The Tibet Question

8 Pages 2048 Words

st important Tibetan Lama of Genghis’ day, to be in charge in Tibet (Richardson, 33). Tibet was not any ordinary Mongol territory, but was like an ally nation to the Mongols. Meanwhile, the relationship shared by the Mongols and China was quite different from the one between the Mongols and Tibet, China was clearly subordinate to the Mongols. White the Mongols and Tibetans had a priest-patron relationship, the Mongols treated China as inferior to them. During Kublai Khan’s reign, China was divided into 12 provinces, which were granted to princes and generals to rule (Morgan, 126). These provinces however did not include Tibet.
Since the rule of the Mongols, Tibet has not changed much. The real problem began as soon as the Chinese invaded Tibet on October 7th 1950. Units of the so-called People’s Liberation Army crossed the River Yangtze into Kham, the eastern province of Tibet. The invasion had been planned in detail by Deng Xiaoping, a future Chinese leader, and two other senior Communist officials in China’s Southwest Military Region. When the Tibetans heard about the possibility of China invading Tibet, they set up a Tibetan army with fewer than 10,000 men. They were outnumbered and outclassed. With only some fifty artillery pieces, 250 mortars, and a couple of hundred machine guns, the Tibetan Army was hopeless to prevent invasion. (Cavendish 1). The Chinese goal was to get into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Within 11-12 days China was able to have Tibet surrender. On October 19th, Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, a Tibetan provincial governor told the Chinese that he would surrender. The Chinese
demanded negotiations with Lhasa. The ...