China's Hegemonic Ambition and Expansionism

[badguy2000]

I don't want get involved in Tibet debate. One thing I want to point out that "The Tibetan History of Tibet" written by Dalai Lama team does not agree with the view of all the world powers. Otherwise, how can we explain that the governments of US, Russia, India, etc all said that Tibet has been part of China. From the history you written, we can clearly know that China was very weak between 1840 to 1949. Tibet was de facto in independent status. Actually, Qing Dynasty lost control in many parts of China including Tibet. Like Pakistan and Bangladesh, if India did not sign the partition they can only be called de facto independent countries.

in fact, Qing held Tibet until Qing empire collapsed in 1911.
Tibet got de facto independence during 1911-1950,while the whole China were divided in fact.

 

[badguy2000]

And now Tibet is weak.

well, now Tibet is a part of powerful CHina.

 

[civfanatic]

in fact, Qing held Tibet until Qing empire collapsed in 1911.
Tibet got de facto independence during 1911-1950,while the whole China were divided in fact.

Wrong, Tibet was de facto independent ever since the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, up till its annexation in the 1950s.

 

[badguy2000]

Wrong, Tibet was de facto independent ever since the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, up till its annexation in the 1950s.

that is your unilateral understanding.......you have the right to claim unilaterally that the earth is not round!

 

[Ray]

well, now Tibet is a part of powerful CHina.

That is a Good one!

that is your unilateral understanding.......you have the right to claim unilaterally that the earth is not round!

And China is the Middle Kingdom?!! (wink! wink!)

 

[civfanatic]

that is your unilateral understanding.......you have the right to claim unilaterally that the earth is not round!

It is a fact, not my personal understanding. If you disagree, try to provide some credible document or source that says Tibet was under the direct administration of the Ming or Qing government anytime between 1368 and 1950.

You won't find any such documents, btw.

 

[jazzguy]

It is a fact, not my personal understanding. If you disagree, try to provide some credible document or source that says Tibet was under the direct administration of the Ming or Qing government anytime between 1368 and 1950.

You won't find any such documents, btw.

Just go to the library to check the history books you would find when Qing Dynasty officers and armies were droved out from Tibet. If I remember correctly, the last Qing officer was expelled from Tibet in 1912. But in 1935, Dalai Lama was still appointed by ROC (now Taiwan) though China lost control of Tibet. During the Chinese civil war and world war II, Panchan Lama still attended ROC cabinet meetings from time to time. As I said before, don't think the governments of India, US, Russia, etc are stupid. If those governments are not very sure about the history, they would not support the Tibet has been part of China.

 

[no smoking]

Have you read all the posts of mine?

Was Mao not responsible for the Great Leap Forward and for the Famine?

You mean to say that Chinese leaders are not truthful when they may a mistake and instead blame others, lest they are purged? And anyway who could purge Mao? Not even Chiu en Lai could do so. The Gang of Four was purged including Mao's own wife (the official one).

Well, Ray, I am expecting you, as a professional soldier, to be better than general people.

Yes, Mao was responsible for the GLF and famine. But saying he intended to kill people is a pure lie. His mistake was his incapbaility of handling modern economy.
We can condemn his idealism which leaded to the death of millions of people. But we can say that his plan is to kill the people. That is one of differences between him and Stallin.

And also, according to the social/political environment and economic situation, you won't be suprise that he made that mistake. Without most of people's support, do you think he can carry on this?

Just as I said before: you always get the fact right but idea wrong. you may know the history, but you never understand why the history was like that.

 

[civfanatic]

Just go to the library to check the history books you would find when Qing Dynasty officers and armies were droved out from Tibet. If I remember correctly, the last Qing officer was expelled from Tibet in 1912. But in 1935, Dalai Lama was still appointed by ROC (now Taiwan) though China lost control of Tibet. During the Chinese civil war and world war II, Panchan Lama still attended ROC cabinet meetings from time to time. As I said before, don't think the governments of India, US, Russia, etc are stupid. If those governments are not very sure about the history, they would not support the Tibet has been part of China.

The Qing maintained an intermittent military presence in Tibet throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. However, that is not the point. Tibet still maintained all the criteria of an independent nation, such as a tax system, native military, defined borders, etc.

Saying that Tibet was part of China during the Qing Dynasty is like saying Japan is part of USA today, because USA maintains a permanent military presence in Japan.

In the modern day, other countries recognize Tibet as part of China not because of historical reasons, but for the sake of having good relations with China. There is no geopolitical incentive in supporting Tibetan independence, and so the Tibetans are ignored just as the Basques, Kurds, and Acehnese are ignored.

