The first Europeans to arrive in Tibet were Portuguese missionaries who first

arrived in 1624 led by António de Andrade. They were welcomed by the Tibetans who
allowed them to build a church. The 18th century brought more Jesuits and Capuchins
from Europe. They gradually met opposition from Tibetan lamas who finally expelled
them from Tibet in 1745. Other visitors included, in 1774 a Scottish nobleman,
George Bogle, who came to Shigatse to investigate trade for the British East India
Company, introducing the first potatoes into Tibet.[99] After 1792 Tibet, under
Chinese influence, closed its borders to Europeans and during the 19th century only
3 Westerners, the Englishman Thomas Manning and 2 French missionaries Huc and
Gabet, reached Lhasa, although a number were able to travel in the Tibetan
periphery.

During the 19th century the British Empire was encroaching from northern India into
the Himalayas and Afghanistan and the Russian Empire of the tsars was expanding
south into Central Asia. Each power became suspicious of intent in Tibet. But Tibet
attracted the attention of many explorers. In 1840, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma arrived in
Darjeeling, hoping that he would be able to trace the origin of the Magyar ethnic
group, but died before he was able to enter Tibet. In 1865 Great Britain secretly
began mapping Tibet. Trained Indian surveyor-spies disguised as pilgrims or
traders, called pundits, counted their strides on their travels across Tibet and
took readings at night. Nain Singh, the most famous, measured the longitude,
latitude and altitude of Lhasa and traced the Yarlung Tsangpo River.

British expedition to Tibet

Main articles: British expedition to Tibet and Chinese expedition to Tibet (1910)

The 13th Dalai Lama in 1910

At the beginning of the 20th century the British and Russian Empires were competing
for supremacy in Central Asia. Unable to establish diplomatic contacts with the
Tibetan government, and concerned about reports of their dealings with Russia, in
1903–04, a British expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband was sent to Lhasa
to force a trading agreement and to prevent Tibetans from establishing a
relationship with the Russians. In response, the Qing foreign ministry asserted
that China was sovereign over Tibet, the first clear statement of such a claim.
[100] Before the British expedition arrived in Lhasa, the 13th Dalai Lama fled to
Outer Mongolia, and then went to Beijing in 1908.

The British expedition was one of the triggers for the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion at
Batang monastery, when anti-foreign Tibetan lamas massacred French missionaries,
Manchu and Han Qing officials, and Christian converts before Qing forces crushed
the revolt.[101][102]

The Anglo-Tibetan Treaty of Lhasa of 1904 was followed by the Sino-British treaty
of 1906. Beijing agreed to pay London 2.5 million rupees which Lhasa was forced to
agree upon in the Anglo-Tibetan treaty of 1904.[103] In 1907, Britain and Russia
agreed that in "conformity with the admitted principle of the suzerainty of China
over Tibet"[104] both nations "engage not to enter into negotiations with Tibet
except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government."[104]

The Qing government in Beijing then appointed Zhao Erfeng, the Governor of Xining,
"Army Commander of Tibet" to reintegrate Tibet into China. He was sent in 1905
(though other sources say this occurred in 1908)[105] on a punitive expedition. His
troops destroyed a number of monasteries in Kham and Amdo, and a process of
sinification of the region was begun.[106][107] The Dalai Lama once again fled,
this time to India, and was once again deposed by the Chinese.[108] The situation
was soon to change, however, as, after the fall of the Qing dynasty in October
1911, Zhao's soldiers mutinied and beheaded him.[109][110] All remaining Qing
forces left Tibet after the Xinhai Lhasa turmoil.
De facto independence (1912–1951)
Main article: Tibet (1912–1951)

Tibetan passport 1947/1948 – issued to Tsepon Shakabpa, then Chief of the Finance
Department of the Government of Tibet
The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet from India in July 1912 (after the fall of the
Qing dynasty), and expelled the Amban and all Chinese troops.[111] In 1913, the
Dalai Lama issued a proclamation that stated that the relationship between the
Chinese emperor and Tibet "had been that of patron and priest and had not been
based on the subordination of one to the other."[112] "We are a small, religious,
and independent nation", the proclamation continued.[112]

