The Sino-Indian Boundary Issue continues....

The Status of Tibet: The status of Tibet was officially an issue for India only in the period 1950 to 1954, even though the uninformed Indian Press and public emotion may still be behaving as if it is still one, due to the religious affinities between India and Tibet, including the location of two major Hindu pilgrimage sites in Tibet. India formally accepted Tibet as part of China in 1954, and even though the actual agreement technically or formally lapsed on 3rd June 1962, the Indian
Government has upheld its position on Tibet as recently as 2007. There are nuances within India’s official acceptance of Tibet as part of China, as touched upon later, which generally are to China’s advantage rather than India’s. However, it continues to be an issue for the Indian strategic ‘community’, for Tibetans living outside Tibet, in India and in the western countries, and for the ‘Tibetan Government-in-Exile’ located in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh.

The Indian Government does not officially recognize the ‘Tibetan Government-in-Exile’ as representing Tibet, but tolerates its presence. It does not permit it to carry out ‘political activities’, i.e., anti-Chinese activities, in India.

When China took over the administration of Tibet (28th March 1959)after forcing out the Dalai Lama’s religion-based government, they created a ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’ (TAR) as an ‘autonomous’ province of China. However, the TAR does not include all of the old area of Tibet, or in other words, the whole of the area in which most of he residents are Tibetans by culture, i.e., ‘cultural Tibet’ orethnographic Tibet. Of the three main divisions of ‘old Tibet’, known collectively in Tibetan as ‘Cholkha-sum’, Ü-Tsang (consisting of the Tibetan provinces of Ü and Tsang), Kham, and Amdo, only Ü-Tsang and a part of Kham form the TAR. Most of the Amdo region was incorporated into China proper as the province of Qinghai, and some part further to the east, went under Gansu (Kansu) province.

To be continued...