Tibet is a landlocked region in Asia. See definitions of Tibet.
Tibet is a landlocked region in Asia. See definitions of Tibet.
Tibet is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi). It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba peoples and now also considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui settlers. Since 1951, the entire plateau has been under the administration of the People's Republic of China, a major portion in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and other portions in the Qinghai and Sichuan provinces.
The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü-Tsang and Kham.
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.
Amdo is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the birthplace of the 14th Dalai Lama. Amdo encompasses a large area from the Machu to the Drichu (Yangtze). Amdo is mostly coterminous with China's present-day Qinghai province, but also includes small portions of Sichuan and Gansu provinces.
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 foreign relations of Tibet are documented from the 7th century onward, when Buddhism was introduced by missionaries from India and Nepal. The Tibetan Empire fought with the Tang dynasty for control over territory dozens of times, despite peace marriage twice. Tibet was conquered by the Mongol Empire and that changed its internal system of government, introducing the Dalai Lamas, as well as subjecting Tibet to political rule under the Yuan dynasty. Tibetan foreign relations during the Ming dynasty are opaque, with Tibet being either a tributary state or under full Chinese sovereignty. But by the 18th century, the Qing dynasty indisputably made Tibet a subject. In the early 20th century, after a successful invasion, Britain established a trading relationship with Tibet and was permitted limited diplomatic access to "Outer Tibet", basically Shigatse and Lhasa. Britain supported Tibetan autonomy under the 13th Dalai Lama but did not contest Chinese suzerainty; while "Inner Tibet", areas such as Amdo and Kham with mixed Chinese and Tibetan populations to the east and north, remained nominally under the control of the Republic of China although that control was seldom effective. Although the sovereignty of Tibet was unrecognized, Tibet was courted in unofficial visits from Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the United States during and after World War II. The foreign relations of Tibet ended with the Seventeen Point Agreement that formalized Chinese sovereignty over most all of political Tibet in 1951.
Chinese expansionism over the last four thousand years has been a central feature of the history of East Asia. During times when China wielded much greater power such as during the Han, Tang, Yuan, and Qing dynasties, China would even influence the development and politics further north and west in North Asia, Central Asia, and parts of South and Southeast Asia.
The Tibetan sovereignty debate refers to two political debates. The first political debate is about whether or not the various territories which are within the People's Republic of China (PRC) that are claimed as political Tibet should separate themselves from China and become a new sovereign state. Many of the points in this political debate rest on the points which are within the second historical debate, about whether Tibet was independent or subordinate to China during certain periods of its recent history.
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was a Tibetan senior official who assumed various military and political responsibilities both before and after 1951 in Tibet. He is often known simply as Ngapo in English sources.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Tibet:
The exact nature of the relations between the Ming dynasty and Tibet is unclear. Analysis of the relationship is further complicated by modern political conflicts and the application of Westphalian sovereignty to a time when the concept did not exist. The Historical Status of China's Tibet, a book published by the People's Republic of China, asserts that the Ming dynasty had unquestioned sovereignty over Tibet by pointing to the Ming court's issuing of various titles to Tibetan leaders, Tibetans' full acceptance of the titles, and a renewal process for successors of these titles that involved traveling to the Ming capital. Scholars in China also argue that Tibet has been an integral part of China since the 13th century and so it was a part of the Ming Empire. However, most scholars outside China, such as Turrell V. Wylie, Melvin C. Goldstein, and Helmut Hoffman, say that the relationship was one of suzerainty, Ming titles were only nominal, Tibet remained an independent region outside Ming control, and it simply paid tribute until the Jiajing Emperor, who ceased relations with Tibet.
