Tibet Was Historically Never Part of China And Is An Occupied Country Today: World Must SpeakUp
Tibet is an occupied country and the Sino-Tibetan conflict is an international conflict, not China’s internal affair. Contrary to what Beijing wants us to believe, the PRC’s presence in Tibet is illegal because its armed invasion of Tibet in 1950 violated one of the most fundamental norms of modern international law—the prohibition of the use of force against another state.
As a result, the PRC has not acquired sovereignty over Tibet since its invasion, and it is obligated under international law to end its occupation of Tibet and to permit the Tibetans to freely exercise their full right to self-determination.
According to Beijing’s narrative, Tibet has been part of the Chinese multinational state “since antiquity”. In an attempt to legitimize the PRC’s current borders,
Unfortunately, this narrative is not just for the history books. Beijing actively uses this narrative. Firstly, it has made negotiations with the Tibetans dependent on the Dalai Lama publicly accepting it. Secondly, it is putting a lot of pressure on all other governments not to contradict it.
Beijing knows that it has no legitimacy to rule Tibet—that it simply took Tibet by force—and has created this narrative to solve that problem. If the world believes the narrative, the PRC’s mission will have been accomplished. Their first step is not to allow any contradiction of it. This is where we are today: self-censuring and silent.
Silence and absence of effective opposition to this narrative will over time turn into acquiescence, to buying into Beijing’s narrative. This will make any effort to resolve the Sino-Tibetan conflict fruitless. This is our main concern.
For negotiations to have a chance, the world needs to be aware of the true nature of the conflict. And that has everything to do with the nature of historical relations Tibet had with its Asian neighbours, and with the question whether Tibet was or was not historically a part of China.
Careful historical examination reveals that Tibet was in fact historically never a part of China. This does not mean that Tibet was always an independent state in the modern sense of the term.
To be sure, Tibet’s relations with the Mongol, Manchu and British empires entailed different forms of dependency. But none of those relations entailed the incorporation of Tibet into China.
Tibet was not a part of China during the Mongol empire and did not become a part of the Mongol ruled Yuan dynasty—contrary to popular belief. The Mongols did exercise authority over the Tibetans, but they did so separately from their conquest and rule of China and never joined the two.
Tibet was not ruled by the Chinese Ming dynasty and was most certainly not incorporated into the Ming state. And the Manchu Qing emperor’s relations with the Dalai Lamas and Tibet also never resulted in Tibet’s incorporation into China.
The Religio-Political relationship that did exist between them, known in Tibetan as chö-yön relations, need to be understood in the framework of the then applicable Tibetan Buddhist legal order and do not translate into modern-day territorial sovereignty.
These conclusions are all corroborated in contemporaneous Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan and Chinese sources. Finally, the Republic of China, which unilaterally claimed Tibet as part of that republic from its inception, was entirely unable to establish any authority in or over Tibet, leaving its claim completely empty. In reality,
Tibet was an independent state de facto and de jure throughout the Republic of China period before the PRC was founded in 1949, and when the PLA invaded Tibet soon after.
All of this informs the nature of the Sino-Tibetan conflict, the legality of the PRC’s presence in Tibet, and the obligations of both the PRC and the international community under international law today.
But it’s not only the PRC which has obligations. All states do. International law stipulates that all of our governments have the duty not to recognize the illegal annexation of Tibet by China, and not to cooperate with or assist Beijing in any way in maintaining its unlawful rule of Tibet.
All states are also required to refrain from aiding and abetting the exploitation of Tibet’s natural resources without due permission of the Tibetans, since those resources belong solely to the Tibetan people.
And finally, our governments have the positive duty to help bring about an end to the occupation of Tibet and to permit and respect the Tibetan people’s right to self-determination.
Behaving accordingly is not only about upholding the rule of law for its own sake. It is a political and security imperative, in particular for India. Not speaking up about the illegality of China’s occupation of Tibet, or acting in ways that give credence to China’s claims to sovereignty there provide those claims and the PRC presence in Tibet with a semblance of legitimacy. This has tangible harmful consequences today.
