Being and Not Being: The Tibetan Enigma (Part II)

 The most talked about and perhaps the most important question to answer is regarding the imperial continuity of Tibet from the Yuan dynasty onwards. It is an interesting turn of events, albeit often used dishonestly, to assert the idea that Tibet has been a part of China for at least seven centuries. However, things were not as straightforward as they may seem from the outside.

It is true that the first genuine political integration of Tibet into a wider imperial order associated with China did not come from the Chinese themselves. It came from the Mongols. But In the 13th century, as Genghis Khan’s descendants carved their empire, Tibet was not conquered in the manner of most of Asia. It was drawn in through diplomacy, religious patronage, and a mutual recognition of power. When the Sakya lama, Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, was invited by Kublai Khan to serve as his spiritual preceptor, it marked not the subjugation of Tibet, but its co-option into the imperial architecture of the Yuan. 

Phagpa (left) and Kublai Khan 

Tibet’s relationship with the Yuan court was also unique. Unlike Han provinces, it was not administered by Confucian governors or subject to the routine rhythms of Chinese bureaucracy. Instead, it was governed through the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng Yuan), which functioned outside the main imperial civil service and was dominated by Tibetan clerics and Mongol intermediaries. The Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism enjoyed a privileged position, and its lamas were granted wide autonomy in exchange for spiritual legitimacy conferred on the Khans. 

In other words, the power dynamics were complex. This was not a simple center-periphery relationship. At times, the spiritual authority of Tibetan lamas rivaled the temporal authority of the court, and the Mongols, pragmatists of empire, allowed the Lamas to govern the plateau as long as their symbolic allegiance to the Khagan remained intact.

Of course, this is not to say that the Yuan dynasty was "not Chinese". For all facts and purposes, the Mongol court had embraced the Sinic identity and took no offense in calling themselves, and being called by their Mongol cousins, a Chinese entity. However, the nature of the Yuan-Tibet relationship stemmed from the same reason that forced the People's Republic to administer Tibet as one of its five Autonomous Regions today. It was too different and too big an entity to forcefully homogenize. 

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

That being said, the Mongol rule would only last for another century. What happened to Tibet afterward? That's a question that needs addressing as the classic "integration narrative" cautiously tip-toe around it for reasons that shouldn't confuse a critical mind.

The fall of the Yuan dynasty in 1368 did not mark the reintegration of Tibet into a resurgent China. It marked the withdrawal of imperial reach, and with it, the quiet reassertion of Tibetan autonomy. As the Ming dynasty established itself over the ruins of Mongol rule, its attention was consumed by internal consolidation and the pacification of China proper. Tibet, by contrast, slipped back into its own rhythms. Fractured, yes, but unconquered. The decline of centralized Sakya rule led to the rise of regional powers like the Phagmodru and Rinpungpa dynasties, who exercised real sovereignty over the high plateau, independent of any Chinese interference. 

In fact, the Ming court’s approach to Tibet was cautious and symbolic. Relations were maintained primarily through the conferral of titles and gifts to Tibetan lamas. It was a continuation of the Yuan-era “priest-patron” model, but drained of its earlier authority. There was no standing Ming military presence in Tibet, no administrative governor, no inclusion of Tibetan territory in the empire’s fiscal or provincial system. The conferral of titles (such as those given to the Karmapa or the heads of various sects) was more ritual than real. When the Fifth Karmapa visited the Ming court in the 15th century, he was treated as a spiritual dignitary, not a subject. The Ming emperors, keen to use Tibetan Buddhism as a diplomatic and religious tool, never attempted to impose direct political control over the region.

If anything, the centuries after the Yuan saw Tibet’s independence from Chinese dynasties solidify in both practice and perception. Local rulers governed the land, monasteries expanded their influence, and the evolving Gelug school, founded by Tsongkhapa, began its rise. It was a conscious disassociation from the Chinese identity. The Ming court may have issued edicts, but it was the balance of power on the ground that mattered. And on the ground, Tibet moved to its own logic. It was only centuries later, under the Qing, that another serious attempt at integration would be made. Not through religious patronage alone, but with soldiers, treaties, and imperial residents. But the Ming period stands as a true counterweight in this narrative. A period when China was strong and still did not rule Tibet. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to say that it did not even pretend to.

