Tibet བོད་ Bod | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1912–1951 | |||||||||||
| Anthem: "Gyallu" | |||||||||||
 Territorial extent of Tibet in 1946 | |||||||||||
| Status | De facto independent state | ||||||||||
| Capital and largest city | Lhasa | ||||||||||
| Official languages | Tibetan,Tibetic languages | ||||||||||
| Religion | Tibetan Buddhism (official) | ||||||||||
| Demonym | Tibetan | ||||||||||
| Government | Tibetan dual system of government[1] | ||||||||||
| Dalai Lama | |||||||||||
• 1912–1933 (first) | Thubten Gyatso | ||||||||||
• 1937–1951 (last) | Tenzin Gyatso | ||||||||||
| Regent | |||||||||||
• 1934–1941 (first) | Thubten Jamphel Yeshe Gyaltsen | ||||||||||
• 1941–1950 (last) | Ngawang Sungrab Thutob | ||||||||||
| Kalön Tripa | |||||||||||
• 1912–1920 (first) | Chankhyim Trekhang Thupten Shakya | ||||||||||
• 1950–1951 (last) | Lobsang Tashi | ||||||||||
| Legislature | None (rule by decree) | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Declaration of Independence | 4 April 1912 | ||||||||||
• Three Point Agreement[2] | 12 August 1912 | ||||||||||
• 13th Dalai Lama returns | January 1913 | ||||||||||
• Simla Convention signed with Britain[3] | 3 July 1914 | ||||||||||
| 1928 | |||||||||||
| October 1950 | |||||||||||
| 23 May 1951 | |||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
• Total | 1,221,600 km2 (471,700 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1945 | 1,000,000[5] | ||||||||||
| Currency | Tibetan skar,Tibetan srang,Tibetan tangka | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | China ∟Tibet Autonomous Region | ||||||||||
Tibet (Tibetan:བོད་,Wylie:Bod) was ade facto independent state inEast Asia that lasted from thecollapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912 until itsannexation by the People's Republic of China in 1951.[6]
The TibetanGanden Phodrang regime was aprotectorate under Qing rule[7] until 1910[8] when theQing dynasty decided to assert greater control over the region.[9][10] In 1912 theprovisional government of the Republic of China (ROC) succeeded the Qing and received animperial edict inheriting the claims over all of its territories.[11][12][13] However, the newly formed ROC was unable to assert any real authority in Tibet. The13th Dalai Lama declared that Tibet's relationship with China ended with the fall of the Qing dynasty and proclaimed independence, although almost no country formally recognized this.[14][15][a]
After the 13th Dalai Lama's death in 1933, a condolence mission sent to Lhasa by theKuomintang-ruledNationalist government to start negotiations about Tibet's status was allowed to open an office and remain there, although no agreement was reached.[16]
In 1945–1949, the Nationalist government of the Republic of China lost the renewedChinese Civil War against theChinese Communist Party. In Tibet, the era ofde facto independence ended after Tibet wasannexed by the newly formedPeople's Republic of China in 1950–1951.
Tibet came under the rule of theQing dynasty of China in 1720 after the Qingexpelled the forces of theDzungar Khanate. But by the end of the 19th century, Qing authority in Tibet was no more than symbolic.[18] Following theXinhai Revolution in 1911–1912, Tibetan militia launched a surprise attack on the Qing garrison stationed in Tibet after theXinhai Lhasa turmoil. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the Qing officials inLhasa were then forced to sign the "Three Point Agreement" for the surrender and expulsion of Qing forces in central Tibet. In early 1912, theGovernment 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 Chineseprovinces, Tibet, andOuter Mongolia.[19] This claim was provided for in theImperial Edict of the Abdication of the Qing Emperor signed by theEmpress Dowager Longyu on behalf of the six-year-oldXuantong Emperor: "... the continued territorial integrity of the lands of the five races,Manchu,Han,Mongol,Hui, andTibetan into one great Republic of China" (... 仍合滿、漢、蒙、回、藏五族完全領土，為一大中華民國).[11][12][13] TheProvisional 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.[20]
Following the establishment of the new Republic, China's provisional President,Yuan Shikai, sent a telegram to the13th 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."[21] In 1913, the Dalai Lama, who had fled to India when the imperial court senta military expedition to establish direct Qing rule over Tibet in 1910,[22] returned to Lhasa and issued a proclamation that stated that the relationship between Beijing and Tibet "had been that ofpatron 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.[23][24]
