Integrity Score 390
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The Snow Lion and the British Lion continues.....
In the period between 1914 and 1947, the major developments in Tibet included renewed fighting between the Chinese and the Tibetans in Kham, and the Tibetan government troops put in great effort to recapture the areas taken by Zhao Erfeng. Finally after many battles and a heavy toll of casualties, including three of their best generals, the Tibetans managed to push the Chinese out of Kham. They retook Chamdo, the Chinese HQ in Kham with the active participation of the Khampa population, many of whom operated behind the Chinese forward battle lines. Eventually the Chinese surrendered, and the Tibetans decided that it would be safer to send these surrendered Chinese back via India rather than back to Sichuan via Kham.
The Tibetan troops pressed on south-eastwards and had almost reached the borders of China’s Yunnan province with the intention of re-capturing Dartsedo, the important objective in the Tibetan-inhabited area. China then, in 1918, appealed to the British for help in negotiating a treaty to at least temporarily settle a border between China and Tibet in this area.
Another major development was the new Nationalist Chinese government’s decision in 1928, a year after its establishment in Nanjing, to form the new provinces of Sikang, which included large parts of Kham, and of Qinghai, incorporating large parts of Amdo.
These were officially declared to be parts of China, even though the Chinese government was unable to assume administrative control over them, due to the power of the local Chinese warlords.
The British in India had no direct involvement in this, but this led eventually to the PRC’s 1965 formalization of these administrative areas, outside the Tibet Autonomous Region. Indirectly, though, McMahon’s ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer Tibet proposals could have precipitated the Chinese thought process.
To be continued....