. In this area, China would refrain from "interference in the administration." In Inner Tibet, consisting of eastern Kham and Amdo, China would have rights of administration and Lhasa would retain control of religious institutions.

When negotiations broke down over the specific boundary between Inner and Outer Tibet, the boundary of Tibet defined in the convention also included what came to be known as the McMahon Line, which delineated the Tibet-India border, in the Assam Himalayan region. The boundary included in India the Tawang tract, which had been under indirect administration of Tibet via the control of the Tawang monastery.

The Simla Convention

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