 

[amoy]

We need to distinguish 'mistakes' or 'errors' (that could have been very serious though) on the way of exploration from 'intended crimes'.

When PRC came into being, CCP and Mao claimed to modernize China by means of 'Socialism'. But very honestly who knew what Socialism was like? In the works of Karl Marx or Engles there is lots of criticism of Capitalism but is there a physically viable way towards "Communism Paradise"??

So Soviet Union seemed a role model (centrally planned economy) at that time towards industrialization as it presented to the whole world. But unlike Russia Lenin or Stallin faced, China was basically a primitive agricultural country with barely any industrial base.

Tracts of lands were distributed to individual households. But most peasants were still poor without modern means of farming. Individual strength was so weak .. then they were organized to 'communes' so that peasants could have achieved infrastructures like road or irrigation projects, and farmed with shared cattles or machinery collectively...and schools and basic medicare. but after "reform" Deng abolished communes and redistributed to individuals in an attempt to motivate farmers...

Mao realized the peril of bureaucracy (CCP cadres degenerated into corrupt 'privileged class') and 'superstition' etc. thus launched Cultural Revolution ...

Those efforts may be called 'experiments' when virtually nobody had a clear view of "modernization".

 

[Ray]

Well, Ray, I am expecting you, as a professional soldier, to be better than general people.

Yes, Mao was responsible for the GLF and famine. But saying he intended to kill people is a pure lie. His mistake was his incapbaility of handling modern economy.
We can condemn his idealism which leaded to the death of millions of people. But we can say that his plan is to kill the people. That is one of differences between him and Stallin.

And also, according to the social/political environment and economic situation, you won't be suprise that he made that mistake. Without most of people's support, do you think he can carry on this?

Just as I said before: you always get the fact right but idea wrong. you may know the history, but you never understand why the history was like that.

I have broken down the Cultural Revolution into various phases for your perusal. It tries to explain the events as it unfolded.

It is obvious that Mao felt that he was losing control over the Party and the way his policy and ideals were not be sincerely addressed due to internal doubts over his guidance of the country. Of course, none could openly say so. Yet, it was obvious and his own wife aired her opinion.

The fact that Lin Biao, who had been chosen as Mao's successor and over a decade treated as the hero of the Chinese Revolution and then condemned as a 'renegade and traitor' is an indication that people like him did oppose Mao. The fact, that Deng was rehabilitated after having been sent to pasture, does indicate that Chou en Lai was not readily accepting Mao's line. However, Chou en Lai, having presented himself only a rung below Mao, could not be unseated.

Therefore, it was the instinct of self preservation and massive ego that caused the Cultural Revolution.

The roots of the Cultural Revolution date back to the early 1960s. After the catastrophic Great Leap Forward, in which more than 20 million people died, Chairman Mao Zedong decided to take a less active role in governing the country. More practical, moderate leaders, such as Vice-Chairman Liu Shaoqi and Premier Zhou Enlai, introduced economic reforms based on individual incentives—such as allowing families to farm their own plots of land—in an effort to revive the battered economy. Mao detested such policies, as they went against the principles of pure communism in which he so firmly believed. Nevertheless, China's economy grew strongly from 1962 to 1965 with the more conservative economic policies in place.

At the same time, Mao started to worry that local party officials were taking advantage of their positions to benefit themselves. Rather than resolving such cases internally to preserve the prestige of the CCP, Mao favoured open criticism and the involvement of the people to expose and punish the members of the ruling class who disagreed with him; he framed this as a genuine socialist campaign involving the central struggle of the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie.

Buildup to the Cultural Revolution

Overall, Mao began to fear that the CCP was becoming too bureaucratic and that Party officials and planners were abandoning their commitment to the values of communism and revolution.
Since the Great Leap Forward, he believed that he had been losing influence among his revolutionary comrades, and thus, the battle for China's soul.

Some members of the Communist leadership argued for a new campaign of radicalism to overcome what they perceived as the stagnation of the country. Mao's wife Jiang Qing and other officials argued that artistic and cultural works were beginning to criticize communism and should focus more on promoting a revolutionary spirit.

Lin Biao, the head of the national army (called the People's Liberation Army or PLA), was perhaps Mao's strongest ally. Lin organized hundreds of Mao's quotes into a book called Quotations from Chairman Mao, better known as the "Little Red Book." Lin required every soldier to read the book and emphasized adherence to the Party line and loyalty to CCP leaders in the Army. Mao praised the PLA as an example for the Chinese people, and Mao's status and image reached new heights when all Chinese began to study his book of quotations and memorize passages of the book; Mao became a prophet-figure in the minds of many Chinese.


