Xinhai Lhasa turmoil

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Xinhai Lhasa turmoil
Chinese leaving Lhasa 1912.jpg
After the fall of the Qing dynasty, Sichuan New Army left Lhasa in 1912.
Date1911 (mutinies)–1912 (battles)
Location
Tibet
Result Tibet becomes a de facto independent country.
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
13th Dalai Lama
Tsarong Dazang Dramdul
3rd Tsomonling Rinpoche  [ nl ]
Xie Guoliang		 Zhong Ying  [ zh ]
Lianyu  [ zh ]
Casualties and losses
Unknown Unknown

The Xinhai Lhasa turmoil (Tibetan : ཆུ་བྱི་དམག་འཁྲུག་, Wylie : chu byi dmag 'khrug; Chinese :辛亥拉薩動亂), also known as the First Expulsion of the Han (Chinese :第一次驅漢事件), was a series of mutinies among Qing military troops stationed in Lhasa, Tibet, followed by the military conflict between Tibetan militia and Qing garrison. It effectively resulted in the end of Qing rule in Tibet.

Contents

The influence of the Wuchang Uprising on October, 1911 rapidly spread to the frontier region. As a result, the 13th Dalai Lama was able to eliminate Qing forces in Tibet. After months of fighting between Chinese and Tibetan armies, the Chinese withdrew from Tibet, and the Dalai Lama returned as the sole administrator. [1] [2]

Background

Qing army mutiny

In late 1911, as the Qing dynasty fell apart elsewhere in China, tensions in Lhasa reached a breaking point. Rumors about Han-Tibetan ethnic conflict ran high, and unpaid salaries and power struggles among officers sparked a full-scale mutiny in September 1911. Rebel Qing troops seized weapons and attacked loyalist officers, briefly detaining the Qing resident commissioner. After the establishment of the Republic of China in January 1912, the Qing troops who mutinied in Lhasa established a public council with the intention of seizing power from the former Qing government's Tibet office. Subsequently, a series of lawless and undisciplined acts occurred among its personnel, including the occupation of Sera Monastery to plunder more property, which aroused the indignation of the Tibetan people. [3] [4]

Tibetan liberation struggle

When news of mutinous troops looting and disturbing the people reached the exiled 13th Dalai Lama, he seized the opportunity to galvanize the Tibetan people. In early April 1912, from his sanctuary in India he issued the Proclamation to the People  [ zh ], urging all Tibetans to rise up against the Qing officers and soldiers' presence. In this proclamation, he framed the conflict as a struggle for Tibetan liberation, noting that the Qing troops had terrorized civilians with plunder and violence, and called on Tibetans to disobey all orders issued by the new Chinese central government. [5] [6]

This proclamation had immediate effect: thousands of Tibetans from across the region took up arms. Under leaders appointed by the Dalai Lama (notably the commander Tsarong), Tibetan militias rapidly formed. By mid-April these militia forces, numbering in the tens of thousands, were marching against the Qing garrisons. In April 1912, Qing detachments at Gyantse and Shigatse were encircled by militia forces; the British trade agent David MacDonald negotiated their surrender or escape, and many Qing soldiers fled south into India. [3] Meanwhile, the main Qing column under Colonel Zhong Ying found itself besieged in Lhasa. Under Tsarong's direction, Tibetan forces tightened the blockade. [4]

Peace negotiations

By the summer of 1912 both sides had endured months of siege and skirmish. On July 3, Zhong Ying received a telegram from the Government of China under President Yuan Shikai, stating that "Commander Zhong can persuade the Dalai Lama to submit... You should try your best to appease them and not kill them indiscriminately, lest we perish together." Zhong and others then telegraphed the Dalai Lama on July 26, "strongly advocating peace to preserve the overall situation." Exhausted and short of supplies, the Tibetans and remaining Qing troops agreed to a ceasefire. In early August 1912 a British representative mediated an armistice. The agreement required the Qing forces to surrender their weapons and promised that Chinese soldiers would leave Lhasa in stages. After the successful negotiation, on September 3, Zhong learned that he had been appointed as the Chief of the Tibet Office, a position equivalent to that of the former Qing's Resident Minister in Tibet, by the Government of China on May 9. He then remained in Lhasa as his new position. [4]

However, this first truce quickly fell apart. Tibetan leaders insisted that all Chinese officers, including Zhong, and military men depart the region, a demand which the Chinese could not accept. On September 16, the Government of China sent a telegram to Zhong and others, ordering them to "reaffirm their adherence to the agreement and safeguard Chinese territorial sovereignty. They must not hastily leave Tibet, lest they incur the blame of abandoning territory." Fighting thus resumed within weeks. [4]