In January 1913,Agvan Dorzhiev and three other Tibetan representatives[25] signed atreaty between Tibet and Mongolia inUrga, 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.[26][27] Because the text was not published, some initially doubted the existence of the treaty,[28] but the Mongolian text was published by theMongolian Academy of Sciences in 1982.[25][29][need quotation to verify]
In 1913–1914, a conference was held inSimla between the British India, Tibet, and theRepublic 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 andRussia over Mongolia). Outer Tibet, approximately the same area as the modernTibet Autonomous Region, would be autonomous under Chinesesuzerainty. In this area, China would refrain from "interference in the administration." In Inner Tibet, consisting of easternKham andAmdo, China would have rights of administration and Lhasa would retain control of religious institutions.[30]
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 theMcMahon Line, which delineated the Tibet-India border, in theAssam Himalayan region. The boundary included in India theTawang tract, which had been under indirect administration of Tibet via the control of the Tawang monastery.[31][32][33]
TheSimla Convention was initialled by all three delegations, but was immediately rejected by Beijing because of dissatisfaction with the boundary between Outer and Inner Tibet. McMahon and the Tibetans then signed the document as a bilateral accord with a note denying China any of the rights under the convention until it signed. The British Government initially rejected McMahon's bilateral accord as being incompatible with the1907 Anglo-Russian Convention.[34][35]
The 1907 Anglo-Russian Treaty, which had earlier caused the British to question the validity of Simla, was renounced by the Russians in 1917 and by the Russians and British jointly in 1921.[36] Tibet, however, altered its position on the McMahon Line in the 1940s. In late 1947, the Tibetan government wrote a note presented to thenewly independent IndianMinistry of External Affairs laying claims to Tibetan districts south of the McMahon Line.[37] According toAlastair Lamb, by refusing to sign the Simla documents, the Chinese Government had escaped giving any recognition to the McMahon Line.[38]
Since the expulsion of theAmban from Tibet in 1912, communication between Tibet and China had taken place only with the British as mediator.[24] Direct communications resumed after the 13th Dalai Lama's death in December 1933,[24] when China sent a "condolence mission" to Lhasa headed by GeneralHuang Musong.[39]
Soon after the 13th Dalai Lama died, according to some accounts, theKashag reaffirmed its 1914 position that Tibet remained nominally part of China, provided Tibet could manage its own political affairs.[40][41] In his essayHidden Tibet: History of Independence and Occupation published by theLibrary of Tibetan Works and Archives at Dharamsala,S.L. Kuzmin cited several sources indicating that the Tibetan government had not declared Tibet a part of China, despite an intimation of Chinese sovereignty made by the Kuomintang government.[42] Since 1912, Tibet had beende facto independent of Chinese control, but on other occasions it had indicated willingness to accept nominal subordinate status as a part of China, provided that Tibetan internal systems were left untouched, and provided China relinquished control over a number of important ethnic Tibetan areas in Kham and Amdo.[43] In support of claims that China's rule over Tibet was not interrupted, China argues that official documents showed that the National Assembly of China and both chambers of parliament had Tibetan members, whose names had been preserved all along.[44]
China was then permitted to establish an office inLhasa, staffed by theMongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission and headed byWu Zhongxin, the commission's director of Tibetan Affairs,[45]which Chinese sources claim was an administrative body[44]—but the Tibetans claim that they rejected China's proposal that Tibet should be a part of China, and in turn demanded the return of territories east of the Drichu (Yangtze River).[45] In response to the establishment of a Chinese office in Lhasa, the British obtained similar permission and set up their own office there.[46]
The1934 Khamba Rebellion led by Pandastang Togbye andPandatsang Rapga broke out against the Tibetan Government during this time, with the Pandatsang family leading Khamba tribesmen against theTibetan Army.
