The Dragon in the Land of Snows

Penguin Books

Chapter One

The Lull Before the Storm

On 15 August 1947, India became an independent nation and inherited thepolitical influence and the privileges that Britain had gained in Tibet. Thishistoric transition was marked in Lhasa with a simple ceremony: the UnionJack was lowered and the Indian national flag was raised in its place. HughRichardson, the last British representative in Lhasa, became the first Indianrepresentative. Later he wrote: 'the transition was almost imperceptible.The existing staff was retained in its entirety and the only obvious changewas the change of flag'. But this was deceptive. The emergence of the newRepublic of India changed the traditional balance of power, and Asiannationalists envisaged that the collapse of the British Empire would lead tothe birth of a new order in Asia. And thus the history of modern Tibet inthe second half of the twentieth century was to become a search for themaintenance of its independence and international stature in this emergingregional order.

    Tibet occupied 1.2 million square kilometres of land sandwiched betweenthe two giants of Asia. To the south, the mighty Himalayas formed a naturalboundary with India. To the north and the east was China. For centuriesTibet had absorbed cultural influences from both these countries. Thepolitics of both countries had exercised considerable influence over thehistorical development of Tibet. This enormous landmass had always beenof strategic importance to the great powers. China had always coveted Tibetas the `treasure house' of the western region. When the British ruled India,they had always regarded Tibet as crucial to the security of India and theirimperial ambitions. As a result, they sought to gain influence in Tibet suchas no other Western country had ever enjoyed before. From 1913 onwardsBritain achieved considerable prestige in the country, thereby bringing itwithin the British sphere of influence. Tibet, for her part, wanted tocultivate good relations with Britain. It was the price for keeping theChinese at bay: as British influence increased across the Himalayas, soChinese prestige and influence faded.

    The end of the Second World War saw the collapse of the old imperialpowers in Asia. The British were forced out of the Indian sub-continent andtheir imperial ambitions reached a convenient end. The Japanese had beendefeated and expelled from the Asian mainland, which led to the eventualvictory of the Communists in China. It was a shift in the balance of powerthat marked the beginnings of the demise of Tibet as an independent state.

    When the Republic of China was founded, its authority in Tibet wasvirtually non-existent. One of the primary objectives of the Guomindangwas to restore its influence and a number of missions were dispatched toLhasa to re-establish relations with the Tibetans. The loss of Chineseinfluence was seen by the emerging Chinese nationalists as proof of Westernimperialist attempts to undermine the Chinese nation. After the collapse ofthe Qing Dynasty in 1911, China was internally divided and militarily weak.The Chinese nationalists therefore could not put into practice their claimthat China was a nation based on the `unity of five races'. Tibet remainedoutside the control of the Guomindang government. Moreover, Tibetanswere convinced that they should have their rightful place in the world as anindependent nation and were thus determined to oppose Chinese attemptsto gain a foothold in Lhasa. However, we shall see later that theGuomindang regime was determined to assert its claims over Tibet.

Tibet and its Neighbours

To a large extent Tibet's ability to survive as an independent nationdepended on its southern neighbour, British India. India's willingness topreserve Tibet as a natural buffer state between China and itself was crucialto the future status of Tibet. The question was: would the newlyindependent India have the will and the power to safeguard Tibet'sinherited privileges or would these be discarded as an anachronism of theage of imperialism? At first, India appeared willing to maintain the privilegessecured by its former ruler. But the question remained: would India be ableto resist pressure from the newly emerging China? The new India lacked theeconomic and military power possessed by her former colonial ruler, whoseempire had represented one of the greatest powers in the world, with navaland military power stretched across the globe. The primary tasks facing theIndian leaders were economic development of the country and cessation ofthe sectarian strife, which had already cost thousands of lives. Relations withthe new Islamic state of Pakistan were also on the brink of collapse.Therefore, the problems that were about to unfold in the northern bordersalong the Himalayan range were the least of their concerns.

    However, the new leaders of India should have been aware of the delicatesituation they were about to inherit from the British. In March 1947, theIndian Council for World Affairs, with support from the Congress leaders,convened an Inter-Asian Relations Conference; Nehru hailed it as alandmark in the history of Asia, intended to discuss the role of Asia in thepost-war and post-colonial period. Initially Tibet was represented as anindependent nation. A map displayed at the conference showed Tibet asseparate from China and the Tibetan delegation unveiled for the first timethe newly invented national flag. These symbols of Tibet's new-foundinternational status were rejected by the Chinese delegation, whichprotested to the Indian organisers.

    In the end a compromise was reached: the Tibetans were allowed toparticipate in the conference, but the offending map and flag were removed.This benefited neither the Chinese nor the Tibetans: the Tibetan presenceat the conference in no way indicated that the Chinese would concede to thistemporary solution and the Tibetans were still unsure whether theinternational community viewed Tibet as a nation separate from China. Theincident should have told the new Indian leaders that the Chinese were notprepared to accept Tibet's separate identity and that the uncertain status ofTibet at their northern border would present a major problem for them.

    The Indian leaders may have felt that the civil war in China woulddistract the Chinese from over-extending themselves in the Tibetan plateau.But in January 1949 Chiang Kai-shek and his government surrendered tothe Communists and fled to Taiwan. It was now in the hands of the newCommunist government to realise the goal of unifying Tibet with China.The Communists proved to be even more determined than the Guomindangto assert China's control in Tibet. On 1 October 1949, the People'sRepublic of China was established and Chairman Mao proclaimed inTiananmen Square, `China has stood up.' For nearly two centuries Chinahad been wrecked by civil war, economic strife and Western imperialistonslaughts. But now, for the first time, a strong central government hademerged. This Communist Government was impelled by the two importantsocio-political phenomena of the twentieth century: nationalism andCommunism.

    On coming to power, the Communists made it clear that the lastremaining task for the victorious People's Liberation Army was theliberation of...