Hostilities flared up again on 24 September 1912. By then, most of the Qing troops had already marched away due to the previous peace negotiation, leaving only about 200 soldiers to defend Lhasa. Surrounded and outnumbered, for nearly two months the garrison made a desperate stand against the Tibetan militia. By early November the remaining defenders were compelled to sue for peace once more. [4]

On 14 November 1912 a second armistice was concluded. The agreement allowed Chinese civilians (merchants and their families) to remain if they wished, but it unequivocally required the military and governing personnel to withdraw. Zhong accepted these conditions and led his remaining troops out of Lhasa on 12 December 1912. In the months that followed he briefly lingered near the Yunnan border, but under Dalai Lama pressure he departed Tibet in April 1913. Zhong's exit marked the end of any Chinese military and political presence in Lhasa and effectively in Tibet as a whole. [4]

Aftermath

With the Tibetan victory, Tibet entered a new era of de facto independence. [7] Following the establishment of the Republic of China, China's provisional President, Yuan Shikai, sent a telegram to the 13th 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." [8] In 1913 he returned to Lhasa and issued the Regulations for the monks and laypeople in Tibet  [ zh ], in which he stated that Tibet is a "small, religious, and independent nation", and that the relationship between Beijing and Tibet "had been that of patron and priest and had not been based on the subordination of one to the other". [9] [10] It was not until 1934 that the Government of China resumed sending resident officials to Tibet. [11]

In January 1913, Agvan Dorzhiev and three other Tibetan representatives [12] signed a treaty between Tibet and Mongolia in Urga, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China. However, 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. [13] [14]

The Dalai Lama also began implementing new policies, including the first issuance of paper money, the issuance of Snow Lion stamps, and the establishment of a modern postal system. [15] The Tibetan government also began to solidify Tibet’s borders. In 1913–14 Tibetan envoys joined talks in Simla under British auspices to delimit the frontier with India, and in 1917 Tibet launched campaigns into Kham, known as the First Sino–Tibetan War  [ zh ], to seize territories from the Sichuan clique. [16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Melvyn C. Goldstein (18 June 1991). A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State. University of California Press. pp. 58–59. ISBN   978-0-520-91176-5.
  2. ↑ Tanner, Harold (2009). China: A History. Hackett. p. 419. ISBN   978-0872209152.
  3. 1 2 张羽新 (2003年). "蒙藏事务局及其对藏政的管理". 中国藏学 (1期). Archived from the original on 2017-12-01.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 张召庸; 喜饶尼玛 (2011年). "清末民初拉萨动乱性质初析". 中国藏学 (1): 34–43. Archived from the original on 2018-08-21.
  5. ↑ 陈庆英、高淑芬，主编. 《西藏通史·民国卷》. 中国边疆通史丛书. 郑州：中州古籍出版社，2003年5月第1版. ISBN 978-7-80253-839-9，535页－534页
  6. ↑ Zhu Jinping, ed. (1925). 《西藏六十年大事記》. 臺灣華文電子書庫. p. 27-28. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  7. ↑ Lin (2011) , p.  26 ; Anand (2013) , p.  112
  8. ↑ Goldstein (1997), p. 31.
  9. ↑ "Tibet Justice Center – Legal Materials on Tibet – Tibet – Proclamation Issued by His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIII (1913) [106]". Archived from the original on 4 February 2019.
  10. ↑ Shakya (1999), p. 5.
  11. ↑ 陈立华 (2009). "简论蒙藏委员会驻藏办事处的历史作用". 中国藏学 (2). Archived from the original on 2020-12-02. Retrieved 2020-11-29.
  12. ↑ Udo B. Barkmann, Geschichte der Mongolei, Bonn 1999, p380ff
  13. ↑ Grunfeld (1996), p. 65.
  14. ↑ Bell (1924) , pp. 150–151
  15. ↑ Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa (October 2009). One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History of Tibet. BRILL. pp. 763–764. ISBN   90-04-17732-9.
  16. ↑ 孙林，现代性与民族意识:关于西藏近代史上一次政治改革性质的社会学分析 Archived 2018-12-15 at the Wayback Machine ，西藏民族学院学报:哲学社会科学版2002(3)；孙林，现代性与民族意识:关于西藏近代史上一次政治改革性质的社会学分析(续) Archived 2018-12-15 at the Wayback Machine ，西藏民族学院学报:哲学社会科学版2002(4)
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