The serfdom in Tibet controversy is a prolonged public disagreement over the extent and nature of serfdom in Tibet prior to the annexation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1951. The debate is political in nature, with some arguing that the ultimate goal on the Chinese side is to legitimize Chinese control of the territory now known as the Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, and others arguing that the ultimate goal on the Western side is to weaken or undermine the Chinese state. The argument is that Tibetan culture, government, and society were barbaric prior to the PRC takeover of Tibet and that this only changed due to PRC policy in the region. The pro-Tibetan independence movement argument is that this is a misrepresentation of history created as a political tool in order to justify the Sinicization of Tibet.
The Tibetan Empire was an empire centered on the Tibetan Plateau, formed as a result of imperial expansion under the Yarlung dynasty heralded by its 33rd king, Songtsen Gampo, in the 7th century. The empire further expanded under the 38th king, Trisong Detsen. The 821–823 treaty concluded between the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty delineated the former as being in possession of an area larger than the Tibetan Plateau, stretching east to Chang'an, west beyond modern Afghanistan, and south into modern India and the Bay of Bengal.
Tibet was a de facto independent state between the collapse of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in 1912 and its annexation by the People's Republic of China in 1951.
Tibet under Mongol rule refers to the Mongol Empire and Yuan dynasty's rule over Tibet from 1244 to 1354. During the Yuan dynasty rule of Tibet, the region was structurally, militarily and administratively controlled by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. In the history of Tibet, Mongol rule was established after Sakya Pandita got power in Tibet from the Mongols in 1244, following the 1240 Mongol conquest of Tibet led by the Mongol general with the title doord darkhan. It is also called the Sakya dynasty after the favored Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Tibet Area was a province-level administrative division of the Republic of China which consisted of Ü-Tsang and Ngari areas, but excluding the Amdo and Kham areas. However, the Republic of China never exercised control over the territory, which was ruled by the Ganden Phodrang government in Lhasa. The People's Republic of China, which overthrew the ROC in 1949, invaded Chamdo in 1950 and incorporated the Dalai Lama-controlled regions in 1951. After the 1959 Tibetan rebellion, the State Council of the PRC ordered the replacement of the Tibetan Kashag government with the "Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region" (PCTAR). The current Tibet Autonomous Region was established as a province-level division of the People's Republic of China in 1965.
The Era of Fragmentation was an era of disunity in Tibetan history lasting from the death of the Tibetan Empire's last emperor, Langdarma, in 842 until Drogön Chögyal Phagpa became the Imperial Preceptor of the three provinces of Tibet in 1253, under the Yuan dynasty. During this period, the political unity of the Tibetan Empire collapsed following a civil war between Yumtän and Ösung (’Od-srung), after which followed numerous rebellions against the remnants of imperial Tibet and the rise of regional warlords.
Buddhists, predominantly from India, first actively disseminated their practices in Tibet from the 6th to the 9th centuries CE. During the Era of Fragmentation, Buddhism waned in Tibet, only to rise again in the 11th century. With the Mongol invasion of Tibet and the establishment of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) in China, Tibetan Buddhism spread beyond Tibet to Mongolia and China. From the 14th to the 20th centuries, Tibetan Buddhism was patronized by the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the Manchurian Qing dynasty (1644–1912) which ruled China.
Tibet under Qing rule refers to the Qing dynasty's relationship with Tibet from 1720 to 1912. The political status of Tibet during this period has been the subject of political debate. The Qing called Tibet a fanbang or fanshu, which has usually been translated as "vassal state." Chinese authorities referred to Tibet as a vassal state up until the 1950s and then as an "integral" part of China. The de facto independent Tibetan government (1912–1951) and Tibetan exiles promote the status of independent nation with only a "priest and patron" relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Qing emperor. Western historians such as Melvyn Goldstein, Elliot Sperling, and Jaques Gernet have described Tibet during the Qing period as a protectorate, vassal state, tributary, or something similar.
The Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia was the domination of the Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia in the 13th and the 14th centuries. The Borjigin rulers of the Yuan came from the Mongolian steppe, and the Mongols under Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) based in Khanbaliq. The Yuan was a Chinese dynasty that incorporated many aspects of Mongol and Inner Asian political and military institutions.