In 1935, Lhamo Dhondup was born in Amdo in eastern Tibet and recognized by all concerned as the incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. Similar to his predecessor Thubten Gyatso who was approved by the Central Government of China in 1877 to be exempted from the lot-drawing process usingGolden Urn to become the13th Dalai Lama[47] On 26 January 1940, the RegentReting Rinpoche requested the Central Government of China to exempt Lhamo Dhondup from the lot-drawing process using theGolden Urn to become the 14th Dalai Lama, and the Chinese government approved.[48] After a ransom of 400,000silver dragons had been paid by Lhasa to the Hui Muslim warlordMa Bufang, who ruledQinghai (Chinghai) from Xining, Ma Bufang released him to travel to Lhasa in 1939. He was then enthroned by the Ganden Phodrang government at the Potala Palace on the Tibetan New Year.[49][50]
TheKuomintang Government 'ratified' the current 14th Dalai Lama, and that Kuomintang representative General Wu Zhongxin presided over the ceremony; both the ratification order of February 1940 and the documentary film of the ceremony still exist intact.[44] Wu Zhongxin (along with other foreign representatives) was present at the ceremony.[46] Reports from contemporary newspapers, sourced directly from Lhasa, also give witness to these ceremonies. For example, the Associated Press on Feb 22, 1940 writes:
Lhasa, Tibet (Thursday) - (By Radio to Hong Kong) - [..] The Chinese government had worked for months to put the succession of Ling-ergh La-mu-tan-chu beyond the fortunes of the goldern urn from which the 14th Dalai Lama would normally be picked. Yet today, with true Oriental urbanity, the Regent of Tibet petitioned the Chungking government to authorized the abandonment of the traditional lot-drawing. This given, he wirelessed warm thanks to Chiang Kai-shek and other Chinese governmental leaders.[51]
Regarding the ceremony, according to Associated Press reports dated Feb 23, 1940:
Direct word from Lhasa arrived only today, telling of the lengthy rites in which Chinese officials took part. Chinese learned with satisfaction that Gen. Wu Chung Hsin, chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan affairs commission at Chungking and chief of the Chinese delegation at the enthronement, sat at the Dalai Lama's left -- thus being accorded an equal status with the new ruler. Lhasa enjoyed a complete holiday. The populace was treated to devil dances, horse shows, wrestling contests and a fireworks display.[52]
Likewise, according to United Press reports dated Feb 22, 1940:
Lhasa, Tibet. Feb 22 - The fourteenth Dalai Lama, who will share spiritual and temporal leadership of Tibet, was enthroned in a pompous elaborate ceremony today. The enthronement took place in Lhasa's leading monastery, "Potala". The six-year-old boy chosen after long search for the exalted position, received felicitations from a Chinese delegation numbering 1,000 persons. A departure from ordinary procedure was marked by display of a huge portrait of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and a Kuomintang flag in the golden main hall of the monastery.[53]
Billings Gazette Sun reports dated Feb 18, 1940:
Tibetan circles here revealed that the portrait of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, "father of the Chinese republic", will have the place of honor in the main ceremonial hall, surrounded by Buddhist pictures. [..] All these, Tibetan sources pointed out, mark "the cordial friendship and political ties between Tibet and the central government." [..] There are two other children who theoretically have an equal chance of being chosen. [..] However Tibetan and Chinese officials favor the Kokonor boy.[54]
Britain, who had an interest in Tibet at the time and wished to undermine Chinese sovereignty over it, had a representative,Sir Basil Gould, who claims to have been present at the ceremony, and opposes the above diverse international sources that China presided over it. He claims that:
The report was issued in the Chinese Press that Mr Wu had escorted the Dalai Lama to his throne and announced his installation, that the Dalai Lama had returned thanks, and prostrated himself in token of his gratitude. Every one of these Chinese claims was false. Mr Wu was merely a passive spectator. He did no more than present a ceremonial scarf, as was done by the others, including the British Representative. But the Chinese have the ear of the world, and can later refer to their press records and present an account of historical events that is wholly untrue. Tibet has no newspapers, either in English or Tibetan, and has therefore no means of exposing these falsehoods.[55]
Tibetan author Nyima Gyaincain wrote that based on Tibetan tradition, there was no such thing as presiding over an event, and claims that the Han Chinese word "主持" (to preside or organize) was used in many places in communication documents. The meaning of the word was different than what we understand today. He added that Wu Zhongxin spent a lot of time and energy on the event, his effect of presiding over or organizing the event was very obvious.[56]
In 1942, the U.S. government told the government of Chiang Kai-shek that it had never disputed Chinese claims to Tibet.[57] In 1944, the USA War Department produced a series of seven documentary films onWhy We Fight; in the sixth series,The Battle of China, Tibet is incorrectly called a province of China (as the Chinese officially referred to the administrative division of Tibet asTibet Area, which was distinct from a province).[58] In 1944, duringWorld War II, two Austrian mountaineers,Heinrich Harrer andPeter Aufschnaiter, came to Lhasa, where Harrer became a tutor and friend to the young Dalai Lama, giving him sound knowledge of Western culture and modern society, until Harrer chose to leave in 1949.
