tibet

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This article is on Historic Tibet. "Tibet" can also refer to the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Tibet (Tibetan : བོད་, (Bod) pronounced P, Chinese: 西藏, pinyin: Xīzng) is a region of Central Asia and the home of the Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900 m (16,000 ft), it is often called the "Roof of the World". When Tibetans and the Tibetan government in exile refer to Tibet, they mean a large area that formed historic Tibet for many centuries, which consists of the traditional provinces of Amdo, Kham, and U-Tsang. When the Chinese government and most other governments refer to Tibet, they mean the "Tibet Autonomous Region" or TAR. The TAR covers the former U-Tsang province and western Kham, and other traditionally Tibetan areas have been incorporated into present-day Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Yunnan, and Sichuan; the government of the PRC also claims for the TAR most of the territory of Indian-administered Arunachal Pradesh, a claim which is not acknowledged by the Government of Tibet in Exile. Since 1959 the former government of Tibet, led by the 14th Dalai Lama has maintained a government in exile in northern India which claims sovereignty over Tibet, with borders which they have defined as the entirety of what they term "historic Tibet". Lhasa is the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region and is the traditional capital of Tibet. Other cities in Greater Tibet include Shigatse, Gyangtse, Qamdo, Jyekundo, Dartsedo, Golmud, Lhatse, Maqin, Pelbar, Sakya, Tingri.

Naming

The name Tibet is derived from the Sanskrit word Trivistapa which means "heaven." Tibetans called their homeland Bod. They called their homeland a fatherland and not a motherland as in the case of India. The Chinese name for Tibet, 西藏, Xīzng, is a phonetic transliteration derived from U-Tsang and has been in use since the 18th century. The Chinese character (藏, zng) is also used to describe Tibetan things such as the Tibetan language (藏文, zng wn) and the Tibetan people (藏族, zng z). The two characters of Xīzng can literally mean "western storehouse," which many Tibetans find offensive. However, the offending character, "zng", can also mean "treasure", or "Buddhist scripture". In addition, Chinese transliterations of non-Chinese names do not necessarily take into account the literal meanings of words; usually a positive or neutral connotation combined with phonetic similarity is enough for the transliteration to come into use.

