Spring in Tibet is a season of life and renewal. The long-stretched Lhasa Valley suddenly takes on a fresh green hue, and in April daytime temperatures can rise above 20 degrees Celsius. Yet with the spring winds come bitter memories from a not-so-distant past. This year marks 75 years since Tibet was officially incorporated into the People’s Republic of China.
The agreement was signed by Chinese and Tibetan representatives during a ceremony in Beijing in May 1951 (see image). The Dalai Lama later claimed that the Tibetans had been subjected to intense pressure and were in reality forced to sign.
“As soon as the first meeting began, the senior Chinese representative presented a draft of a fully prepared agreement consisting of ten articles,” the Dalai Lama writes in his book My Land and My People (1962). According to him, the draft was discussed for several days, while the Tibetan envoys insisted that Tibet was an independent state.
According to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans presented historical documents to support their case, but the Chinese side refused to accept them. The Chinese eventually produced a revised agreement with seventeen articles. This was presented as an ultimatum, without giving the Tibetans any opportunity to propose changes. The atmosphere ultimately became extremely tense.
“Our delegates were subjected to insults and abuse and threatened with personal violence,” the Dalai Lama adds. In addition, Tibet was threatened with new military measures.
When the communists seized power in China in October 1949, Mao was firmly determined to incorporate Tibet into the new people’s republic. But during the first year he focused on consolidating his power. The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950 also demanded much of his attention. Only on 7 October that same year did he send the first troops into Tibet. The news did not reach the capital, Lhasa, until ten days later.
“When the government received the disastrous news, it summoned the country’s most famous oracles,” wrote the Austrian Heinrich Harrer, who was then living in Lhasa. “In Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s summer residence, dramatic scenes unfolded. The old abbots and ministers pleaded with the oracles for help in this grave hour.”
The séance reached its dramatic climax when the state oracle threw himself before the young Dalai Lama and said: “Make him king!” The Dalai Lama was only sixteen years old and had not yet been formally installed as Tibet’s leader. As sincere believers, the Tibetans could not ignore “the voice of the gods.” Preparations for the boy’s enthronement thus began.
The solemn ceremony started on 17 November, but due to new ominous reports from the frontier, the festivities lasted only three days. The event nevertheless rekindled hope for many. “The young ruler stood above all factionalism and had already given ample proof of his vision and resolve,” Harrer wrote.
The enthronement, however, proved futile. In the following weeks, Mao’s soldiers advanced ever deeper into Tibet. Along the way they encountered scattered resistance, but not enough to halt their progress. The Dalai Lama and his advisers soon regarded the situation as so grave that they decided to leave Lhasa and seek refuge farther south, near the Indian border.
At that very moment, as the winter cold began to bite, the Tibetans were invited to the negotiating table. The Tibetan government proposed that the talks be held in Lhasa, or possibly Chamdo in eastern Tibet, but the other side found it more “practical” to meet in Beijing. And so it was. Led by the aristocrat Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, the five Tibetan envoys traveled the long road to Mao’s stronghold, where they were received with flowers, flattery, and lavish banquets.
The delegation had been given a limited mandate by the government in Lhasa. It was not to negotiate Tibet’s independence, much less conclude an agreement stating that Tibet was part of China. Its primary task was to negotiate a Chinese military withdrawal and other issues relating to relations between the parties.
For a long time, the Tibetans had regarded their mountain realm as independent. It had its own postal and monetary systems, its own flag, and a functioning government. In Lhasa, China’s presence was limited to a small number of representatives. But Tibet was not a member of the United Nations, nor was it officially recognized by any other country. The government in Lhasa had traditionally pursued an isolationist policy and had made little effort to gain recognition from others.
This was the starting point for the negotiations in Beijing. China’s delegation quickly made it clear that it regarded Tibet as part of China, and that it was futile to argue otherwise. For days and weeks, the Tibetan envoys were subjected to heavy pressure. They were isolated in an official guesthouse, and as the days passed, they were cut off from consulting the government in Lhasa.
Radio communication was difficult in any case. Without the possibility of obtaining instructions, the delegation found itself alone, caught between its formal responsibility and an overwhelming political reality.
Now cracks began to appear within the delegation. Ngabo Ngawang Jigme believed there was only one course of action: to sign the Chinese draft agreement. The four others wavered between doubt and conviction. In the end, after much anguish, the Tibetans signed the agreement on 23 May 1951. Officially, it was titled Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet.
The key point was that Tibet would “return to the motherland.” Nevertheless, the Tibetans were to be allowed to govern themselves, and the status and role of the Dalai Lama were to remain unchanged. The agreement also promised religious freedom, and monastic life was to continue as before. Any social and economic reforms were to be introduced gradually and in consultation with the Tibetans. However, Chinese forces would henceforth be stationed in Tibet, and foreign policy would be determined in Beijing.
In retrospect, much discussion has surrounded the Tibetan seal affixed to the document. According to the Dalai Lama, the delegation had not brought any official seal to Beijing. The Chinese side therefore produced a new one to give the agreement an appearance of legitimacy. This was later used as evidence that the agreement had not only been signed under pressure, but also manipulated.
The Dalai Lama was shocked when he finally heard about it.
“It was Ngabo who announced the agreement in a broadcast from Radio Beijing. We were stunned by the mixture of communist clichés, self-glorifying claims, and categorical statements that were only partly true. And the terms were far worse than anything we had imagined.”
When the delegation returned to Lhasa, it was bombarded with questions. Ngabo said he was willing to accept the death penalty if the Tibetan administration concluded that he had acted wrongly, writes the historian Tsering Shakya in his comprehensive work The Dragon in the Land of Snows (1999). Both the government and the National Assembly felt betrayed, but both realized that the battle had been lost—and the agreement was ratified.
As a sign of the political shift, a Chinese general was stationed in Lhasa, and in September the main Chinese force marched into the city to the sound of blaring horns. The influx of Chinese civilian and military personnel placed a heavy burden on the fragile local economy. The newcomers had brought no food and initially sought to “borrow” 2,000 tons of barley. Later they demanded even more, and prices for grain, butter, and other goods rose to unreal levels.
“Then another general arrived, and a further eight to ten thousand troops appeared,” the Dalai Lama writes. “For the first time in living memory, the people of Lhasa were driven to the brink of famine.”
But by then there was no turning back. In the years that followed, China tightened its grip in all spheres, and the promises in the agreement evaporated as quickly as the morning mist in the Lhasa Valley. While the Dalai Lama grew increasingly helpless, Ngabo Ngawang Jigme was rewarded with high positions in the Chinese-dominated administration. Eventually, he also became a leading figure within the Communist Party in Tibet. He died in 2009, leaving behind several writings in which he defended his actions.
Several years after the agreement was signed, in 1959, Tibetan discontent culminated in an uprising in Lhasa. Fearing arrest by the Chinese authorities, the Dalai Lama fled the city and headed for India. A small group of aides accompanied him on the dramatic escape. In the following weeks and months, tens of thousands of Tibetans crossed the borders into India, Nepal, and Bhutan.
Today, between 120,000 and 150,000 Tibetans live in exile, including the Dalai Lama. In July he will turn 91. With a twinkle in his eye, he says he hopes to live to be a hundred or more—not out of vanity, but because he still has so much left to do.