The Beginning of the Cultural Revolution

When Jiang Qing and her allies complained in late 1965 that various cultural productions were openly criticizing the Communist leadership, Mao decided that China needed a new revolutionary movement. Beginning in May 1966, Jiang Qing's allies purged key figures in the cultural bureaucracy and criticized writers of articles seen as critical of Mao.

That same month, the top party official in Beijing University's Philosophy Department wrote a big character poster, or dazibao, attacking the administration of her university. Faculty at the country's other universities soon began to do the same, and radicals among faculty and students began to criticize Party members. This wave of criticisms spread swiftly to high schools in Beijing. Radical members of the leadership, such as Jiang Qing, distributed armbands to squads of students and declared them to be "'Red Guards—the front line of the new revolutionary upheaval." Mao endorsed the revolutionary discourse and the attacks on authority figures, whom he believed had grown complacent, bureaucratic, and anti-revolutionary. Local Red Guards attacked anyone whom they believed lacked revolutionary credentials, and then turned on those who simply failed to wholeheartedly support their efforts. In August 1966, the Central Committee issued a directive entitled the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (a.k.a. the Sixteen Points) in an effort to define the revolution's goals. Later that month, Mao began to greet huge parades of Red Guards holding aloft the "Little Red Book."

However, despite official directives and encouragement from the Party leadership, local forces were left to act according to their own definitions, and many of them ended up inflicting violence upon their communities and clashing with each other. Nobody wanted to be considered a "reactionary," but in the absence of official guidelines for identifying "true Communists," everyone became a target of abuse. People tried to protect themselves by attacking friends and even their own families. The result was a bewildering series of attacks and counterattacks, factional fighting, unpredictable violence, and the breakdown of authority throughout China.

Some believe that this chaotic, violent response stemmed from the two decades of repression that the Party had imposed on China. Two particularly effective methods by which the CCP controlled the Chinese population were assigning class labels to each person, and giving the boss of each work unit nearly unlimited control over and knowledge of the lives of all the workers accountable to him or her. As a result, freedom of expression was denied, people were totally dependent on their bosses and were obliged to sacrifice and remain completely obedient to the Chinese nation, and only Party members exercised direct influence over their own lives. Thus, to the youth of the day, the Cultural Revolution represented a release from all their shackles, frustrations, and feelings of powerlessness. It also gave them the freedom to enact revenge on those whom they believed exercised undue influence over them or whom they had been told were "class enemies."

Descent into Chaos

The chaos and violence increased in the autumn and winter of 1966, as schools and universities closed so that students could dedicate themselves to "revolutionary struggle." They were encouraged to destroy the "Four Olds"—old customs, old habits, old culture, and old thinking—and in the process damaged many of China's temples, valuable works of art, and buildings. They also began to verbally and physically attack authority figures in society, including their teachers, school administrators, Communist Party members, neighbours, and even their friends, relatives, and parents. At the same time, purges were carried out in the high ranks of the Communist Party.

On New Year's Day 1967, many newspapers urged coalitions of workers and peasants to overthrow the entire class of decision makers in the country. The Red Guards were instructed to treat the Cultural Revolution as a class struggle, in which "everything which does not fit the socialist system and proletarian dictatorship should be attacked." Radical revolutionary groups responded with fervour, attempting to gain control over local organizations. However, the end result was that local authorities and Party leaders were now dragged into the fighting that was quickly enveloping the rest of society. In the absence of coordination, rival "revolutionary units" fought Party leaders and each other, and the unending series of local power struggles multiplied even further.

Overall, the Red Guards and other groups of workers and peasants terrorized millions of Chinese during the 1966– 1968 period. Intellectuals were beaten, committed suicide, or died of their injuries or privation. Thousands were imprisoned, and millions sent to work in the countryside to "re-educate" themselves by labouring among the peasants.

The breakdown of order reached its peak in the summer of 1967: opposing worker and student factions clashed throughout the c o u ntry, with particularly intense violence in Beijing and Guangzhou, and massive fighting between local militant groups and the PLA in Wuhan led to the deaths of more than a thousand protesters. In perhaps the final straw, radicals assumed control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August 1967 and began to appoint their own radical diplomats to Chinese embassies around the world.

Return to Order

At this point, most party leaders, including Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, and Jiang Qing, agreed that the disorder was becoming too widespread to control and the country was in serious danger of falling into anarchy. They began to emphasize studying Mao's works rather than attacking class enemies, used workers' groups to control student groups, and generally championed the PLA while denouncing "ultra-left tendencies." Nevertheless, armed clashes continued until the summer of 1968, when Mao called on troops to quell an uprising at Qinghua University in Beijing. Five people were killed and 149 wounded in the confrontation, including workers who were shot by students. After this final gasp of violence, a semblance of order returned to the country: "Revolutionary Committees" consisting of representatives from the PLA, "the masses," and "correct" Communist Party cadres were established to decide on leadership positions and restore order.

