The history of Tibet from 1950 to the present includes the Chinese annexation of Tibet, during which Tibetan representatives signed the controversial Seventeen Point Agreement following the Battle of Chamdo and establishing an autonomous administration led by the 14th Dalai Lama under Chinese sovereignty. Subsequent socialist reforms and other unpopular policies of the Chinese Communist Party led to armed uprisings, eventually assisted by the CIA, and their violent suppression. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama escaped to northern India for fear of being captured by Chinese forces. He formed the Central Tibetan Administration and rescinded the Seventeen Point Agreement. In 1965, the majority of Tibet's land mass, including all of U-Tsang and parts of Kham and Amdo, was established as the Tibet Autonomous Region. Tibetans suffered along with the rest of China during the Great Chinese Famine and the Cultural Revolution under episodes of starvation, religious repression, destruction of cultural sites, forced labour, and political persecution. US-China rapprochement in the 1970s saw an end to Washington's support for Tibetan guerillas. Amid broader reforms across the country, China adopted policies to improve conditions in Tibet. Since the 2000s, it has invested heavily in the region but generated controversies due to the sinicization of Tibet. Human rights abuses remain a concern especially where it comes to freedom of religion and political prisoners.

1950–1955: Traditional systems

In 1949, seeing that the Communists were gaining control of China, the Kashag expelled all Chinese connected with the Chinese government, over the protests of both the Kuomintang and the Communists. Tibet was its own de facto country before 1951. but both the Republic of China (ROC) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) have maintained China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet.

The Chinese Communist government led by Mao Zedong, which came to power in October, lost little time in asserting a new PRC presence in Tibet. The PRC has carried out different projects in Tibet but the people of Tibet seem to feel ignored politically and economically in the "Tibet Autonomous Region" and in the Tibetan portions of land in Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan. In June 1950, the UK Government in the House of Commons stated that His Majesty's Government "have always been prepared to recognize Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, but only on the understanding that Tibet is regarded as autonomous." On 7 October 1950,Laird 2006, p. 301 The People's Liberation Army invaded the Tibetan area of Chamdo. The large number of units of the PLA quickly surrounded the outnumbered, largely less militarized Tibetan forces. By October 19, 1950, five thousand Tibetan troops surrendered to the PRC.

In 1951, representatives of Tibetan authority, with the Dalai Lama's authorization, participated in negotiations with the PRC government in Beijing. This resulted in a Seventeen Point Agreement which established PRC's sovereignty over Tibet, and it thereby gave the PRC power to rule. According to author Melvin Goldstein, the agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later. According to the Tibetan government-in-exile, some members of the Tibetan Cabinet (Kashag), for example, Tibetan Prime Minister Lukhangwa, never accepted the agreement.In 1952 Lukhangwa told PRC Representative Zhang Jingwu "It was absurd to refer to the terms of the Seventeen-Point Agreement. Our people did not accept the agreement and the Chinese themselves had repeatedly broken the terms of it. Their army was still in occupation of eastern Tibet; the area had not been returned to the government of Tibet, as it should have been." My Land and My People, Dalai Lama, New York, 1992, p. 95 But the National Assembly of Tibet, "while recognizing the extenuating circumstances under which the delegates had to sign the 'agreement', asked the government to accept the 'agreement'...the Kashag told Zhang Jingwu that it would radio its acceptance of the 'agreement'." The acceptance had three conditions that were ignored by China, which also strengthens the claim that the agreement is invalid. Tibetan exile sources generally consider it invalid, as having been signed under duress.

On the path that was leading him into exile in India, the 14th Dalai Lama arrived March 26, 1959 at Lhuntse Dzong where he repudiated the 17-point Agreement as having been "thrust upon Tibetan Government and people by the threat of arms" and reaffirmed his government as the only legitimate representative of Tibet.Michel Peissel, "The Cavaliers of Kham, the secret war in Tibet" London: Heinemann 1972, and Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1973Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile Harper San Francisco, 1991 According to the Seventeen Point Agreement, the Tibetan area under the Dalai Lama's authority was supposed to be a highly autonomous area of China. From the beginning, it was obvious that incorporating Tibet into Communist PRC would bring two opposite social systems face-to-face.Goldstein 2007, p. 541 In western Tibet, however, the Chinese Communists opted not to make social reform an immediate priority. On the contrary, from 1951 to 1959, traditional Tibetan society with its lords and manorial estates continued to function unchanged and were subsidized by the central government. Despite the presence of twenty thousand PLA troops in Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama's government was permitted to maintain important symbols from its de facto independence period. The first national census in all of the People's Republic of China was held in 1954, counting 2,770,000 ethnic Tibetans in China, including 1,270,000 in the Tibet Autonomous Region.Population of Tibet 1950–1990 The Chinese built highways that reached Lhasa, and then extended them to the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani borders.