Tibet established a Foreign Office in 1942, and in 1946 it sent congratulatory missions to China and India (related to the end of World War II). The mission to China was given a letter addressed to Chinese PresidentChiang Kai-shek which states that, "We shall continue to maintain the independence of Tibet as a nation ruled by the successive Dalai Lamas through an authentic religious-political rule." The mission agreed to attend a Chinese constitutional assembly in Nanjing as observers.[59]
Under orders from theKuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek, Ma Bufang repaired the Yushu airport in 1942 to deter Tibetan independence.[citation needed] Chiang also ordered Ma Bufang to put his Muslim soldiers on alert for an invasion of Tibet in 1942.[60] Ma Bufang complied, and moved several thousand troops to the border with Tibet.[61] Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with bombing if they did not comply.
In 1947, Tibet sent a delegation to theAsian Relations Conference in New Delhi, India, where it represented itself as an independent nation. India based its position on recognising it as an independent nation until 1954.[62] This may have been the first appearance of the Tibetan national flag at a public gathering.[63]
André Migot, a French doctor who travelled for many months in Tibet in 1947, described the complex history and border arrangements between Tibet and China.[64] Following the 1906 British expedition to Tibet, the Qing government attempted to reinforce its control over the region but was met with resistance. Chinese bannermanZhao Erfeng killed many Tibetans in Kham and attempted to create a new province calledXikang. After the1911 Revolution however, Chinese forces lost ground control beyond the city ofKangding.[64]
In 1947–49, Lhasa sent a trade mission led by Finance MinisterTsepon W. D. Shakabpa to India, China, Hong Kong, the US, and the UK. The visited countries were careful not to express support for the claim that Tibet was independent of China and did not discuss political questions with the mission.[65] These Trade Mission officials entered China via Hong Kong with their newly issued Tibetan passports that they applied at the Chinese Consulate in India and stayed in China for three months. Other countries did, however, allow the mission to travel using passports issued by the Tibetan government. The U.S. unofficially received the Trade Mission. The mission met withBritish Prime MinisterClement Attlee in London in 1948.[66]
In the year 1949, seeing that the Communists were gaining control of China, the Kashag government expelled all Chinese officials from Tibet despite protests from both the Kuomintang and the Communists.[67] On 1 October 1949, the10th Panchen Lama wrote a telegraph to Beijing, expressing his congratulations for the liberation of northwest China and the establishment of the People's Republic of China, and his excitement to see the inevitable liberation of Tibet.[68] TheChinese Communist government, led byChairmanMao Zedong, began reasserting Chinese presence shortly thereafter. In June 1950, the British government stated in theHouse of Commons that His Majesty's Government "have always been prepared to recognise Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, but only on the understanding that Tibet is regarded as autonomous".[69] In October 1950, thePeople's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area ofChamdo, defeating sporadic resistance from theTibetan Army. In 1951, representatives of the Tibetan authorities, headed byNgapoi Ngawang Jigme, with the Dalai Lama's authorization,[70] participated in negotiations in Beijing with the Chinese government. It resulted in theSeventeen Point Agreement which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later.[71] China described the process as the "peaceful liberation of Tibet".[72]
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Tibet was divided into eightchikyaps [zh] (Wylie:spyi khyab), which were subdivided intodzongs (Wylie:rdzong) andshikas [zh] (Wylie:gzhis ka):
After the 13th Dalai Lama had assumed full control over Tibet in the 1910s, he began to build up theTibetan Army with support from theUnited Kingdom, which provided advisors and weapons. This army was supposed to be large and modern enough to not just defend Tibet, but to also conquer surrounding regions likeKham which were inhabited by Tibetan peoples. The Tibetan Army was constantly expanded during the 13th Dalai Lama's reign,[73] and had about 10,000 soldiers by 1936. These were adequately armed and trained infantrymen for the time, though the army almost completely lacked machine guns, artillery, planes, and tanks.[74] In addition to the regular army, Tibet also made use of great numbers of poorly armed village militias.[75] Considering that it was usually outgunned by their opponents, the Tibetan Army performed relatively well against various Chinese warlords in the 1920s and 1930s.[76] Overall, the Tibetan soldiers proved to be "fearless and tough fighters" during theWarlord Era.[77]
Despite this, the Tibetan Army was wholly inadequate to resist thePeople's Liberation Army (PLA) during theChinese invasion of 1950. It consequently disintegrated and surrendered without much resistance.[78]
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Tibet created its own postal service in 1912. It printed its first postage stamps in Lhasa and issued them in 1912. It issued telegraph stamps in 1950.
