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Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso, who lives as a refugee in India. The Dalai Lama is also considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Tibet is a region in East Asia covering much of the Tibetan Plateau spanning about 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi). It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba peoples and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui people. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of 4,380 m (14,000 ft). Located in the Himalayas, the highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain, rising 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft) above sea level.
The Central Tibetan Administration, often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, composed of a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch.
While the Tibetan plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the introduction of Tibetan Buddhism around the 6th century. Tibetan texts refer to the kingdom of Zhangzhung as the precursor of later Tibetan kingdoms and the originators of the Bon religion. While mythical accounts of early rulers of the Yarlung Dynasty exist, historical accounts begin with the introduction of Buddhism from India in the 6th century and the appearance of envoys from the unified Tibetan Empire in the 7th century. Following the dissolution of the empire and a period of fragmentation in the 9th-10th centuries, a Buddhist revival in the 10th-12th centuries saw the development of three of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Tibetan independence movement is the political movement advocating for the separation and independence of Tibet from the People's Republic of China. It is principally led by the Tibetan diaspora in countries like India and the United States, and by celebrities and Tibetan Buddhists in the United States, India and Europe. The movement is no longer supported by the 14th Dalai Lama, who although having advocated it from 1961 to the late 1970s, proposed a sort of high-level autonomy in a speech in Strasbourg in 1988, and has since then restricted his position to either autonomy for the Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region within China, or extending the area of the autonomy to include parts of neighboring Chinese provinces inhabited by Tibetans. Additionally in 2017, the Dalai Lama asserted that Tibetans wanted to stay with China, and that they want more development from China.
The Seventeen Point Agreement is a short form of the Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, or the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet which was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the Tibetan Government in Lhasa and the plenipotentiaries of the Central People's Government on 23 May 1951, and ratified by the 14th Dalai Lama in the form of a telegram on 24 October 1951.
The Tibetan sovereignty debate refers to two political debates. The first is whether the various territories within the People's Republic of China (PRC) that are claimed as political Tibet should separate and become a new sovereign state. Many of the points in the debate rest on a second debate, about whether Tibet was independent or subordinate to China in certain parts of its recent history.
The history of Tibet from 1950 to the present includes the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the Battle of Chamdo. Before then, Tibet had been a de facto independent nation. In 1951, Tibetan representatives in Beijing signed the Seventeen-point Agreement under duress, which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet while it simultaneously provided for an autonomous administration led by Tibet's spiritual leader, and then-political leader, the 14th Dalai Lama. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when Tibetans arose to prevent his possible assassination, the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet to northern India where he established the Central Tibetan Administration, which rescinded the Seventeen-point Agreement. The majority of Tibet's land mass, including all of U-Tsang and areas of Kham and Amdo, was officially established in 1965 as Tibet Autonomous Region, within China.
The 1959 Tibetan uprising began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951. The initial uprising occurred amid general Chinese-Tibetan tensions and in a context of confusion, as Tibetan protestors feared that the Chinese government might arrest the 14th Dalai Lama. The protests were also fuelled by anti-Chinese sentiment and separatism. At first, the uprising consisted of mostly peaceful protests, but clashes quickly erupted and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) eventually used force to put down the protestors, some of whom had captured arms. The last stages of the uprising included heavy fighting, with high civilian and military losses. The 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa, while the city was fully retaken by Chinese security forces on 23 March 1959. Thousands were killed during the 1959 uprising, although the exact number is disputed.
Tibet came under the control of People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Government of Tibet accepted the Seventeen Point Agreement under Chinese pressure in October 1951. This occurred after attempts by the Tibetan Government to gain international recognition, efforts to modernize its military, negotiations between the Government of Tibet and the PRC, and a military conflict in the Chamdo area of western Kham in October 1950. The series of events came to be called the "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" by the Chinese government, and the "Chinese invasion of Tibet" by the Central Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan diaspora.