Although its most chaotic phase had ended, the Cultural Revolution officially continued, and with it the unpredictable persecution of many Chinese. For example, the "Campaign to Purify Class Ranks," which lasted from late 1967 until 1969, attempted to rid the Party of those with "bad" class backgrounds. Its goal was to identify Communist Party cadres who had ties to the West or to landlords or rightists and subject them to psychological pressure in group sessions to confess their mistakes. Ironically, this led to the persecution of many of the most militant Red Guards: these were people who had tried to abandon their poor class background and prove their "Redness" by acting militantly during the Cultural Revolution. Despite their previous revolutionary fervor, they were now tortured and banished from the CCP.


Many Chinese accused of being counterrevolutionaries were sent to the countryside to engage in hard rural labour as a complement to their political indoctrination. They were urged to praise Mao and Lin Biao and to condemn Liu Shaoqi as a revisionist bourgeois. Their conditions were extremely basic, and many who were old or weak suffered from the demanding labour and lack of comforts.


Lin Biao's Downfall

In 1969, Lin Biao was named Mao's successor at the National Party Congress. The same year, Soviet troops clashed with Chinese troops on China's northern border, leading to widespread support of the PLA, which Lin Biao led. However, in 1970, Mao began to criticize some of Lin's top officers and changed the constitution so that Lin could not ascend to a higher post. Then, in late 1971, the CCP announced that Lin had attempted to assassinate Mao due to tried to flee China with his family in a plane, which crashed in Mongolia in September 1971, killing all on board. This story was impossible to prove, and many believe it was fabricated.

Nevertheless, the Party now painted Lin Biao as a "renegade and traitor" and condemned him as an enemy of the people. However, after revering Lin Biao as one of the country's greatest heroes for nearly a decade, the about-face caused many Chinese to doubt, perhaps for the first time, the honesty of the Communist Party and its leaders. Most historians believe that Mao felt threatened by Lin's growing power and popularity and began to worry that Lin would overthrow him. Thus, Mao eliminated Lin to consolidate his role as uncontested leader of the Party.


on September 9, 1976. The entire country entered an extended period of grief over Mao but did not protest as they had after Zhou's death. Hua Guofeng, the CCP's second-in-command, seized power and arrested the four remaining leaders of the Cultural Revolution, labelling them the "Gang of Four." They were accused of dozens of crimes, including masterminding most of the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution against Mao's wishes. They made handy scapegoats for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, leaving Mao's reputation officially unblemished. The arrest of the Gang of Four on October 6, 1976, is thus considered by many to mark the
end of the Cultural Revolution.

The reversal of the extreme policies of the Cultural Revolution continued in December 1978, when a conference of Party leaders declared victory in the struggle against Lin Biao and the Gang of Four and proclaimed that China could now progress to "socialist modernization," which in practice meant opening up to the West and transitioning to capitalism. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping became the undisputed leader of China. He led the country down a definitive
road toward capitalism, greater economic freedom, and stronger links with the outside world. The Cultural Revolution had ended, and in its place was something quite nearly its opposite:
p r a g m atism, interdependence, openness to outside influences, and capitalism. The CCP's monopoly on power and attempts to control the population remained, but the Cultural Revolution had severely damaged the CCP's legitimacy, and it would no longer enjoy the
trust and absolute power it had during that tumultuous 10-year period of modern Chinese history.

 

[Iamanidiot]

Chou-en Lai and Deng were greater leaders and perhaps the greatest leaders China had ever seen thats my opinion

 

[Ray]

