In ancient times, the Tibetans on the plateau
cultivated a close
relationship with the Han and with
other ethnic groups from the
Chinese interior. In the
7th century, this relationship reached its
peak
when Srong-btsan Sgam-po (Songtsan Gambol, the king of the
Tubo
kingdom who ruled the Tibetan Plateau at that
time twice sent envoys
to the Tang Dynasty emperor
to propose to Princess Wen Cheng who he
later married.
The Tibetans and Hans had through the marriage of
their
royal families and various meetings, formed close economic
and
cultural relations laying the groundwork for the
ultimate foundation
of a unified nation. In Lhasa the
capital of the Tibet Autonomous
Region, the
statue of Princess Wen Cheng is still enshrined and
worshipped in the Potala Palace. The Monument to the
Alliance
between the Tibetans and the Han erected in the
9th century still
stands in the square in front of the
Jokhang Temple.
Relations between Tibet and
China continued to develop afterwards.
In the 13th
century, the ruler of Tibet met a Yuan Dynasty prince
and officially decided on the terms for Tibetan
submission to China
including presenting the prince with
map and census books, the
payment of tributes and the
acceptance of rule by appointed
officials. From
then on. Tibet was an official administrative region
of
China. This happened 200 years before Colombus' discovery of
the
Americas. In the following several hundred years,
though there were
shifts in the political power of the
central government and the
local Tibetan government
alike, relations between them became more
and more close,
and Tibet's position as an administrative region of
China
has never changed. Rulers of both the Ming Dynasty, founded
in
the 14th century, and the (Qing Dynasty founded
in the 17th century
were directly responsible for the
appointment of Tibets' local
officials, as well as for
the selection of high commissioners
stationed in
Tibet to supervise local administration on behalf of
the
central authorities.
The majority of
Tibetans believe in Tibetan Buddhism of which many
sects
developed during Tibet's long history. After the
establishment
of the (Qing Dynasty in the 17th
century, the emperors granted
honorific titles to the 5th
Dalai Lama and the 5th Baingen Erdeni of
the Gelukpa sect
in 1653 and 1713 respectively henceforth officially
establishing the titles of the Dalai Lama and the Baingen
Erdeni and
their political and religious status
in Tibet. The Dalai Lama in
Lhasa ruled most or Tibet
while the Baingen Erdeni ruled the
remaining area
from Xigaze. The Chinese emperors also enacted
regulations stipulating that the selection of children said
to be
the reincarnations of the Dalai Lama or Baingen
Lama should be
reported to the imperial court for
approval, and that the central
government would
send high officials to supervise in person. The
discovery of the 14th Dalai Lama who is in exile at present
was
indeed reported to the central government by the
Tibetan local
government in the traditional manner
after the death of the 13th
Dalai Lama. In 1940 the
Chairman of the national government issued
an
official decree conferring the title of the Dalai Lama.
After the People's Republic of China
was founded, the central
government notified local
Tibetan authorities to ''send delegates to
Beijing to negotiate the peaceful liberation of
Tibet'' On 23rd May
1951 the ''17-Article
Agreement'' was signed after delegates from
the
central government and the local Tibetan government reached
agreement on a series of questions concerning
Tibet's peaceful
liberation. The Dalai Lama sent a
telegram and the Baingen Lama
issued a statement both
supporting the ''17-Article Agreement'' and
expressing their de- sires to ''safeguard the unification of
the
motherland and her territorial sovereignty.''