The Kashag, was the governing council of Tibet during the rule of the Qing dynasty and post-Qing period until the 1950s. It was created in 1721, and set by Qianlong Emperor in 1751 for the Ganden Phodrang in the 13-Article Ordinance for the More Effective Governing of Tibet. In that year the Tibetan government was reorganized after the riots in Lhasa of the previous year. The civil administration was represented by Council (Kashag) after the post of Desi was abolished by the Qing imperial court. The Qing imperial court wanted the 7th Dalai Lama to hold both religious and administrative rule, while strengthening the position of the High Commissioners.
The Simla Convention, also called Simla Accord; officially the Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet, was an ambiguous treaty concerning the status of Tibet negotiated by representatives of the Republic of China, Tibet and Great Britain in Simla in 1913 and 1914.
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet.
Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari Rinpoche, Kasur Lodi Gyari or "as he is universally known to the Tibetan-speaking world, Gyari Rinpoche" was a Tibetan politician, and journalist who served as the 14th Dalai Lama's special envoy to the United States. Exiled to India in 1959, he was also the executive chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet.
Education in Tibet is the public responsibility of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. Education of ethnic Tibetans is partly subsidized by the government. Primary and secondary education is compulsory, while preferential policies aimed at Tibetans seek to enroll more students in vocational or higher education.
Human rights in Tibet are a contentious issue. Although the United States advocates and provided funds to Dalai Lama's independence movement, the United States does not recognize Tibet as a country. Reported abuses of human rights in Tibet include restricted freedom of religion, belief, and association; arbitrary arrest; maltreatment in custody, including torture; and forced abortion and sterilization. The status of religion, mainly as it relates to figures who are both religious and political, such as the exile of the 14th Dalai Lama, is a regular object of criticism. Additionally, freedom of the press in China is absent, with Tibet's media tightly controlled by the Chinese leadership, making it difficult to accurately determine the scope of human rights abuses.
Protests and uprisings in Tibet against the government of the People's Republic of China have occurred since 1950, and include the 1959 uprising, the 2008 uprising, and the subsequent self-immolation protests.
The Battle of Chamdo occurred from 6 to 24 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to take the Chamdo Region from a de facto independent Tibetan state. The campaign resulted in the capture of Chamdo and the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China.
Tibet–India relations are said to have begun during the spread of Buddhism to Tibet from India during the 7th and 8th centuries AD. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India after the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising. Since then, Tibetans-in-exile have been given asylum in India, with the Indian government accommodating them into 45 residential settlements across 10 states in the country. From around 150,000 Tibetan refugees in 2011, the number fell to 85,000 in 2018, according to government data. Many Tibetans are now leaving India to go back to Tibet and other countries such as United States or Germany. The Government of India, soon after India's independence in 1947, treated Tibet as a de facto independent country. However, more recently India's policy on Tibet has been mindful of Chinese sensibilities, and has recognized Tibet as a part of China.
The Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People provides a framework for the governance of Tibet within the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 2008 a group led by the Dalai Lama presented the memorandum to China. Beijing invited Dalai Lama's delegation to talk about his middle path, which promoted autonomy rather than full independence. Beijing rejected the proposal vehemently, claiming that it was as good as giving independence to Tibet. Following the presentation of the Memorandum, talks between China and Dalai Lama's envoys that had started in 2002 broke down. The last communication was in January 2010.
References
- ↑ (in French) Julien Cleyet-Marel, Le développement du système politique tibétain en exil, préface Richard Ghevontian, Fondation Varenne, 2013, ISBN 2916606726, ISBN 9782916606729, p. 261
- ↑ Robert McCorquodale, Nicholas Orosz, Tibet, the position in international law: report of the Conference of International Lawyers on Issues Relating to Self-Determination and Independence for Tibet, London 6-10 January 1993, Serindia Publications, Inc., 1994, ISBN 0906026342, ISBN 9780906026342, p. 195
- 1 2 3 ""The Tibetan National Emblem" - International Network of Parliamentarians" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-03-22.