Red Army and Rise of Mao

Although it is called the 'Long March', officially, it is the 'Long March of the Red Army'. The Long March most commonly refers to the transfer of the main group of the First (or Central) Red Army, which included the leaders of the Communist Party of China, from Yudu in the province of Jiangxi, to Yan'an in Shaanxi. In this sense, the Long March lasted from 16 October 1934 to 19 October 1935. In a broader view, the Long March included two other forces retreating under pressure from the Kuomintang: the Second Red Army and the Fourth Red Army. The retreat of all the Red Armies was not complete until 22 October 1936, when the three forces linked up in Shaanxi.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), founded in 1921 by Chen Duxiu with Soviet support, initially collaborated with the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT), founded by the revolutionary republican Sun Yat-sen. After the unexpected death of Sun in March 1925, a power struggle within the KMT favoured Chiang Kai-shek, whose Northern Expedition forces succeeded in wresting control of large areas of China from local warlords, establishing a unified government in Nanjing in April 1927. Unlike other nationalist leaders, like Wang Jingwei, Chiang was hostile to continued collaboration with the Communists. This initial period of cooperation to unify China against the feudal warlords and the Japanese Empire ended abruptly in April 1927 when Chiang Kai-shek struck out against the Communists. Unsuccessful urban insurrections (in Nanchang, Wuhan and Guangzhou) and the suppression of the Communist Party in Shanghai and other cities finally drove many party supporters to rural strongholds such as the Jiangxi Soviet organized by Mao Zedong. By 1928, deserters and defecting Kuomintang army units, supplemented by peasants from the Communist rural soviets, formed the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. The ideological confrontation between the CCP and the KMT soon evolved into the first phase of the Chinese Civil War.

By 1930, the Communist Red Army had established the Chinese Soviet Republic in the provinces of Jiangxi and Fujian around the city of Ruijin, including industrial facilities. Between 1930 and 1933, four attempts by Chiang to defeat the Communists were repelled by forces led by Mao. In spite of these successes, the Soviet Union and Comintern-influenced leaders of the party distrusted the ideas of Mao, who held that the rural Chinese peasants, not the urban proletariat, were the Communist party's base. In September 1933, the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek eventually completely encircled Jiangxi, with the advice and tactical assistance of his German adviser, Hans von Seeckt. A fortified perimeter was established by Chiang's forces, and Jiangxi was besieged in an attempt to destroy the Communist forces trapped within. In July 1934, the leaders of the party, dominated by the "Twenty-Eight Bolsheviks", a militant group formed in Moscow by Wang Ming and Bo Gu, forced Mao from the Politburo of the Communist Party in Ruijin and placed him briefly under house arrest. Mao was replaced by Zhou Enlai as leader of the military commission, and the Chinese Red Army was commanded by a three man military committee, including a German military advisor Otto Braun (called in Chinese, Li De, 李德), the Comintern military advisor Bo Gu, and Zhou. The committee abandoned Mao's tactics of mobile warfare against the Kuomintang forces. Direct engagements with the Nationalist army soon caused heavy casualties and loss of material and territory. Mao would later write of this period:
"By May 1928, basic principles of guerilla warfare, simple in nature and suited to the conditions of the time, had already been evolved...But beginning from January 1932...the old principles were no longer to be considered as regular, but were to be rejected as 'guerilla-ism'. The opposition to 'guerilla-ism' reigned for three whole years."

In August 1934, with the Red Army depleted by the prolonged conflict, a spy placed by Zhou Enlai in the KMT army headquarters in Nanchang brought news that Chiang Kai-shek was preparing a major offensive against the Communist capital, Ruijin. The Communist leadership decided on a strategic retreat to regroup with other Communist units, and to avoid annihilation. The original plan was to link up with the Second Red Army commanded by He Long, thought to be in Hubei to the west and north. Communications between divided groups of the Red Army had been disrupted by the Kuomintang campaign, and during the planning to evacuate Jiangxi, the First Red Army was unaware that these other Communist forces were also retreating westward.

Retreat and battles
The First Red Army

The first movements of the retreat were undertaken by forces led by Fang Zhimin, breaking through Kuomintang lines in June 1934. Although Fang Zhimin's troops were soon destroyed, these movements surprised the Kuomintang, who were numerically superior to the Communists at the time and did not expect an attack on their fortified perimeter.

The early troop movements were actually a diversion to allow the retreat of more important leaders from Jiangxi. On 16 October 1934, a force of 130,000 under Bo Gu and Li De attacked the line of Kuomintang positions near Yudu. More than 86,000 troops, 11,000 administrative personnel and thousands of civilian porters actually completed the breakout; the remainder, largely wounded or ill soldiers, continued to fight a delaying action after the main force had left, and then dispersed into the countryside. Several prominent members of the Chinese Soviet who remained behind were captured and executed by the Kuomintang after occupation of Ruijin in November 1934, including Qu Qiubai and the youngest brother of Mao Zedong, Mao Zetan.

