The Tibet-China Conflict

The status of Tibet has been at the core of the Tibet-China conflict for all parties drawn into it over the past century. China maintains that Tibet is an integral part of China, while Tibetans maintain that Tibet has historically been an independent country. In reality the conflict over Tibet’s status has been conflict over history. When Chinese writers and political figures assert that Tibet is a part of China, they do so on the basis of history. The People’s Republic of China has pointedly accused the Dalai Lama of duplicity, stating that his unwillingness to recognize that Tibet has been an integral part of China for centuries renders his attempts to compromise on the Tibet issue unacceptable. The centrality of history in the question of Tibet’s status could not be made clearer. This paper is a guide to the historical arguments made by the primary parties to the Tibet-China conflict. It draws on the key assertions about the issue as they have been framed in Chinese and Tibetan to examine the extent to which positions on the Tibet issue that are thought to reflect centuries of popular consensus are actually very recent constructions, often at variance with the history on which they claim to be based. This is the seventh publication in Policy Studies, a peer-reviewed East-West Center Washington series that presents scholarly analysis of key contemporary domestic and international political, economic, and strategic issues affecting Asia in a policy relevant manner.