For the next thirty-six years, Tibet enjoyed de facto independence while China
endured its Warlord era, civil war, and World War II. Some Chinese sources argue
that Tibet was part of China throughout this period.[113] A book published in 1939
by a Swedish sinologist and linguist about the war in China placed Tibet as part of
China. The Chinese government in the 1930s tried to claim superiority.[114] The USA
also recognised Tibet as a province of China during this time as seen in the
documentary film Why We Fight #6 The Battle of China produced by the USA War
Department in 1944.[115] Some other authors argue that Tibet was also de jure
independent after Tibet-Mongolia Treaty of 1913, before which Mongolia has been
recognized by Russia.[116]

Tibet continued in 1913–1949 to have very limited contacts with the rest of the
world, although British representatives were stationed in Gyantse, Yatung and
Gartok (western Tibet) after the Younghusband Mission. These so-called "Trade
Agents" were in effect diplomatic representatives of the British Government of
India and in 1936–37 the British also established a permanent mission in Lhasa.
This was in response to a Chinese "condolence mission' sent to the Tibetan capital
after the demise of the 13th Dalai Lama which remained in Lhasa as, in effect, a
Republican Chinese diplomatic post. After 1947 the British mission was transferred
to the newly independent Indian government control although the last British
representative, Hugh Richardson remained in Lhasa until 1950 serving the Indian
government. The British, like the Chinese, encouraged the Tibetans to keep
foreigners out of Tibet and no foreigners visited Lhasa between the departure of
the Younghusband mission in 1904 and the arrival of a telegraph officer in 1920.
[117] Just over 90 European and Japanese visited Lhasa during the years 1920–1950,
most of whom were British diplomatic personnel.[118] Very few governments did
anything resembling a normal diplomatic recognition of Tibet.[citation needed] In
1914 the Tibetan government signed the Simla Accord with Britain, ceding the
several small areas on the southern side of the Himalayan watershed to British
India. The Chinese government denounced the agreement as illegal.[119][120]

In 1932, the National Revolutionary Army, composed of Muslim and Han soldiers, led
by Ma Bufang and Liu Wenhui defeated the Tibetan army in the Sino-Tibetan War when
the 13th Dalai Lama tried to seize territory in Qinghai and Xikang. It was also
reported that the central government of China encouraged the attack, hoping to
solve the "Tibet situation", because the Japanese had just seized Manchuria. They
warned the Tibetans not to dare cross the Jinsha river again.[121] A truce was
signed, ending the fighting.[122][123] The Dalai Lama had cabled the British in
India for help when his armies were defeated, and started demoting his Generals who
had surrendered.[124]

People's Republic of China's rule (1950–present)

Main article: History of Tibet (1950–present)

"Police Attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects." A trilingual

(Tibetan–Chinese–English) sign above the entrance to a small cafe in Nyalam, Tibet,
1993.
In 1949, seeing that the Chinese Communists, with the decisive support from Joseph
Stalin, were gaining control of China, the Kashag expelled all Chinese who were
connected with the Chinese government, triggering protests by both the Kuomintang
and the Communists.[125] The People's Republic of China (PRC), founded in October
1949 by the victorious Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong, lost little
time in asserting a new Chinese presence in Tibet. In October 1950, the People's
Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of Chamdo, defeating sporadic resistance
from the Tibetan army. In 1951, Tibetan representatives participated in
negotiations in Beijing with the Chinese government. This resulted in a Seventeen
Point Agreement which formalized China's sovereignty over Tibet, but was repudiated
by the present Tibetan government-in-exile.[126]

From the beginning, it was obvious that incorporating Tibet into Communist China
would bring two opposite social systems face-to-face.[127] In Tibet, however, the
Chinese Communists opted not to place social reform as an immediate priority. On
the contrary, from 1951 to 1959, traditional Tibetan society with its lords and
manorial estates continued to function unchanged.[127] Despite the presence of
twenty thousand Chinese soldiers in Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama's government was
permitted to maintain important symbols from its de facto independence period.[127]

The Communists quickly abolished slavery and serfdom in their traditional forms.
They also claim[clarification needed] to have reduced taxes, unemployment, and
beggary, and to have started work projects.[citation needed] They established
secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries, and
they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.[128][verification
needed]

The Tibetan region of Eastern Kham, previously Xikang province, was incorporated in
the province of Sichuan. Western Kham was put under the Chamdo Military Committee.
In these areas, land reform was implemented. This involved communist agitators
designating "landlords"—sometimes arbitrarily chosen—for public humiliation in
thamzing (Wylie: ‘thab-‘dzing, Lhasa dialect: [tʰʌ́msiŋ]) or "Struggle Sessions",
torture, maiming, and even death.[129][130]

Tanggula railway station, located at 5,068 m (16,627 ft), is the highest station in
the world.
By 1956 there was unrest in eastern Kham and Amdo, where land reform had been
implemented in full. These rebellions eventually spread into western Kham and Ü-
Tsang.