Initially, the First Red Army, with its baggage of top communist officials, records, currency reserves and other trappings of the exiled Chinese Soviet Republic, fought through several lightly defended Kuomintang checkpoints, crossing the Xinfeng river and through the province of Guangdong, south of Hunan and into Guangxi. At the Xiang River, Chiang Kai-shek had reinforced the KMT defenses. In two days of bloody fighting, 30 November to 1 December 1934, the Red Army lost more than 40,000 troops and all of the civilian porters, and there were strongly-defended Nationalist defensive lines ahead. Personnel and material losses after the battle of the Xiang river affected the morale of the troops and desertions began. By 12 December 1934, during a meeting of Party leaders in Tongdao, discontent with Bo Gu and Otto Braun appeared and Mao Zedong began a more active role in the leadership.


The rise of Mao Zedong

Under these conditions, the Communists met in Zunyi in Guizhou province from January 15–17, 1935 to reshuffle the Party politburo. Although the failed leadership of Bo Gu and Li De was denounced, after three days Mao was not able to win the support of a sufficient number of Party leaders to gain outright power at the conference. Mao was passed over for the position of General Secretary by Zhang Wentian, but gained enough influence to be elected one of three members of Military Affairs Commission. The other two members, Zhou Enlai (appointed Director of the Commission) and Wang Jiaxiang, whose support Mao had enlisted earlier, were not as highly regarded in military affairs, leaving Mao in effective control of the First Red Army after the Zunyi conference.

When the army resumed its march northward, the direct route to Sichuan was blocked by Chiang's forces. Mao's forces spent the next several months manoeuvring to avoid direct confrontation with hostile forces, but still attempting to move north to join Zhang Guotao's Fourth Red Army. During this period, in February 1935, Mao's wife, He Zizhen, gave birth to a daughter. Given the harsh conditions of the retreat, the infant was left with a local family (Two Europeans retracing the Long March route in 2003 met a woman in rural Yunnan province, said by local officials to be Mao and He Zizhen's long-lost daughter.

 

[badguy2000]

The Qing maintained an intermittent military presence in Tibet throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. However, that is not the point. Tibet still maintained all the criteria of an independent nation, such as a tax system, native military, defined borders, etc.

Saying that Tibet was part of China during the Qing Dynasty is like saying Japan is part of USA today, because USA maintains a permanent military presence in Japan.

In the modern day, other countries recognize Tibet as part of China not because of historical reasons, but for the sake of having good relations with China. There is no geopolitical incentive in supporting Tibetan independence, and so the Tibetans are ignored just as the Basques, Kurds, and Acehnese are ignored.

well, in 1785, Qing emperor drafted one constitution of Tebet.

it regulated that Qing Emperor has the right to grant and discrown Dalai and Panchan.
It also regulated that Grand minister resident of Tibet had the same position and power as Dalai and Panchan.

In fact, several Dalai were discrowned by Qing Emperors,including Dalai XIII.
Dalai XIII was discrowned and expeled by Qing Emperors in early 20th century until Qing Empire collasped in 1911.

 

[amoy]

Panchen Lama and Dalai Lama were both propped up by Yuan Dynasty among many denominations in Tibet.

During Ming Dynasty Tibet was ruled by Mongolian Khans (Yuan Dynasty descendants) until Qing Dynasty replaced Ming.

Panchen and Dalai Lama, as 2 dominant forces in Tibet were political rivals actually. Panchen Lama was based in Xigaze while Dalai Lama in Lhasa. Panchen was expelled from Tibet by Dalai Lama at the early stage of Republic of China. Panchen had to exile in Qinghai under protection of Muslim warlords, and sought the central government's intervention (firstly based in Beijing then removed to Nanjing). But ROC was already in chaos at that time and stayed neutral. In general Panchen Lama was in favour of Tibet as part of a Grand China while Dalai Lama was pro independence.

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

When the Qing Dynasty replaced the Ming Dynasty in 1644, it further strengthened administration over Tibet. In 1653 and 1713, the Qing emperors granted honorific titles to the 5th Dalai Lama and the 5th Bainqen Lama, henceforth officially establishing the titles of the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni and their political and religious status in Tibet. The Dalai Lama ruled the bulk of areas from Lhasa while the Bainqen Erdeni ruled the remaining area of Tibet from Xigaze. In 1719, Qing government troops were sent into Tibet to dispel the Zungar forces which had been entrenched in Lhasa for three years, and set out to reform Tibet's administrative system. The Qing emperor made a young Living Buddha of the Xikang area the 7th Dalai Lama and had him escorted into Tibet, and appointed four Tibetan officials renowned for meritorious service "Galoins" to handle Tibet's political affairs. From 1727, High commissioners were stationed in Tibet to supervise local administration on behalf of the central authorities. Officials were also assigned about this time to survey and delimit the borders between Tibet (i.e. Xizang) and Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai.