Thedivision of China into military cliques kept China divided, and the 13th Dalai Lama ruled. But his reign was marked with border conflicts with Han Chinese and Muslim warlords, which the Tibetans lost most of the time. At that time, the government of Tibet controlled all ofÜ-Tsang (Dbus-gtsang) and westernKham (Khams), roughly coincident with the borders of theTibet Autonomous Region today. Eastern Kham, separated by theYangtze River, was under the control of Chinese warlordLiu Wenhui. The situation in Amdo (Qinghai) was more complicated, with theXining area controlled after 1928 by theHui warlordMa Bufang of the family of Muslim warlords known as theMa clique, who constantly strove to exert control over the rest of Amdo (Qinghai). Southern Kham, along with other parts of Yunnan, belonged to theYunnan clique from 1915 till 1927, then to Governor and warlordLong (Lung) Yun until near the end of theChinese Civil War, whenDu Yuming removed him under the order ofChiang Kai-shek. Within territory under Chinese control, war was being waged against Tibetan rebels in Qinghai during theKuomintang Pacification of Qinghai.[citation needed]
In 1918,Lhasa regained control ofChamdo and western Kham. A truce set the border at theYangtze River. At this time, the government of Tibet controlled all of Ü-Tsang and Kham west of theYangtze River, roughly the same borders as theTibet Autonomous Region has today. Eastern Kham was governed by local Tibetan princes of varying allegiances.Qinghai was controlled by ethnicHui and pro-Kuomintang warlordMa Bufang. In 1932,Tibet invaded Qinghai, attempting to capture southern parts of Qinghai province, following contention inYushu, Qinghai, over a monastery in 1932. Ma Bufang's Qinghai army defeated the Tibetan armies.[citation needed]
During the 1920s and 1930s, China was divided bycivil war and occupied with theanti-Japanese war, but never renounced its claim to sovereignty over Tibet, and made occasional attempts to assert it.
In 1932, the MuslimQinghai and Han-ChineseSichuan armies of theNational Revolutionary Army led by Ma Bufang and Liu Wenhui defeated theTibetan Army in theSino-Tibetan War when the 13th Dalai Lama tried to seize territory in Qinghai and Xikang. They warned the Tibetans not to dare cross the Jinsha river again.[79] A truce was signed, ending the fighting.[80][81] The Dalai Lama had cabled the British in India for help when his armies were defeated, and started demoting his Generals who had surrendered.[82]
In 1936, afterSheng Shicai expelled 30,000 Kazakhs from Xinjiang to Qinghai,Hui led by GeneralMa Bufang massacred their fellow Muslim Kazakhs, until there were 135 of them left.[83][84][85] From Northern Xinjiang, over 7,000 Kazakhs fled to the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau region via Gansu and were wreaking massive havoc so Ma Bufang solved the problem by relegating the Kazakhs into designated pastureland in Qinghai, but Hui, Tibetans, and Kazakhs in the region continued to clash against each other.[86] Tibetans attacked and fought against the Kazakhs as they entered Tibet via Gansu and Qinghai.[citation needed] In northern Tibet, Kazakhs clashed with Tibetan soldiers and then the Kazakhs were sent to Ladakh.[87] Tibetan troops robbed and killed Kazakhs 400 miles east of Lhasa at Chamdo when the Kazakhs were entering Tibet.[88][89]
In 1934, 1935, 1936–1938 from Qumil Eliqsan led the Kerey Kazakhs to migrate to Gansu and the amount was estimated at 18,000, and they entered Gansu and Qinghai.[90]
In 1951, the UyghurYulbars Khan was attacked by Tibetan troops as he fled Xinjiang to reach Calcutta.[citation needed]
The anti-communist American CIA agentDouglas Mackiernan was killed by Tibetan troops on 29 April 1950.[91]
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The Tibetan government issued banknotes and coins.
