This isn’t particularly relevant, but here are some alt. history notes I threw together a while ago for a scenario where the results of the Younghusband Expedition (forcing Tibet to become a Protectorate) is backed by the British Government of the day.
Any flaws are the result of my lack of in-depth research!
Tibet 1904
The Younghusband Expedition gains concessions from the Tibetans (although the Dalai Lama had fled to Mongolia!) and becomes a British Protectorate. They rebuff the Chinese in 1906 and don’t concede sovereignity to China and repel the 1910 Qing attempt to resume control.
Much better links through the Himalayas would be created and trade encouraged. A route through Kashmir or Ladakh to the west would also be a priority and a military presence and modern roads established, leading to much quicker development and integration into the modern world.
With China proper in disarray until the 1950s, the British presence would be much stronger and China much less likely to press claims until after ww2 at least.
With good links to the high plateau, it might have been a good forward position against the Japanese and their war in China and Mongolia (possibly too far away, although flights from Indian bases supported the Chinese against the Japanese, so even having forward air bases could be very useful)
Quite probably it would be granted independence in 1948 along with the rest of the Indian subcontinent…
After 1948, who knows? A Chinese puppet government elected somehow? Annexation with only Western sabre-rattling in response, or it might become at least as tense a border as Berlin but with China as the looming menace rather than the Soviets once the Communists had consolidated power or maybe American bases would be established with missiles aimed at both Russia & China. They had to withdraw their missiles from Turkey following Cuba; maybe they’d refuse to here. Supply might be difficult, though if the US fell out with India.
The current Dalai Lama might still be titular head of state but even in the late 50s and early 60s there were moves he supported towards democracy and modernisation, so with a 40 year head start, it might be quite modern (at least in comparison), with strong links to the West, or to India.
With a British (or, latterly, even American) presence on the high plateau firmly established, possibly even the west Himalayan tribal lands on the N.W.Frontier might be a bit more easily persuaded towards democracy…
The abridged version: The Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government appealed to the US for help. The US looked to Britan. Britan looked to Nehru, and Nehru basically backed down on supporting Tibet.
Check out news sites at the time. The DL’s flight from Tibet to India in 1959 was closely watched and big news.
Alternate history. Tibet would have conceivably become a semi-democratic mountainous state with the DL as at least the religious lead. If not the secular and religious leader.
There is a wealth of books written around 1900 by foreigners in or around Tibet at that time. They did not have a “is Tibet part of China axe to grind.”
You can also do some research on Dartsendo aka Kangding aka 康定, which was the traditional staging area between China and Tibet in Eastern Tibet. It was also the major trans-shipment point and trading point for tea from China to Tibet. It was the capital of the “Province that never was” called Xikang aka 西康 that sorta kinda existed in the warlord era. This was the traditional edge of the Chinese empire and start of the tibetan area of Kham. Tibet proper started anoth 500 miles or so west IIRC at Chamdo aka Jykendo. (Incidentally, this is where Chogyam Trugpa Tulku aka the drunk lama was from.) Kham was Tibetan culture but only loosely managed by Lhasa.
I can find no record of this. Even van Walt’s writings do not mention this specifically, only that “Tibet as pressured to join the second world war on the side of the allies”, a dubious proposition among many dubious propositions that does not appear to be supported by anyone else.
If I recollect, there are large uranium deposits in Tibet. I don’t think that’s why China invaded (everyone else has made great arguments about a Chinese need for national identity and integrity) and China doesn’t produce that much uranium, but I believe the deposits are there.
It was over 20 years ago when I did the research. It is possible I got it wrong but I don’t think so. Again, pre-internet stuff that has probably not been digitized. Or it it has, I can’t access from China.
From the Chinese point of view, they have at least three good reasons to want Tibet.
First, they feel they have a valid historical claim to the region. Which, they probably do, to the extent any country has a valid historical claim to somewhere else. Tibet had been under Chinese control more often than not.
Second, they see Chinese rule as being to Tibet’s advantage. That one seems like a self-serving lie to us but China looks at Tibet and sees a country that was backwards and ruled by a theocratic dictatorship and is now receiving the benefits of modern technology and a socialist/capitalist economy.
Third, China figures that if they weren’t running Tibet, somebody else would. They see places like Mongolia, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Nepal, etc as little more than puppet regimes run by Russia, India, or the United States. From their point of view, we only want to “free” Tibet so we can steal it for ourselves.
Nope, you’re missing a point. Attitudes have evolved over the last 25 years or so, but for most of my life it was a truism that “The major thing that Beijing and Taipei agree on is that there is only one China. The major thing they disagree on is who should govern all of it.”
From Beijing’s perspective, China has historically included X number of provinces, miost but not all of which are mostly Han in ethnicity, all of which ‘should’ be part of a unified China. From their view, the events of 1959 served to bring Tibet, historically a piece of the Chinese Empire afforded a fair amount of autonomy under Chinese suzerainty, more firmly under central government control. And from their perspective, Taiwan is historically a province of China, which is the state it ‘should’ be in today, or at least as soon as war or diplomacy will bring it back to the fold.
(The Kuomintang view, almost laughable today but not when it was first claimed, is that there is one China properly under the Republic which overthrew the Manchus and successfully repelled the Japanese invasion (with a little help from the U.S., of course) and which then lost a series of battles that left the mainland under the control of Communist usurpers, one island province alone remaining loyal to the ‘real’ government of China, i.e., the KMT. “But someday we’ll win it all back!” )
I used to think the Nationalist view was laughable too. But now I look at the direction mainland China’s economy is going and at the breakup of the Soviet Union and I think “Who knows what could happen in another ten years? Maybe the Taipei government will be restored over all of China.”
The territorial claims of the modern ROC are actually a result of some legal wrangling within the government vis a vis interpretation of the constitution. In order to “cede” any part of the old ROC, the constitution needs to be amended by the legislature. The KMT is always nervous about this kind of thing, since once you start amending the constitution to CHANGE THE NATIONAL BORDERS, WHAT NEXT? :eek:
The ROC and PRC are probably closer in ideological terms than most people think, anyway - both the nationalists and communists had their roots as Soviet sponsored revolutionary movements. The Communists were just the “left wing” of the Nationalists until 1927.
That the natives think all of North America should still be theirs doesn’t make it so. I don’t believe Taiwan will ever be apart of China again. That they think they did Tibet a favour doesn’t mean much either. The British could/did claim they were really advancing Africa, Christianizing the savages etc.
These seem like pretty lame excuses in light of the 21st century, to me.
While this may be true in an absolute-morality, GD sense, the key point here is what they think they’re doing. There were British who were sincerely moved by “the white man’s burden,” to borrow Kipling’s ironic phrase, who felt it was their responsibility to “go spread culture and civilization to the poor benighted heathen who lived in uncivilized lands.” Likewise, Chinese cultural imperialism is lifting up the impoverished peasants living under theocracy or tribal rule – in their opinion, that is.
You know me better than that! I’m not one to give excuses for China. I’m just explaining their motivation. The fact is that these issues are not mindless prejudice at this point- they are essential to keeping the current government in power, and as such they can’t easily be changed short of a change in the political system, which doesn’t seem like something that is going to happen any time soon without massive social upheaval.
