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The following article appeared on the website of the Chinese communist party’s official mouthpiece “People’s Daily Online” reiterating China’s official claim on Tibet under the title “Tell you a true Tibet Story”. Well its a nice story all right but to think that there is any truth in it at all would be ridiculous.It is actually an excerpt from a propoganda book published by the so called “information” office of the state council of the PRC titled “Tibet- its ownership and human rights situation”. If this is the best the Chinese can do then they really need to brush up on their imperialism.

First a brief backgrounder. Tibet was historically a mountainous nomad country tucked away towards the south-west frontier of China. There was little political contact between either country till the mid-13th century when they both came under Mongol domination and then after the disintegration of the Mongol empire into four different factions after the death of Mongke Khan the Eastern part of the Mongol Empire which included Mongolia proper, Sinkiang, Tibet, China proper, Manchuria and Korea came under the rule of Genghis Khan’s grandson Khubilai Khan.

Khubilai Khan at the time was engaged in a campaign against the deeply unpopular Southern Sung dynasty, the rightful rulers of China and in an effort to curry favour with the local Chinese he took a few Chinese titles and built the capital of Beijing.He even gave Chinese titles retrospectively to his Mongol ancestors and built Chinese style temples for them. This is nothing unique in the ancient world and happened all the time. The most famous example would be that of Alexander the great when he conquered Egypt in 332BC took Egyptian titles and declared himself as the son of the Egyptian god Amun to gain acceptance among the local populace and also built the capital city of Alexandria.

But even after all this currying of favour with the locals the relationship between the Han Chinese and the Mongols remained one of unease and mutual distrust and suspicion.The Yuan rulers maintained their own unique Mongol customs and kept the Hans at arms length.On their part the Hans never accepted them as legitimate rulers of China and continually rebelled against them and finally overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty in 1368 and replaced it with the native Han Ming dynasty which was in turn overthrown by the Manchus in 1644 who meted out the same discriminatory treatment towards the Hans and who also subsequently lost power in 1911.

The Chinese tactic currently is to rewrite history by projecting the Mongol Yuan dynasty and Manchu Qing dynasty as “Chinese Han” dynasties and claim all the territories which were once under them as Chinese for ever. one needs to be very alert to this kind of subterfuge since Khubilai Khan’s share of the Mongol empire was huge and also included Mongolia proper, Korea, Vietnam and some territories in south-east Asia besides China proper and the Chinese have shown a clear tendency to grab as much as possible of these territories depending on the prevailing military balance and political climate.The only reason Mongolia proper and Korea escaped the dragon’s embrace in the 20th century was because their independence was guaranteed by outside powers. And Vietnam gave a sound thrashing to the PLA goons in 1979. but that was not the case unfortunately with Tibet, inner Mongolia and Sinkiang who being in a twilight zone were considered low hanging fruit ripe for the taking and which was grabbed by the greedy Chinese imperialists rightaway. needless to say if for example Tibet had been under the protection of some outside superpower in 1949 it wouldn’t have attracted the Chinese invasion notwithstanding all the dubious claims. and for the record the Chinese haven’t renounced their claims on Mongolia proper, Korea, Vietnam or parts of South-east Asia. that would be put into motion the moment they think that the time is ripe for it.

Besides that there is the case of that eunuch Admiral Zheng He who undertook a series of voyages in the early 15th century to places such as south east asia, west coast of India, East Africa and west Asia. Needless to say these are some of the very areas that the Chinese today are targetting in their “String of pearls” strategy.

On the question of Tibet, it is clear that Tibet was subordinate to the rulers in Beijing only under the Mongol Yuan and Manchu Qing dynasties when China itself was colonised. Most scholars dispute the suggestion that Tibet was under any kind of subordinate rule under the native Han Ming dynasty which ruled China from 1368 to 1644. And the 20th century Chinese claim that the Ming “inherited the right to rule Tibet from the Yuan” holds no water since a) the Yuan dynasty was Mongol, b) it was never accepted by the Han Chinese of that time who rebelled against it almost continuosly and c) there is no sign of an official agreement between the defeated Mongol Yuan and the Ming transferring their overlordship rights over all that they had ruled till then to the Ming dynasty.

And in any case all evidence shows that the Ming were satisfied with ejecting the Mongols from China proper and were unable to assert control over several territories that the Mongols had dominated including Mongolia proper, Korea, Vietnam, Sinkiang and Tibet as can be seen clearly in this map in relation to this map under the preceding Mongol Yuan dynasty.

Another ridiculous claim is related to the events during the Tang dynasty. Chinese official propoganda claims the following.

By the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Tibetans and Hans had, through marriage between royal families and meetings leading to alliances, cemented political and kinship ties of unity and political friendship and formed close economic and cultural relations, laying a solid foundation for the ultimate founding of a unified nation.

In Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the statue of the Tang Princess Wen Cheng, who married the Tubo tsampo, king of Tibet, in 641, is still enshrined and worshiped in the Potala Palace.

What they don’t say infact is that the Tang princess Wen-Cheng was married to the Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo because the Tang had repeatedly lost many battles against them and by this act the Tang accepted the Tibetan control over the lucrative silk trade route and contracted an alliance with the Tibetans to secure their trade convoys. The marriage was a pact between two sovereign states and in no way means that the Tibetan and Chinese nations decided to become one as ridiculously claimed by Chinese propoganda. These two maps clearly show that Tibet was proudly independent of Tang rule during this period.

All available evidence therefore clearly proves the following

1. No native Chinese Han dynasty ever managed to dominate the Tibetan nation in the past whether it was the Hans, the Six dynasties, the Sui, the Tang, the five dynasties, the Sung or the Ming. infact the the first ones to ever do so would be the Chinese communists themselves in 1951 albeit under very dubious grounds.

2. The Tibetan nation surrendered to the Mongols in 1244 and remained part of the Mongol Empire till 1368 along with many of its neighbours including China proper. in other words both China and Tibet were colonies of the Mongol Empire during this period and for China, one colony to claim another as its own is akin to India claiming Burma as its own or vice versa since the British administered Burma from Delhi!

3. In the 17th century after China was colonised by the Manchus Tibet was again brought under their domination in 1720 as seen in this map. Once they were overthrown in 1911. Tibet once again regained its historic independence and remained independent until it was illegally annexed by Communist China in 1951.

In the background of all this it is absolutely necessary therefore that the International community realise the imperialist gameplan of the Communist Han Mafia in Beijing and make all attempts to crush it decisively. The first step in that is to rollback its acceptance of ridiculous Chinese territorial claims starting with revoking the recognition that Tibet, Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia are parts of China. And also put pressure on Beijing to formally renounce for all time to come its unjustifiable claims on other foreign countries. Not doing so now could jeopardise the future of many more countries to its periphery. And India on its part should not give up its claim that the McMahon line is the legitimate border between India and Tibet and also actively seek the return of Aksai Chin and other illegally occupied territories.