History

Main articles: History of Tibet and Foreign relations of Tibet Little is known of Tibet before the 7th century when Buddhism was introduced by missionaries from India, though the Tibetan language has some similarities to Chinese and Burmese. According to legend, Tibetans are descended from the union of a monkey and an ogress. The monkey was an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara (Charan Ji in Tibetan), the Buddha of compassion, and the ogress was strong willed, driven by sexual forces, and animal. From their union, six offspring were born who were without tails and walked upright. Avalokiteshvara continued to take an interest in the spiritual development of the country because the early Tibetans were too primitive to be able to understand or adopt Buddhism. However, he decided to work behind the scenes to help them reach a level of maturity that would allow them to become Buddhist. Tibet was a strong kingdom between the 7th and 10th centuries. The distinctive form of Tibetan society, in which land was divided into three different types of holding - estates held by noble families, freeholding lands and estates of monasteries of particular Tibetan Buddhists sects - arose after the weakening of the Tibetan kings in the 10th century. This form of society was to continue into the 1950s, at which time more than 700,000 of the country's 1.25 million population were landed peasants. In the 13th century Tibet was conquered by Genghis Khan, who ruled Tibet through a local puppet government. The Mongol rulers granted secular leadership of Tibet to lineages of high lamas. There followed an interregnum period in which there were three secular dynasties. The Mongols again invaded and placed the last religious lineage, that of the Dalai Lamas, in the government starting in the early 16th century. By the early 18th century China established the right to have resident commissioners, called Ambans, in Lhasa. When the Tibetans rebelled against the Chinese in 1750 and killed the Ambans, a Chinese army entered the country and installed new Ambans, but the Tibetan government continued to manage day-to-day affairs as before. In 1904 the British sent an Indian military force and seized Lhasa, forcing Tibet to open its border with British India. A 1906 treaty with China repeated these conditions, making Tibet a de facto British protectorate. There was also a Nepalese presence in Lhasa remaining from a similar invasion by Nepal in 1855. After 1907, a treaty between Britain, China, and Russia recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The Chinese established direct rule for the first time in 1910. It was not to last long, however, as Chinese troops had to withdraw to their homeland to fight in the 1911 Revolution, giving the Dalai Lama the opportunity to re-establish his power. In 1913, Tibet and Mongolia signed a treaty proclaiming their independence from China, and their mutual recognition. The subsequent outbreak of World War I and civil war in China caused both Western powers and China to lose interest in Tibet, and the 13th Dalai Lama ruled undisturbed. At this time, the government of Tibet controlled all of U-Tsang and western Kham, roughly coincident with the borders of Tibet Autonomous Region today. Eastern Kham was under the control of Chinese warlord Liu Wenhui, while Amdo was controlled by ethnic Hui warlord Ma Bufang. Neither the Nationalist government of the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China have ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet. In 1950 the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet against little resistance. In 1951 the Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, a treaty signed under military pressure by representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, provided for rule by a joint Chinese-Tibetan authority; most of the population of Tibet at the time were peasants working lands owned by the estate holders and any attempt at land reform or the redistribution of wealth would have proved unpopular with the government. This agreement was successfully put into effect in Tibet proper initially. However, Eastern Kham and Amdo were outside the administration of the government of Tibet, and were thus treated like any other Chinese province, with land reform implemented in full; as a result, in June 1956 rebellion broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham. An armed Tibetan rebellion supported by the CIA broke out which eventually spread to Lhasa. The rebellion was crushed by 1959, during which campaign tens of thousands of people were killed, and the Dalai Lama fled to India (with isolated resistance continuing in Tibet until 1969). The Panchen Lama was set up as a figurehead in Lhasa. In 1965 the area that had been under the control of the Dalai Lama's government from the 1910s to 1959 (U-Tsang and western Kham) was set up as an Autonomous Region. The monastic estates were broken up and secular education introduced. During the Cultural Revolution there was a campaign of organized vandalism against Tibet's Buddhist heritage in the same fashion as Red Guard destruction of Chinese cultural heritage sites throughout China. Of the many thousands of monasteries in Tibet, less than a handful remained unscathed. The figure of 1.2 million is often quoted as the number of military and civilian Tibetans that have died as the result famine, mistreatment, and combat situations in the invasion and occupation of Tibet. This number has its origin in the report of a commission established by the exile community in Dharamsala which is based on reports of refugees. According to Patrick French, a supporter of the Tibetan cause, who was able to view the data and calculations, this number is not reliable as, to put it simply, the Tibetans were not able to process the data well enough to produce a credible total. However, there were many casualties, perhaps as many as 500,000. This figure is extrapolated from a calculation Warren W. Smith made from Chinese census reports which show 200,000 "missing" from Tibet proper (it is assumed that there were similar casualties in Amdo and Kham). Even The Black Book of Communism expresses doubt at the 1.2 million figure, but does note that according to Chinese census there was a population of 2.8 million in 1953, but only 2.5 million in 1964 in Tibet proper. It is reported that when the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yaobang visited Lhasa in 1980 he cried in shame when he viewed the misery and described the situation as "colonialism pure and simple". Reforms were instituted. Since then Chinese policy in Tibet has veered between moderation and repression. Most religious freedoms have been officially restored, but monks and nuns are still sometimes imprisoned, and thousands of able-bodied Tibetans continue to flee Tibet yearly.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Tibet Tibet is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest region. Most of the Himalaya mountain range lies within Tibet; Mount Everest is on Nepal's border with Tibet. The atmosphere is severely dry nine months of the year. Western passes receive small amounts of fresh snow each year but remain traversable year round. Low temperatures are prevalent throughout these western regions, where bleak desolation is unrelieved by any vegetation beyond the size of low bushes, and where wind sweeps unchecked across vast expanses of arid plain. The Indian monsoon exerts some influence on eastern Tibet. Northern Tibet is subject to high temperatures in summer and intense cold in winter. Historic Tibet consists of several regions:

Amdo (a'mdo) in northeast → incorporated by China into the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan
Kham (khams) in east → part of Sichuan, northern Yunnan and part of Qinghai

Western Kham → part of Tibetan Autonomous Region

U (dbus) in center → part of Tibetan Autonomous Region
Tsang (gtsang) in west → part of Tibetan Autonomous Region

Tibetan cultural influences extend to the neighboring states of Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, Ladakh, and adjacent provinces of China where Tibetan Buddhism is the predominant religion. Several majors rivers have their source in Tibet, including:

Economy

The Tibetan economy is dominated by subsistence agriculture. Due to limited arable land, livestock raising is the primary occupation. In recent years, tourism has become an increasingly important sector, and is actively promoted by the authorities. The Qinghai-Tibet Railroad is being built to link the region with China proper.

Demographics

Historically, the population of Tibet consisted of primarily ethnic Tibetans. Other ethnic groups in Tibet include Menba, Lhoba, Mongols and Hui. The issue of the proportion of the Han Chinese population in Tibet is a politically sensitive one. Between the 1960s and 1980s, many prisoners (over 1 million, according to Harry Wu) were sent to laogai camps in Amdo (Qinghai), where they were then employed locally after release. Since the 1980s, increasing economic liberalization and internal mobility has also resulted in the influx of many Han Chinese into Tibet for work or settlement, though the actual number of this floating population remains disputed. The Government of Tibet in Exile gives the number of non-Tibetans in Tibet as 7.5 million (as opposed to 6 million Tibetans), and considers this the result of an active policy of demographically swamping the Tibetan people and further diminishing any chances of Tibetan political independence, and as such in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1946 that prohibits settlement by occupying powers. The Government of Tibet in Exile also doubts all statistics given by the PRC government, since they do not generally include the floating population of unregistered migrants. The Qingzang Railway, linking China proper to Tibet, is also a major concern, as it is believed to further facilitate the influx of migrants. However, the PRC government does not view itself as an occupying power and has vehemently denied allegations of demographic swamping. The PRC also does not recognize the borders of Tibet as claimed by the government of Tibet in Exile, saying that it includes historically non-Tibetan areas populated by non-Tibetans for generations (such as the Xining area), hence making the figure of 7.5 million vs 6 million flawed. PRC statistics show that 92% of the population in Tibet Autonomous Region is ethnic Tibetan, though this proportion is significantly lower in Amdo (modern Qinghai) and eastern Kham (modern western Sichuan and northwestern Yunnan), as Han Chinese are not evenly distributed all over historic Tibet. In the TAR itself, much of the Han Chinese population is to be found in the capital Lhasa. Population control policies like the one-child policy only apply to Han Chinese, not to minorities such as Tibetans. The PRC says that it is dedicated to the protection of traditional Tibetan culture; it also groups the Qingzang Railway, renovation work at the Potala Palace, and other projects as part of a costly but benevolent effort by the wealthier, eastern half of China to aid the poorer, western half of China.

Culture

Tibet is the traditional center of Tibetan Buddhism, a distinctive form of Vajrayana. Tibet is also home for the original spiritual tradition called Bn (alternative spelling: Bon). Various dialects of the Tibetan language are spoken across the country. Tibetan is written using the ancient Tibetan script which was created in the 7th century to translate Buddhist writings from Sanskrit. In Tibetan cities, there are also small communities of Muslims, known as Kache, who trace their origin from immigrants from three main regions: Kashmir (kachee yul), Ladakh and Nepal. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Persia and Turkestan. There is also a well established Chinese Muslim community (gya kachee) tracing its ancestry back to the Hui ethnic group of China. It is said that Muslim migrants from Kashmir and Ladakh areas first entered Tibet around 12th century. Gradually, marriages and social interaction led to an increase in the population until a sizable community came up around Lhasa, Tibet's capital. The Potala Palace, former residence of the Dalai Lamas, is a World Heritage Site. See also Tibetan art, Tibetan rug, Tibetan calendar.