However, as mentioned earlier, the first true integration of Tibet into a purely Chinese Empire was an inadvertent consequence of the new Manchu reality. The 17th century saw two great transformations ripple across Asia. The consolidation of the Qing dynasty in China, and the dramatic rise of the Gelugpa school in Tibet, under the growing influence of the Dalai Lamas. These parallel developments would eventually converge, but not immediately. The Qing court, itself a Manchu regime that had seized Beijing from the decaying Ming, was initially more concerned with securing its frontiers than asserting spiritual authority. The Han people all but despised the Manchus, and they were rewarded with a level of systematic ethnic oppression that China hadn't faced since the legendary eons. It was heavily reflected in the Chinese literature at the time, regardless of the genre in which those works were made. The Qing imperialism was unapologetic, although their fall would result in an even terrifying counter-cleansing of the Manchus led by the Han republicans.

Meanwhile in Tibet, the Fifth Dalai Lama, with military backing from the Mongol leader Gushri Khan, united large parts of the plateau under a new religious-political order centered in Lhasa. For the first time since the fall of the old imperial dynasty, Tibet had a central authority once more. One that owed its rise not to China, but to the steppe.

A stamp from Bhutan depicting the 350th anniversary of their victory against the Tibetan-Mongol axis
Image source: World Buddhist Stamps

It was in this context that Qing involvement in Tibet began as an intervention in the region’s own civil wars. In 1720, Qing troops entered Tibet, not to annex it in the modern sense, but to expel the Dzungar Mongols who had invaded Lhasa. In the years that followed, Qing oversight of Tibet increased, culminating in the appointment of Ambans (imperial residents) and the imposition of a limited protectorate structure. The Dalai Lamas remained the de facto rulers of Tibet, but the Qing court had full military authority in the region, even to the point where they were able to fight battles with the Sikh Empire across the plateau while keeping their attrition checked by Tibetan resources. The Tibetan language, monastic institutions, and internal political mechanisms continued to sustain, although not unhindered.

Still, the 18th and 19th centuries saw increasing tension between Tibetan autonomy and Qing assertion. Periodic uprisings, especially in eastern Tibet, were met with military reprisals. Yet these interventions were reactive, not systemic. Most crucially, as the Qing dynasty weakened, battered by rebellion, opium wars, and foreign encroachment, its grip on Tibet slackened dramatically. By the time of the Boxer Rebellion and the fall of the Qing in 1911, the imperial presence in Lhasa had all but evaporated. What had once been a fragile balance tilted back toward Tibetan self-rule. The Qing episode marked a serious, though ultimately temporary, attempt to assert suzerainty, but it never transformed Tibet into a province of China in the legal, linguistic, or administrative sense. It was a time of reluctant cohabitation under an imperial shadow that demanded docility in exchange of survival. A sentiment the majority of Qing China shared at the time.

Thus, the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 shattered what fragile oversight China maintained over Tibet. As revolution swept through the empire, the imperial structures that tethered distant territories to Beijing disintegrated. In Lhasa, this was not met with mourning but with an assertion of sovereignty. The 13th Dalai Lama declared Tibet’s full independence, expelled Qing officials, and reasserted administrative control across central Tibet. No Chinese troops remained; no governor was replaced. What emerged in the years that followed was not a separatist movement, but a functioning government rooted in Tibetan language, culture, and Buddhist tradition—governed by its own laws and diplomatic priorities.

The newly formed Republic of China, for its part, was preoccupied with survival. Warlordism fractured the mainland, and the authority of the central government barely extended beyond the walls of Nanjing or Beijing. Despite issuing proclamations of continued sovereignty over Tibet, these claims rang hollow in the absence of military or political reach. While China debated ideology and fought among rival factions, Tibet administered its affairs with remarkable continuity. Monasteries flourished, a postal system was introduced, currency minted, and foreign missions cautiously entertained. British India maintained semi-official relations with Lhasa, treating Tibet as a political entity distinct from China, even if London stopped short of formal recognition.

