Former province-level administrative division of China
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Chinese. (March 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Chinese Wikipedia article at [[:zh:西藏地方]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|zh|西藏地方}} to the talk page.
The Tibet Area was a province-level administrative division of China in the 20th century. It was de jure created after the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912,[1] and nominally includes the Ü-Tsang (central Tibet) and Ngari (western Tibet) areas, but not the Amdo and Kham areas.[2][3][4] The territories were merely claimed by the ROC, but actually controlled by an independent Tibet with a government headed by the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and lost control of mainland China to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; afterwards, the ROC continued to claim Tibet.
Tibet became a protectorate of Qing China in the 18th century;[7] imperial authority was symbolized by a Qing resident called amban in Lhasa. After the Chinese 1911 Revolution and the end of the Qing Empire, Tibet expelled the Chinese delegation and became independent.[8] The ROC claimed Tibet as a province. It considered Tibet be part of the "Five Races under One Union"[7] and held that "Tibet was placed under the sovereignty of China" following the Sino-Nepalese War (1788–1792).[9] The Nationalist government's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC) was established in 1928 to nominally govern those regions.[10] In 1934, diplomatic relations between Tibet and China resumed. ROC proposed that Tibet recognize Chinese sovereignty. Tibet rejected the proposal but agreed to host a Chinese mission in Lhasa; a MTAC mission was established in 1939. It was expelled in July 1949 to make it more difficult for the Chinese Communists to establish an official presence.[8]
The PRC received early insight into the politics of Tibet by recruiting from MTAC members after the Kuomintang was defeated during the Chinese Civil War.[11] In 1949, Tibet opened negotiations with the Chinese Communists, who were expected to win the civil war, and through them, with the future PRC. As with the ROC, Tibet refused to accept Communist demands that Tibet recognize Chinese sovereignty.[12] Following some border skirmishes, the PRC invaded Tibet in October 1950; the Chinese defeated the Tibetans at the Battle of Chamdo, Chamdo being part of Xikang rather than Tibet Area from the Chinese point of view. They stopped to allow further negotiations.[13] Tibet was unable to secure international support, and military resistance was hopeless. In 1951, the PRC formally annexed Tibet through the Seventeen Point Agreement.[14] In the first few years, the Chinese focused on creating an administration independent of the Tibetan government; the latter was unable to cope with the work demanded by the Chinese and became increasingly redundant.[15] Social reform was not emphasized due to the difference in culture and the dependence of PRC institutions on local resources. Basic services, trade, and technology were introduced to win over the population and the ruling elite. Tibetan opposition built around the two prime ministers of the Tibetan government, and was strengthened by the Chinese criticism of those officers.[16]
The Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet (PCART) was formed in 1955 as an interim governing body. It replaced the Chinese Tibet Military Commission, which frequently opposed the Tibetan government and was viewed with hostility by the Tibetans. The PRC hoped that Tibetan integration would be easier with the Chinese–Tibetan PCART. The relevance of the native Tibetan government continued to erode; the Kashag continued to meet but its influence was mainly symbolic.[17]
After Chinese Civil War, and the ROC retreated to Taiwan. It continued to claim Tibet.
Chiang Kai-shek responded to the 1959 uprising with a Letter to Tibetan Compatriots (Chinese: 告西藏同胞書; pinyin: Gào Xīzàng Tóngbāo Shū), which set the ROC's policy of aiding Tibetan rebels against the PRC. ROC continued to operate MTAC, which undertook propaganda work among the Tibetan diaspora in India. In the following years, 400 Tibetans were recruited to work and study in Taiwan.[19][20][21]
The ROC's position on Tibet shifted after the former's democratization in mid-1990s. In 2007, ROC President Chen Shui-bian spoke at the International Symposium on Human Rights in Tibet and stated that his offices no longer treated exiled Tibetans as Chinese mainlanders.[22] In 2017, the Tsai Ing-wen administration announced that MTAC would be dissolved and its remaining functions transferred to the Department of Hong Kong, Macao, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet Affairs of the Mainland Affairs Council as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[23]
^Tibet, worldpopulationreview.com, 2018: "Tibet is an autonomous region located in the People's Republic of China. Tibet was established in 1965 and replaced the administrative division known as the Tibet Area."
^Geoffrey Migiro, Is Tibet a Country?, worldatlas.com, September 14, 2018:"Tibet is an autonomous region of People's Republic of China which was established in 1965 to replace an administrative region known as Tibet Area which they inherited from Republic of China."
^Ling, Nai-min (1968), Tibet, 1950-1967, Union Research Institute, p. 743: "In 1951, the Chinese Communists had set up the Work Committee of the CCP for the Tibet Area. It became the supreme power organization in the Tibet area during the revolt."