At times, Tibet extended its influence over neighboring countries and peoples and, in other periods, came itself under the influence of powerful foreign rulers - the Mongol Khans, the Gorkhas of Nepal, the Manchu emperors and the British rulers of India.
It should be noted, before examining the relevant history, that international law is a system of law created by states primarily for their own protection. As a result, international law protects the independence of states from attempts to destroy it and, therefore, the presumption is in favor of the continuation of statehood. This means that, whereas an independent state that has existed for centuries, such as Tibet, does not need to prove its continued independence when challenged, a foreign state claiming sovereign rights over it needs to prove those rights by showing at what precise moment and by what legal means they were acquired.
China's present claim to Tibet is based entirely on the influence that Mongol and Manchu emperors exercised over Tibet in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, respectively. As Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire expanded toward Europe in the west and China in the east in the thirteenth century, the Tibetan leaders of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism concluded an agreement with the Mongol rulers in order to avoid the otherwise inevitable conquest of Tibet.
They promised political allegiance and religious blessings and teachings in exchange for patronage and protection.
The religious relationship became so important that when Kublai Khan conquered China and established the Yuan dynasty, he invited the Sakya Lama to become the Imperial Preceptor and supreme pontiff of his empire.
The relationship that developed and still exists today between the Mongols and Tibetans is a reflection of the close racial, cultural and especially religious affinity between the two Central Asian peoples.
To claim that Tibet became a part of China because both countries were independently subjected to varying degrees of Mongol control, as the PRC does, is absurd. The Mongol Empire was a world empire; no evidence exists to indicate that the Mongols integrated the administration of China and Tibet or appended Tibet to China in any manner.
It is like claiming that France should belong to England because both came under Roman domination, or that Burma became a part of India when the British Empire extended its authority over both territories.
This relatively brief period of foreign domination over Tibet occurred years ago. Tibet broke away from the Yuan emperor before China regained its independence from the Mongols with the establishment of the native Ming dynasty.
Not until the eighteenth century did Tibet once again come under a degree of foreign influence. The Ming dynasty, which ruled China from to , had few ties to and no authority over Tibet. On the other hand, the Manchus, who conquered China and established the Qing dynasty in the seventeenth century, embraced Tibetan Buddhism as the Mongols had and developed close ties with the Tibetans.
The Dalai Lama, who had by then become the spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet, agreed to become the spiritual guide of the Manchu emperor. He accepted patronage and protection in exchange. This "priest-patron" relationship, which the Dalai Lama also maintained with numerous Mongol Khans and Tibetan nobles, was the only formal tie that existed between the Tibetans and Manchus during the Qing dynasty.
If did not, in itself, affect Tibet's independence. On the political level, some powerful Manchu emperors succeeded in exerting a degree of influence over Tibet. Thus, between and the Manchu emperors Kangxi, Yong Zhen and Qianlong sent imperial troops into Tibet four times to protect the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people from foreign invasion or internal unrest. It was these expeditions that provided them with influence in Tibet. The emperor sent representatives to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, some of whom successfully exercised their influence, in his name, over the Tibetan government, particularly with respect to the conduct of foreign relations.
At the height of Manchu power, which lasted a few decades, the situation was not unlike that which can exist between a superpower and a neighboring satellite or protectorate. The subjection of a state to foreign influence and even intervention in foreign or domestic affairs, however significant this may be politically, does not in itself entail the legal extinction of that state.
Consequently, although some Manchu emperors exerted considerable influence over Tibet, they did not thereby incorporate Tibet into their empire, much less China. Manchu influence did not last for very long.
From the seventeenth century onwards, the Qing government further strengthened its administration over Tibet. In the system of Kalon Council Minister in charge of administrative affairs was set up. In the twenty-nine-article Imperial Ordinance was issued. It stipuIated in explicit terms for the reincarnation of the Living Buddhas in Tibet as well as the administrative, military and foreign affairs. The Imperial Ordinance marked that the administration of the Tibet region by the Qing central government was upgraded to the level of systematization and legalization.
In late Qing period, Britain twice launched armed invasions against Tibet. The Chinese government was forced to sign unequal treaties relating Tibet, After the Revolution of , the political situation of China was turbulent. In order to realize its aim of splitting Tibet from China and reducing it into a dependency of the British Indian government, Britain adopted various acts of aggression against Tibet.
Owing to the instigation of Britain, the relations between the Tibet region and the central government of China were for a time abnormal during the period of the Republic of China. There is no end to communist ambitions of enslaving the world. Xi Jinping has already declared China as the only world power and that it will be the strongest military power like America in Tibet is the strategic powerhouse of Asia both from a natural resource centric view and that it is a geostrategic bulwark because of its geography.
The access to this part of the world is limited; however, there is some information, which trickles out and there have been some Indian writers like Partha Gangopadhyay and some western tourists, who have been writing on the subject. Incidentally, the author himself has been the Commanding General in this frontier region and had access to partial information from local population along both sides of the LAC from time to time.
As regards security of India is concerned the vast Tibetan lands act as a buffer from Chinese influence. It becomes an important national security barrier; an important ecological security barrier; an important reservoir for strategic resources; an important hub for bio-diversity and a water resource for South Asia.
Towards this area analyses, let us study the aspects of Tibetan History, which reflects of being a subject of the Great Game theory as rival powers pitched for enhancing spheres of Influence in this vast and huge land tract.
In , China invaded it after termination of its own civil war. Let us scan the history with dates and kingdoms, which came and went. This will remove ambiguity on its legal status. Tibet as a country would have been the tenth largest country, almost as large as Australia or even India. See figure below. Tibet as an independent country would have been the tenth largest country in the world. The Mauryan Empire in the 3 rd century B. King Ashoka, seeing many deaths on humanity decided to convert to Buddhism, which thereafter, spread not only through India, but also internationally.
The influence of Buddhism magnified with time and by the 9 th century AD had even been adopted by Tibet as one of the core values of the their culture. Since then Tibet by itself posed no threat to China by the 10 th century AD.
He ensured penetration of Buddhism into his domain during his reign. Thus began the transformation of a martial race towards a culture of tolerance and meditations. Tibet thus became vulnerable to outside invasions. Due to this new culture of tolerance and non-violence, in the post Tri Relpachen period, the Tibetan empire collapsed and Tibet disintegrated into smaller and constantly feuding kingdoms.
Similar feuds of smaller states including the war of the Ten Kingdoms were also happening in China. Tibet never even figured in Chinese thinking.
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