From the CIAO Atlas Map of Asia 

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CIAO DATE: 10/04

The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics

Elliot Sperling

2004

East–West Center

Abstract

This paper is a guide to the historical arguments made by the primary parties to the Tibet-China conflict. Given the polarization that has characterized this issue for decades, it is surprising that little has been done to analyze or at least disentangle the strands of historical argumentation that the parties have been using. This paper attempts to do this by relying as much as possible on the key assertions as they have been framed in Chinese and Tibetan sources. Chinese- and Tibetan-language materials dealing with the historical status of Tibet are often more detailed and better documented, and hew more closely than English-language materials do to the thinking of the people most directly concerned with (and affected by) the Tibet-China conflict.

The status of Tibet is at the core of the dispute, as it has been for all parties drawn into it over the past century. China maintains that Tibet is an inalienable part of China. Tibetans maintain that Tibet has historically been an independent country. In reality, the conflict over Tibet's status has been a conflict over history. When Chinese writers and political figures assert that Tibet is a part of China, they do so not on the basis of Chinese rule being good rule (although they do not hesitate to make that assertion, either), but on the basis of history. As one of China's more well-known spokesmen once put it, "'Is Tibet, after all, a part of China?' History says it is."

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