Tibet

Tibet (Tibetan : བོད་, (Bod) pronounced Pö, Chinese: 西藏, pinyin: Xīzàng) is a region of Central Asia and the home of the Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 m (16,000 ft), it is often called the "Roof of the World". In Western usage, "Tibet" may refer either to the Tibet Autonomous Region or TAR (an administrative subdivision of the People's Republic of China), or to a larger region that the Government of Tibet in Exile has termed historic Tibet, which consists of the traditional provinces of Amdo, Kham, and U-Tsang. The TAR covers the former U-Tsang province and western Kham, the remainder coming under the present-day Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, and Sichuan; the government of the PRC also claims for the TAR most of the territory of Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh, a claim which is not acknoledged by the Government of Tibet in Exile.

Since 1959 the former government of Tibet, led by the 14th Dalai Lama has maintained a government in exile in northern India which claims sovereignty over Tibet, with borders which they have defined as the entirety of what they term "historic Tibet".

File:Map tibet.gif

The borders of Historic Tibet as claimed by the Government of Tibet in Exile. The Tibet Autonomous Region does not include the northern and eastern parts of this region, but does claim to include India-controlled Arunachal Pradesh (not shown on map).

Lhasa is the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region and is the traditional capital of Tibet. Other cities in Greater Tibet include Xigazê, Gyangtse, Golmud, Lhatse, Maqin, Pelbar, Sakya, Tingri, Tongren, Xining, Yushu, Zhangmu.

Naming

The Chinese name for Tibet, 西藏, Xīzàng, is a phonetic transliteration derived from U-Tsang and has been in use since the 18th century. The Chinese character (藏, zàng), is also used to describe things Tibetan such as the Tibetan language (藏文, zàng wén) and the Tibetan people (藏族, zàng zú). The two characters of Xizang can literally mean "western storehouse", which some Tibetans and their supporters find offensive. However, this is not how the word is usually analyzed in Chinese, and most Chinese people maintain that the meaning of the particular characters used is irrelevant.

History

Main articles: History of Tibet and Foreign relations of Tibet

Little is known of Tibet before the 7th century when Buddhism was introduced by missionaries from India. Tibet was a strong kingdom between the 8th and 10th centuries. The distinctive form of Tibetan society, in which religious leaders (lamas) presided over a feudalistic districts centered around Tantric Buddhist monastaries, arose after the weakening of the Tibetan kings in the 10th century. This form of society was to continue into the 1950s, at which time more than 700,000 of the country's 1.25 million population were serfs.

In the 13th century Tibet was conquered by Genghis Khan, who ruled Tibet through a local puppet government. The Mongol rulers granted secular leadership of Tibet to lineages of high lamas, the last lineage being that of the Dalai Lama starting in the early 16th century.

By the early 18th century China established the right to have resident commissioners, called Ambans, in Lhasa. When the Tibetans rebelled against the Chinese in 1750 and killed the Ambans, a Chinese army entered the country and installed new Ambans, but the Tibetan government continued to manage day-to-day affairs as before.

In 1904 the British sent an Indian military force and seized Lhasa, forcing Tibet to open its border with British India. A 1906 treaty with China repeated these conditions, making Tibet a de facto British protectorate. There was also a Nepalese presence in Lhasa remaining from a similar invasion by Nepal in 1855.

After 1907, a treaty between Britain, China, and Russia recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The Chinese established direct rule for the first time in 1910. It was not to last long, however, as Chinese troops had to withdraw to their homeland to fight in the 1911 Revolution, giving the Dalai Lama the opportunity to re-establish his power. In 1913, Tibet and Mongolia signed a treaty proclaiming their independence from China, and their mutual recognition. The subsequent outbreak of World War I and civil war in China caused both Western powers and China to lose interest in Tibet, and the 13th Dalai Lama ruled undisturbed.