Tibetan areas in Qinghai, known as Kham, which were outside the authority of the Dalai Lama's government, did not enjoy this same autonomy and had land redistribution implemented in full. Most lands were taken away from noblemen and monasteries and re-distributed to serfs and former slaves. The Tibetan region of Eastern Kham, previously Xikang province, was incorporated into the province of Sichuan. Western Kham was put under the Chamdo Military Committee. In these areas, land reform was implemented. This involved communist agitators designating "landlords"—sometimes arbitrarily chosen—for public humiliation in so-called "struggle sessions",thamzing, torture, maiming, and even death. It was only after 1959 that China brought the same practices to Central Tibet.

1956–1976: Reforms and upheaval Uprisings against socialist land reforms and other policies broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in 1956, fueling the Tibetan resistance movement. Armed rebellions initially attained considerable success, and with CIA support much of southern Tibet fell into the hands of guerilla fighters such as the Chushi Gangdruk. During the fighting, tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed. Due to the suppression of religious practices in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama and other Tibetans sometimes sought refuge in India.

Speculations that the Dalai Lama might be abducted led to further violence and revolt in 1959, but the Tibetan forces were outnumbered and poorly armed.Chushi Gangdruk Their accounts claim that during a Chinese operation launched in Lhasa, 10,000 to 15,000 Tibetans were killed within three days. Artillery shells landed near the Potala Palace. Fearing the capture of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibetan civilians surrounded his residence, at which point the Dalai Lama fled"Witness: Reporting on the Dalai Lama's escape to India." Peter Jackson. Reuters. Feb 27, 2009. with the help of the CIA to India.The CIA's secret war in Tibet, Seattle Times, January 26, 1997, Paul Salopek Ihttp://www.timbomb.net/buddha/archive/msg00087.html On 28 March, the Chinese installed the Panchen Lama, who had been under their watch, in Lhasa and claimed that he was the head of the Government of Tibet in the absence of the Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan Government in Exile estimates that 87,000 Tibetans were killed during the 1959 uprising, though this is not widely accepted by Western nor Chinese scholars.Official Website of the Tibetan Government in Exile. History Leading up to March 10th 1959 . 7 September 1998. Retrieved 16 March 2008. Tibetologist Tom Grunfeld said "the veracity of such a claim is difficult to verify." Warren W. Smith, a writer with Radio Free Asia, points out that the 87,000 losses were not necessarily killed.

Guerilla warfare After 1959, Tibetan resistance forces operated from Nepal. Around 2,000 rebels were based out of the semi-independent Kingdom of Mustang; many of them trained at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, in the United StatesAir America, Corgi Books. Tim Robbins. 1988. Tibetan exiles claim that 430,000 died in total during the 1959 uprising and the subsequent years of guerrilla warfare. Organized warfare died down after American support was withdrawn and the Nepalese military dismantled the operation in the 1970s.

Famine

China suffered widespread famine between the years 1959 and 1961. The causes are disputed. Drought and poor weather played a part, and the policies of the Great Leap Forward contributed to the famine, but the relative weights of each cause are unclear. Estimates of deaths vary; according to official government statistics, there were 15 million deaths. across all of China due to the famineÓ Gráda, Famine: A Short History, p. 95 Scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be as high as 55 million.Peng Xizhe (彭希哲), "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces," Population and Development Review 13, no. 4 (1987), 639–670. During the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in early 1962, Liu Shaoqi, then President of China, formally attributed 30% of the famine to natural disasters and 70% to man-made errors.

Exact numbers on the Tibet region are not available as the Tibet Autonomous Region had not yet been established and data collection at the time was poor. However, in May 1962, the Tenth Panchen Lama sent Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai a confidential report"Secret Report by the Panchen Lama Criticises China" detailing the suffering of the Tibetan people, which became known as the 70,000 Character Petition:"In many parts of Tibet people have starved to death.. . . In some places, whole families have perished and the death rate is very high. This is very abnormal, horrible and grave...In the past Tibet lived in a dark barbaric feudalism but there was never such a shortage of food, especially after Buddhism had spread....In Tibet from 1959 to 1961, for two years almost all animal husbandry and farming stopped. The nomads have no grain to eat and the farmers have no meat, butter or salt." It was the opinion of the Panchen Lama that these deaths were a result of official policies, not of any natural disasters, which was the situation understood in Beijing by Chairman Mao and the Central People's Government. The Panchen Lama also described the uniqueness of the famine that Tibet suffered from: "There was never such an event in the history of Tibet. People could not even imagine such horrible starvation in their dreams. In some areas if one person catches a cold, then it spreads to hundreds and large numbers simply die."Craig (1992), p. 125.