In order to perfect Tibet's administrative organizations, the Qing Dynasty on many occasions enacted "regulations" to rectify and reform old systems and establish new ones. The Authorized Regulations for the Better Governing of Tibet, promulgated in 1793, had 29 articles. Their major purport was:

The Qing government holds the power to confirm the reincarnation of all deceased high Living Buddhas of Tibet including the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni. When the reincarnate boy has been found, his name will be written on a lot, which shall be put into a gold urn bestowed by the central government. The high commissioners will bring together appropriate high-ranking Living Buddhas to determine the authenticity of the reincarnate boy by drawing lots from the gold urn. (Both the gold urn and lots are still preserved in Lhasa.) The tonsure of the incarnate Living Buddha, his religious name, the choice of the master to initiate him into monkhood and his sutra instructor all have to be reported by the high commissioners to the imperial court for examination and approval. The central government will send high officials to supervise in person the installation ceremony for the new Dalai Lama and the new Bainqen Erdeni and also the ceremony for their taking over reins of government at coming of age.

The high commissioners will supervise the handling of Tibetan affairs on behalf of the central government, enjoying the equal standing with the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni. All the Galoins and those below them are subordinates.

The ranks and numbers of Tibetan civil and military officials, and procedures for their promotion and replacement are stipulated. The highest-Ranking Tibetan officials including four Galoins and six Deboins are to be appointed by the central government. The annual salaries of the Galoins and Deboins will be paid by the central government.



A regular army of 3,000 will be organized in Tibet. The regulations stipulate ranks and numbers of military officials, the source of troop pay and provisions, plus weaponry and places where troops are to be stationed. In addition, some 1,400 troops will be transferred from the interior to stations in various localities of Tibet. Both Tibetan and Han troops are put under the command of officers sent by the central government.

A mint will be set up in Tibet along the lines established by those in the interior to make official money for circulation. On the two sides of the silver coinage the words "Qianlong Treasure" will be cast in the Han Chinese and Tibetan.

The annual financial receipts and expenditures of the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni will be subject to checking by the high commissioners.

Tibet's taxation and corvee labor will be born by the whole society on an equal footing. Only those nobles and large monasteries who have made real contributions will enjoy preferential treatment and exemptions, but these must be examined and approved by the high commissioners and the Dalai Lama, who will issue them licences for this purpose.

Merchants from Nepal and Kashmir wanting to do business in Tibet must register. The registration book must be filed with the high commissioners for record. The appropriate officials will issue laissez-passers to them. Any foreigner applying to enter Lhasa must be examined for approval by the High Commissioner's Office. The high commissioners will issue laissez-passers to Tibetans who apply to go to Nepal or other places, and set the leaving and returning dates for them.

National boundary markers will be erected in a number of places where southwest Tibet borders on countries like India and Nepal. The high commissioners will make an annual tour in Tibet to inspect the defense arrangements of the troops stationed there and matters concerning border markers.

All foreign affairs involving Tibet will be left completely in the hands of the high commissioners. No Galoin is allowed to maintain correspondence with the outside, and all letters and alms received by the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni from the outside must be submitted to the high commissioners for censorship and decision concerning a reply.

Criminal punishment will be reported to the high commissioners for examination and approval.

Between 1727, when the high commissionership was first established, and 1911, the year the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, the central government of the Qing Dynasty stationed more than 100 high commissioners in Tibet.

Republic of China (1912-49)

In the autumn of 1911, revolution took place in China's interior, overthrowing the 270-year-old rule of the Qing Dynasty and establishing the Republic of China.

Upon its founding, the Republic of China declared itself a unified republic of the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui, Tibetan and other races. In his inauguration statement on January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen, the provisional first president of the Republic of China, declared to the whole world: "The foundation of the country lies in the people, and the unification of lands inhabited by the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui and Tibetan people into one country means the unification of the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui and Tibetan races. It is called national unification." The five-color flag used as the national flag at that time represented the unification of the five main races. In March the Nanjing-based provisional senate of the Republic of China promulgated the republic's first constitution, the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China, in which it was clearly stipulated that Tibet was a part of the territory of the Republic of China.

In order to form the first parliament of the Republic of China, the Beijing government promulgated on August 10, 1912 the Organic Law of the Parliament of the Republic of China and the law on elections for members of parliament. These statutes specified the methods for Tibetans to participate in elections, and the right of elected parliamentary members to have a direct say in government affairs. When the Chinese Kuomintang formed the national government in 1927 in Nanjing and held the national assembly in 1931, both the 13th Dalai Lama and the 9th Bainqen Erdeni sent representatives to participate. Article I of the General Outline of the Constitution for the Political Tutelage Period of the Republic of China, formulated during the assembly, stipulated that Tibet belonged to the territories of the Republic of China. The Tibetan local government and the Bainqen's administrative body, Kampus Assembly, also sent representatives to the national assembly in 1946 called by the Nanjing national government.