Neither the Nationalist government of the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China have ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet. In 1950 the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet against little resistance. In 1951 a treaty signed under military pressure by representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama provided for rule by a joint Chinese-Tibetan authority; most of the population of Tibet at the time were serfs working lands owned by the lamas and any attempt at land reform or the redistribution of wealth would have proved unpopular with the lamas. This agreement was successfully put into effect in Tibet proper but in June, 1956 rebellion broke out in the Tibetan-populated borderlands of Amdo and Kham which were not considered by the Chinese to be part of Tibet and thus not subject to the "go slow" agreement of socialist transformation. This unrest provided the opportunity for the CIA to support an armed Tibetan rebellion which eventually spread to Lhasa. The rebellion was crushed by 1959 and the Dalai Lama fled to India (with isolated resistance continuing in Tibet until 1969). The Panchen Lama was set up as a figurehead in Lhasa. In 1965 the south-western part of Tibet was designated as an Autonomous Region. The monastic estates were broken up and secular education introduced. During the Cultural Revolution there was a campaign of organized vandalism against Tibet's Buddhist heritage in the same fashion as Red Guard destruction of Chinese cultural heritage sites throughout China. Of the many thousands of monasteries in Tibet, less than a handful remained unscathed.

Since 1979 Chinese policy in Tibet has veered between moderation and repression. Most religious freedoms have been officially restored, but monks and nuns are still sometimes imprisoned.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Tibet

Tibet is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest region. Most of the Himalaya mountain range lies within Tibet; Mount Everest is on Nepal's border with Tibet.

The atmosphere is severely dry nine months of the year. Western passes receive small amounts of fresh snow each year but remain traversable year round. Low temperatures are prevalent throughout these western regions, where bleak desolation is unrelieved by any vegetation beyond the size of low bushes, and where wind sweeps unchecked across vast expanses of arid plain. The Indian monsoon exerts some influence on eastern Tibet. Northern Tibet is subject to high temperatures in summer and intense cold in winter.

Historic Tibet consisted of several regions:

Amdo (a mdo) in northeast → the provinces of Qinghai, part of Gansu and part of Sichuan
Kham (khams) in east → part of Sichuan, northern Yunnan and part of Qinghai
- Western Kham → part of Tibetan Autonomous Region
U (dbus) in center → part of Tibetan Autonomous Region
Tsang (gtsang) in west → part of Tibetan Autonomous Region

Tibetan cultural influences extend to the neighboring states of Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, Ladakh, and adjacent provinces of China where Tibetan Buddhism is the predominate religion.

Several majors rivers have their source in Tibet, including:

Chang Jiang (Long River, also called Yangtze River)
Huang He (Yellow River)
Indus River
Mekong
Brahmaputra
Ganges

Economy

The Tibetan economy is dominated by subsistence agriculture. Due to limited arable land, livestock raising is the primary occupation. The Qinghai-Tibet Railroad is being built to link the region with China proper.

Demographics

Historically, the population of Tibet was primarily ethnic Tibetans. Since the 1980s, increasing economic liberalization and internal mobility has resulted in the influx of Han Chinese into Tibet for work or settlement, which is held by the Government of Tibet in Exile to be an active policy of demographically swamping the Tibetan people and further diminishing any chances of Tibetan political independence; however it should be noted that population control policies like the one-child policy only apply to Han Chinese, not to minorities such as Tibetans. Other ethnic groups in Tibet include Menba, Lhoba and Hui.

File:Flag of tibet.gif

Flag of Government of Tibet in Exile and flag of Tibet before 1950: This version was introduced by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1912 and is now banned in the PRC.

Culture

Tibet is the traditional center of Tibetan Buddhism, a distinctive form of Vajrayana. Tibet is also home for the original spiritual tradition called Bön (alternative spelling: Bon). Various dialects of the Tibetan language are spoken across the country. Tibetan is written using the ancient Tibetan script which was created in the 7th century to translate Buddhist writings from Sanskrit. In Tibetan cities there are also small communities of Muslims and Christians.

The Potala Palace, former residence of the Dalai Lamas, is a World Heritage Site. Mount Everest is located at the Tibet-Nepal border.

External links

Chinese government white papers