Sun Yat Sen, Father of the Nation and President of the Republic of China
Image source: Wikimedia Commons

It was only after the brief interlude of Yuan Shikai’s abortive imperial revival—and well into the decades of Kuomintang rule—that the issue of Tibet returned to the Chinese political imagination. But by then, the distance had grown. The 13th Dalai Lama’s government had spent over two decades functioning independently, and the Tibetan people had grown used to rule without Chinese interference. It is important to understand this period not as a vacuum, but as a lived experience of independence. The borders may have been porous and the state fragile, but in the minds of Tibetans and in the daily administration of their lives, there was no ambiguity: Tibet was not China, and had not been for some time.

By the mid-20th century, the Chinese Civil War was drawing to a close. The Nationalists were in retreat, and the Communists, triumphant, sought to redefine not only the political order of China, but the very geography of its state. For the newly proclaimed People’s Republic of China in 1949, Tibet—like Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia—was recast not as a foreign entity, but as a “lost” region in need of reunification. This was a departure not only from the Republican government's symbolic claims, but from the facts on the ground: Tibet had operated independently for nearly four decades. No Chinese officials had been stationed there, no taxes collected, no laws imposed. And yet, Tibet would now be the first target of the new China’s geopolitical assertion.

In October 1950, the People’s Liberation Army crossed into Chamdo, overwhelming Tibetan forces in a swift campaign. The “Seventeen Point Agreement” signed in 1951 under duress, while ostensibly affirming autonomy and the Dalai Lama’s leadership, was in reality the beginning of a long and deliberate campaign to dismantle Tibetan self-rule. Chinese officials entered Lhasa, infrastructure projects accelerated, and a new administrative architecture was imposed. The Dalai Lama, only sixteen when the invasion began, attempted to walk a fragile line, engaging with Mao Zedong personally in the hopes of safeguarding Tibet’s cultural integrity while preserving its spiritual institutions. But the tide had turned. The promises of autonomy were quickly subordinated to the dictates of central authority.

PLA passing through the urban area of Kangding, Tibet (1951)

Contrary to the Chinese narrative, what followed was not a 'peaceful liberation', but a mounting series of cultural shocks and political crackdowns. By 1959, tensions had erupted into open rebellion. There were undeniable instances of foreign (CIA) interventions in the region at the time, but the uprising in Lhasa was brutally suppressed regardless. This marked the end of the Dalai Lama’s physical presence in Tibet. He fled to India with thousands of followers, where he repudiated the Seventeen Point Agreement as invalid. In the years that followed, monasteries were razed, monks were disrobed, and Tibetan society was subjected to radical reengineering under the banners of land reform, collectivization, and Cultural revolution. Resistance continued in pockets, particularly through the Chushi Gangdruk militia, but was ultimately crushed. The occupation was not only military. It was ideological. It sought to suppress the Tibetan past and overwrite it with a new identity, loyal not to the Potala, but to Beijing.

Today, especially after the violent clashes surrounding the Beijing Olympics, Chinese Tibetans rarely revolt, resist, or rage. There are reasons for this. Tibet is recognized as a part of China by virtually all UN member nations, including its neighbors. Tibetan livelihoods have improved, their quality of life has reached heights unseen in the last two millennia, and the idea of 'Tibetan isolation' is little more than a silver screen fantasy. Education in Mandarin is promoted by state law, and Tibetans have largely incorporated Chinese vocabulary into their spoken dialects. However, native cultural and linguistic identities are given equal importance through policies applied across all Autonomous Regions of China. Integration has been so effective that, despite its turbulent history, Tibet did not even see the need for autonomous prefectures within—unlike its counterpart in Xinjiang. Tibetans, at least from the outside, seem largely content with where they are now, although minor instances of resistance do occasionally surface. Only their hearts know what the hearts feel because at the end, the question remains:

What is Tibet?

Further reading:

1. Tibet: A History; Sam Van Schaik

2. Tibet: A Political History; Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa

3. The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama; Melvyn Goldstein

4. The Mongols and Tibet: A Historical Assessment of Relations between the Mongol Empire and Tibet (Perspective of the Government in exile)

5. The Sacred Federation of Tibet and the Mongol Empire; Lingkai Kong 

6. Tibet and India: Buddhist Traditions and Transformations; Kurt A. Behrendt