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Traditional Tibetan society consisted of a feudalclass structure, which was one of the reasons the Chinese Communist Party claims that it had to "liberate" Tibet and reform its government.[92]
Professor ofBuddhist andTibetan studies,Donald S. Lopez, stated that at the time:
Traditional Tibet, like any complex society, had great inequalities, with power monopolized by an elite composed of a small aristocracy, the hierarchs of various sects . . and the greatGeluk monasteries.[93]
These institutional groups retained great power until 1959.[94]
The13th Dalai Lama had reformed the pre-existing serf system in the first decade of the 20th century, and by 1950, slavery itself had probably ceased to exist in central Tibet, though perhaps persisted in certain border areas.[95] Slavery did exist, for example, in places like theChumbi Valley, and beggars (ragyabas) were endemic. The pre-Chinese social system, however, was rather complex.
Estates (shiga), roughly similar to the Englishmanorial system, were granted by the state and were hereditary, though revocable. As agricultural properties, they consisted of two kinds: land held by the nobility or monastic institutions (demesne land), and village land (tenement or villein land) held by the central government, though governed by district administrators. Demesne land consisted, on average, of one-half to three-quarters of an estate. Villein land belonged to the estates, but tenants normally exercised hereditary usufruct rights in exchange for fulfilling theircorvée obligations. Tibetans outside the nobility and the monastic system were classified as serfs, but two types existed and functionally were comparable totenant farmers. Agricultural serfs, or "small smoke" (düchung), were bound to work on estates as a corvée obligation (ula) but they had title to their own plots, owned private goods, were free to move about outside the periods required for their tribute labor, and were free of tax obligations. They could accrue wealth and on occasion became lenders to the estates themselves, and could sue the estate owners: village serfs (tralpa) were bound to their villages but only for tax and corvée purposes, such as road transport duties (ula), and were only obliged to pay taxes. Half of the village serfs were man-lease serfs (mi-bog), meaning that they had purchased their freedom. Estate owners exercised broad rights over attached serfs, and flight or a monastic life was the only venue of relief. Yet no mechanism existed to restore escaped serfs to their estates, and no means to enforce bondage existed, though the estate lord held the right to pursue and forcibly return them to the land.[citation needed]
Any serf who had absented himself from his estate for three years was automatically granted either commoner (chi mi) status or reclassified as a serf of the central government. Estate lords could transfer their subjects to other lords or rich peasants for labor, though this practice was uncommon in Tibet. Though rigid structurally, the system exhibited considerable flexibility at ground level, with peasants free of constraints from the lord of the manor once they had fulfilled their corvée obligations. Historically, discontent or abuse of the system, according to Warren W. Smith, appears to have been rare.[96][97] Tibet was far from a meritocracy, but the Dalai Lamas were recruited from the sons of peasant families, and the sons of nomads could rise to master the monastic system and become scholars and abbots.[98]
"北京中央人民政府毛主席、中国人民解放军朱德司令钧鉴：钧座以大智大勇之略，成救国救民之业，义师所至，全国欢腾，班禅世受国恩，备荷优崇。二十余年来，为了西藏领土主权之完整，呼吁奔走，未尝稍懈。第以未获结果，良用疚心。刻下羁留青海，待命返藏。兹幸在钧座领导之下，西北已获解放，中央人民政府成立，凡有血气，同声鼓舞。今后人民之康乐可期，国家之复兴有望。西藏解放，指日可待。班禅谨代表全藏人民，向钧座致崇高无上之敬意，并矢拥护爱戴之忱。"—十世班禅致中华人民共和国中央人民政府电报 [To Chairman Mao of the Central People's Government of Beijing and Commander-in-chief Zhu De of the Chinese People's Liberation Army: The scorpion is based on the wisdom of the great wisdom and the courage to save the country and the people. The whole country is full of joy, and the Panchen Lama is blessed by the country. For more than 20 years, I have been dealing with integrity of Tibet territorial sovereignty, without rest. Since result has not been obtained, I felt guilty. I will stay in Qinghai and wait for possible return. Fortunately, under your leadership, the northwest has been liberated, and the Central People's Government has been established, we're all excited. In the future, the people's well-being can be expected, and the country's revival is expected. The liberation of Tibet is just around the corner. On behalf of the entire Tibetan people, please accept my supreme respect and support. " ---- The 10th Panchen Lama to the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China]
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{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A group of Kazakhs, originally numbering over 20000 people when expelled from Sinkiang by Sheng Shih-ts'ai in 1936, was reduced, after repeated massacres by their Chinese coreligionists under Ma Pu-fang, to a scattered 135 people.
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