As in the previous Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the central government of the Republic of China exercised jurisdiction over Tibet. The Bureau of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs (renamed Mongolian and Tibetan Council in May 1914) was established by the central government in 1912 to replace the Qing Dynasty's Department in Charge of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. The bureau was responsible for Tibetan local affairs. The central government also appointed a representative to Tibet to carry out the responsibilities of the high commissioners stationed in Tibet by the Qing Dynasty. After the Nanjing national government was set up, a Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs was established in 1929 to handle the administrative affairs of the Tibetans, Mongolians and other ethnic minorities. In April 1940 the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs opened an office in Lhasa as the permanent mission of the central government in Tibet.

Traditionally, the Dalai Lama, the Bainqen Erdeni and other high Living Buddhas had to be recognized and appointed by the central government in order to secure their political and religious legal status in Tibet. Despite the fact that incessant foreign aggression and civil wars weakened the central government of the Republic of China, it continued to grant honorific titles to the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni. On many occasions the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni expressed their support for national unification and for the central government. In 1919, the 13th Dalai Lama told a delegation sent by the Beijing central government, "It is not my true intention to be on intimate terms with the British.... I swear to be loyal to our own country and jointly work for the happiness of the five races." In his later years (in 1930), he said, "My greatest wish is for the real peace and unification of China." "Since it is all Chinese territory, why distinguish between you and us?" He further elaborated, "The British truly intend to tempt me, but I know that our sovereignty must not be lost." He also publicly expressed his determination "not to affiliate with the British nor forsake the central government" (Liu Manqing: A Mission to Xikang and Tibet). The 9th Bainqen noted in his will, "The great plan I have promoted all my life is the support of the central government, the spread of Buddhism, the promotion of the unity of the five nationalities and the guarantee of national prosperity."

The death of the 13th Dalai Lama in December 1933 was reported to the central government by the Tibetan local government in the traditional manner. The national government sent a special envoy to Tibet for the memorial ceremony. It also approved the Living Buddha Razheng as the regent to assume the duties and power of the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan local government also followed the age-old system in reporting to the central government all the procedures that should be followed in search for the reincarnation of the late 13th Dalai Lama. The present 14th Dalai Lama was born in Qinghai Province. Originally named Lhamo Toinzhub, he was selected as one of the incarnate boys at the age of 2. After receiving a report submitted by the Tibetan local government in 1939, the central government ordered the Qinghai authorities to send troops to escort him to Lhasa. After an inspection tour in Lhasa by Wu Zhongxin, chief of the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, in 1940, Chiang Kai-shek, then head of the central government, approved Tibetan Regent Razheng's request to waive the lot-drawing convention, and the chairman of the national government issued an official decree conferring the title of the 14th Dalai Lama on Lhamo Toinzhub.

Excerpts

Bainqen = Panchen, Zungar = a Mongolian tribe

 

[panduranghari]

China LOVES to throw around its weight and this propensity to show off its new found status and power will only get bigger in coming years.

China's biggest problem is that US is firmly entrenched in Asia and the more the Chinese trouble their neighbours ,the American influence and footprint gets bigger.

India will not get the thick end of the Chinese stick maybe because we too have a thick stick. China will reserve its worst behaviour for Japan and ASEAN nations.

I do not think Beijings power will get any bigger. There is mathematical limit to what you can achieve under communist rule. Only if there is a new form of governance in China can there be a higher risk.

 

[panduranghari]

You better worry about the inevitable new Islamic invasion rather than anything else. Bush and Co have managed the masterpiece of releasing the monster from the pandora box that is the worldwide islamic awakening. India will bear the brunt of this force. This time the islam invaders are coming back with an vengence, their aim is to finish the job their ancestors started several centuries ago, namely complete islamization of India. It will be fun to watch.

No. Islam will die its death like Christianity. Evangelism is dead.

 

[panduranghari]

Uigurs tried that and failed badly. You need to realize that unlike India where hindu and muslims look alike and live side-by-side, Uigurs and Han look very different and live in areas which don't overlap, so it's very difficult for them to sneak upon us. Then muslims make up a tiny percentage of the population in China whereas they represent like one fifthh or sixth of India's total.

That itself will ensure there will be a carnage in China.

 

[J20!]

*yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn* Wake me up when you discuss something more realistic...

 

[LurkerBaba]

Threads merged. All discussions related to China's hegemonic ambitions to be discussed here