In 1956–57, armed Tibetan guerrillas ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples

Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and
several airlifts.[131] Meanwhile, in the United States, the American Society for a
Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan
resistance, with the Dalai Lama's eldest brother, Thubten Norbu, playing an active
role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup,
established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later
upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into
Tibet.[132]

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs
of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never
heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most
likely captured and killed.[133] Ginsburg and Mathos reached the conclusion, that
"As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of
the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both
when it first began and as it progressed."[134] According to other data, many
thousands of common Tibetans participated in the rebellion.[116] Declassified
Soviet archives provides data that Chinese communists, who received a great
assistance in military equipment from the USSR, broadly used Soviet aircraft for
bombing monasteries and other punitive operations in Tibet.[116]

In 1959, China's military crackdown on rebels in Kham and Amdo led to the "Lhasa
Uprising." Full-scale resistance spread throughout Tibet. Fearing capture of the
Dalai Lama, unarmed Tibetans surrounded his residence, and the Dalai Lama fled to
India.[135][136]

The period from 1959 to 1962 was marked by extensive starvation during the Great
Chinese Famine brought about by drought and by the Chinese policies of the Great
Leap Forward which affected all of China and not only Tibet. The Tenth Panchen Lama
was a keen observer of Tibet during this period and penned the 70,000 Character
Petition to detail the sufferings of the Tibetans and sent it to Zhou Enlai in May
1962.

In 1962, China and India fought a brief war over the disputed Aksai Chin region.
Although China won the war, Chinese troops withdrew north of the McMahon Line.[120]

Military crackdown in Ngaba after 2008 Tibetan unrest

In 1965, the area that had been under the control of the Dalai Lama's government
from the 1910s to 1959 (Ü-Tsang and western Kham) was renamed the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR). Autonomy provided that the head of government would be an ethnic
Tibetan; however, actual power in the TAR is held by the First Secretary of the
Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, who has never
been a Tibetan.[137] The role of ethnic Tibetans in the higher levels of the TAR
Communist Party remains very limited.[138]

The destruction of most of Tibet's more than 6,000 monasteries occurred between
1959 and 1961 by the Chinese Communist Party.[139] During the mid-1960s, the
monastic estates were broken up and secular education introduced. During the
Cultural Revolution. Red Guards[140] inflicted a campaign of organized vandalism
against cultural sites in the entire PRC, including Tibet's Buddhist heritage.[141]

When General Secretary Hu Yaobang visited Tibet in 1980 and 1982, he disagreed with
what he viewed as heavy-handedness.[142]: 240 Hu reduced the number of Han party
cadre, and relaxed social controls.[142]: 240

In 1989, the Panchen Lama died of a massive heart attack at the age of 50.[143]

The PRC continues to portray its rule over Tibet as an unalloyed improvement, but
as some foreign governments continue to make protests about aspects of PRC rule in
Tibet as groups such as Human Rights Watch report alleged human rights violations.
Most governments, however, recognize the PRC's sovereignty over Tibet today, and
none have recognized the Government of Tibet in Exile in India.

Riots flared up again in 2008. Many ethnic Hans and Huis were attacked in the riot,
their shops vandalized or burned. The Chinese government reacted swiftly, imposing
curfews and strictly limiting access to Tibetan areas. The international response
was likewise immediate and robust, with some leaders condemning the crackdown and
large protests and some in support of China's actions.

In 2018, German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz reverted an advertisement and

apologized for 'hurting feelings' of Chinese people by quoting the Dalai Lama.[144]
[145]

Since 2009, at least 160 Tibetans, including monks, nuns, and ordinary people, have
self-immolated to protest Chinese policies in Tibet.[146][147][148]