The Panchen Lama is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition,with its spiritual authority second only to the Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas,he is in charge of seeking out the next Dalai Lama. Panchen is a portmanteau of Pandita and Chenpo,meaning "great scholar".
The Tibetan independence movement is the political movement advocating for the reversal of the 1950 annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China,and the separation and independence of Tibet 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.
Ngawang Lobsang Thupten Gyatso Jigdral Chokley Namgyal,abbreviated to Thubten Gyatso was the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet,enthroned during a turbulent era and the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. Referred to as "the Great Thirteenth",he is also known for redeclaring Tibet's national independence,and for his reform and modernization initiatives.
The Seventeen Point Agreement,officially the Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet,was a document pertaining to the status of Tibet within the People's Republic of China. It was signed by plenipotentiaries of the Central People's Government and the Tibetan government on 23 May 1951,in Zhongnanhai,Beijing. The 14th Dalai Lama ratified the agreement in the form of a telegraph on 24 October 1951.
The British expedition to Tibet,also known as the Younghusband expedition,began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian Armed Forces under the auspices of the Tibet Frontier Commission,whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and Sikkim. In the nineteenth century,the British had conquered Burma and Sikkim,with the whole southern flank of Tibet coming under the control of the British Indian Empire. Tibet ruled by the Dalai Lama under the Ganden Phodrang government was a Himalayan state under the protectorate of the Chinese Qing dynasty until the 1911 Revolution,after which a period of de facto Tibetan independence (1912–1951) followed.
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.
Bogd Khan was the khan of the Bogd Khaganate from 1911 to 1924,following the state's de facto independence from the Qing dynasty of China after the Xinhai Revolution. Born in Tibet,he was the third most important person in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy as the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu,below only the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama,and therefore also known as the "Bogdo Lama". He was the spiritual leader of Outer Mongolia's Tibetan Buddhism. His wife Tsendiin Dondogdulam,the Ekh Dagina,was believed to be a manifestation of White Tara.
Agvan Lobsan Dorzhiev was a Russian-born monk of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism,sometimes referred by his scholarly title as Tsenyi Khempo. He was popularly known as the Sokpo Tsеnshab Ngawang Lobsang to the Tibetans.
Tibet came under the control of People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Government of Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which the 14th Dalai Lama ratified on 24 October 1951,but later repudiated on the grounds that he had rendered his approval for the agreement under duress. 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.
Gombojab Tsybikov was a Russian explorer of Tibet from 1899 to 1902. Tsybikov specialized in ethnography,Buddhist Studies,and after 1917 was an important educator and statesman in Siberia and Mongolia.
The Simla Convention,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 Bogd Khanate of Mongolia was the government of Outer Mongolia between 1911 and 1919 and again from 1921 to 1924. By the spring of 1911,some prominent Mongol nobles including Prince Tögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren persuaded the Jebstundamba Khutukhtu to convene a meeting of nobles and ecclesiastical officials to discuss independence from Qing China. On 30 November 1911 the Mongols established the Temporary Government of Khalkha. On 29 December 1911 the Mongols declared their independence from the collapsing Qing dynasty following the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution. They installed as theocratic sovereign the 8th Bogd Gegeen,highest authority of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia,who took the title Bogd Khan or "Holy Ruler". The Bogd Khaan was last khagan of the Mongols. This ushered in the period of "Theocratic Mongolia",and the realm of the Bogd Khan is usually known as the "Bogd Khanate".
Tibet was a de facto independent state in East Asia that lasted from the collapse of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in 1912 until its annexation by the People's Republic of China in 1951.
Manlaibaatar Damdinsüren,born Jamsrangiin Damdinsüren,was a military commander,Pan-Mongolist and diplomat who led Mongolia's struggle for independence in 1911.
Mijiddorjiin Khanddorj,also known by his title Chin Van,or Chin Wang Khanddorj,was an aristocrat and prominent early 20th-century Mongolian independence leader. He served as the first minister of foreign affairs of the Bogd Khanate of Mongolia in the government of the Bogd Khan from 1911 to 1913 and founded the nation's diplomatic service. He died,allegedly poisoned,in 1915.
The Ganden Phodrang or Ganden Podrang was the Tibetan system of government established by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642,after the Oirat lord Güshi Khan who founded the Khoshut Khanate conferred all temporal power on the 5th Dalai Lama in a ceremony in Shigatse in the same year. Lhasa again became the capital of Tibet,and the Ganden Phodrang operated until the 1950s. The Ganden Phodrang accepted China's Qing emperors as overlords after the 1720 expedition,and the Qing became increasingly active in governing Tibet starting in the early 18th century. After the fall of the Qing empire in 1912,the Ganden Phodrang government lasted until the 1950s,when Tibet was annexed by the People's Republic of China. During most of the time from the early Qing period until the end of Ganden Phodrang rule,a governing council known as the Kashag operated as the highest authority in the Ganden Phodrang administration.
Tibet under Qing rule refers to the Qing dynasty's rule over Tibet from 1720 to 1912. The Qing rulers incorporated Tibet into the empire along with other Inner Asia territories,although the actual extent of the Qing dynasty's control over Tibet during this period has been the subject of political debate. The Qing called Tibet a fanbu,fanbang or fanshu,which has usually been translated as "vassal","vassal state",or "borderlands",along with areas like Xinjiang and Mongolia. Like the preceding Yuan dynasty,the Manchus of the Qing dynasty exerted military and administrative control over Tibet,while granting it a degree of political autonomy.
The Convention of Lhasa,officially the Convention Between Great Britain and Thibet,was a treaty signed in 1904 between Tibet and Great Britain,in Lhasa,the capital of Tibet,then a protectorate of the Qing dynasty. It was signed following the British expedition to Tibet of 1903–1904,a military expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband,and was followed by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906.
