The demand being raised in certain quarters for India to take up the cause of the independence of Tibet in view of the dragging Sino-Indian border standoff at Doklam under ‘Bhutanese territory’, it is worthwhile to look at the relation between China and Tibet as it unfolded in the moving matrix of history. The relation involving Tibet and China remained a peculiar one. For Tibet was assumed to be a part of China, yet it retained sovereignty till the Communist China invaded it in 1950.
The renascent Nepal in the wake of the ascendency of Prithvi Narayan Shah, the true founder of the Gorkha rule, marched into Tibet in 1792 after mauling Sikkim. Several monasteries were plundered. The Chinese rulers came to the rescue of Tibet and halted the menacing Gorkha advance. China pushed them back up to the vicinity of Kathmandu. A treaty was signed involving China, Tibet and Nepal that thwarted for some time the Gorkhas’ territorial ambition.
Despite China acting as the protectorate of Tibet during the latter’s crisis, the rulers in Tibet kept rejecting overtures mingled with threat issued by the nationalist Kuomintang government from 1912 onwards (this is when the last dynasty known as Qing ended and China became Republic of China under the nationalists). Tibet asserted its independence in 1913-14 when it entered into negotiations with British and Chinese governments on equal terms at the Shimla Conference where the controversial McMahon line demarcating borders involving the British India, China and Tibet was finalised. The Chinese government later backed out, citing that Tibet was not a sovereign authority to decide things on its own.
The Tibetan rulers made bold to reject treaties signed between the British and the Chinese which were related to the interests of Tibet. The 1890 Anglo-Chinese Convention concluded in Calcutta can be cited as an instance when Tibet refused to honour commitment made by the Chinese rulers to the British conferring control to the latter over Sikkim –the argument being that Tibet had not been a party to the negotiations.
Yet, it does not mean that Tibet enjoyed independence and China had no control over the snowy land. During three successive dynasties-Yuan (1261-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing or Manchu (1644-1911), China exercised control over Tibet with varying degrees. Yet, at the same time, Tibet was allowed to retain a semblance of sovereignty.
The legendary Kublai Khan who consolidated the Yuan Dynasty founded by Genghis Khan established control over Tibet far before he expanded sway into the mainland China. Khan as also his heirs held Tibet and its Buddhist culture in high esteem. Buddhists as they themselves were, they established some kind of a priest-patron relationship with Tibet-providing protection while seeking knowledge from the Buddhist clergy ruling over the land. The same custom more or less continued through the successive dynasties till 1911 when the Qing Dynasty disintegrated.
The British dispensation considered the status of China vis-à-vis Tibet as nebulous. Concluding that Tibet was autonomous they denied Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, though they conceded suzerainty of China over it by the Shimla agreement. They were of the opinion that Tibet had been an independent country annexed by the Mongol and the Manchu rulers of China who conquered China to create their empires. When the Manchu empire weakened the control of China over Tibet vanished. This is the reason why the British Government allowed Tibet to represent at the Shimla conference independently of the Chinese.
But China was not open to the idea that Tibet was independent enough to sign an international treaty on equal terms with China. China claimed that Tibet had remained part of China since the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan conquered it. But the Tibetans were and are of the opinion that the authentic China was limited to the territory within the Great Wall built by the Han Chinese (truly indigenous people of China). The rest was part of empires created by the foreign conquerors of China. They point out that if China’s logic were accepted Myanmar (erstwhile Burma) would have remained as part of India as the British who ruled India had included Burma into their Indian empire.
To placate recalcitrant China into accepting the Shimla agreement, the British devised an innovative formula-to divide Tibet into Inner and Outer Tibet. They proposed Outer Tibet to be left to the direct control of the Dalai lama. The Chinese agreed initially, but backed down later as they claimed that no agreement had been reached over demarcating the boundary between Inner Tibet and Outer Tibet. The volatility in the Sino-Tibetan relation culminated in the Communist China invading Tibet and establishing its firm control over the snowy land in 1950, rejecting the world opinion and leaving the Nehru dispensation in India dumbfounded.