Disagreement exists about the extent and nature of serfdom in Tibet before the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1951. The debate has a political dimension. The Chinese government asserts that Tibetan culture, government, and society were feudal in nature before the PRC takeover of Tibet, and this only changed due to PRC policy in the region. Tibetan independence supporters argue that this is a misrepresentation of history, created as a political tool to justify the sinicization of Tibet.
Regardless of the debate about the intention of Chinese descriptions of pre-PRC Tibet, the Tibetan class system had divided the population hierarchically into laity (), noble laity () and monks, with further subdivisions within the laity. A caste of untouchables known as performed work considered unclean, including fishing, metalworking, and prostitution.French, Rebecca (2002) The Golden Yoke,
The Chinese government portrays Tibet from 1912 to 1951 as a feudal society, with 95 percent of Tibetans under serfdom, and the 13th and 14th Dalai Lamas as slave owners, citing cases of abuse and cruelty which were allegedly inherent to the traditional Tibetan system.
Serfdom and politics
The regions of Tibet have changed significantly over the past 2,000 years, and during the modern period there have been changes in what Tibet is. Anthropologist Geoff Childs writes, "[Tibet] has undergone numerous political transformations from a unified empire (640–842) incorporating parts of what are now Nepal, India, Pakistan, and several provinces of China (Gansu, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan), to a collection of independent and sometimes antagonistic kingdoms and polities associated with various monasteries (842–1248), to protectorate under the power of an expanding Mongol empire (1248–1368), back to a collection of independent and sometimes antagonistic kingdoms and polities associated with various monasteries (1368–1642), to a centralized state under the clerical administration of the Dalai Lamas (1642–1720), to a protectorate of the Manchu Qing Dynasty (1720–1911), and finally to a nation having de facto independence under the clerical administration of the Dalai Lamas (1911–1951) ..."
Although the central leadership in Lhasa had authority over these areas for various periods, some Western writers say that this did not imply the kind of political control seen in modern Western states. According to Luciano Petech, "K'ams [the Kham region, largely synonymous with the province of Xikang which was abolished in 1950] was practically independent of Lhasa under its great lamas" during the 18th century. Areas of Qinghai with large Tibetan populations were not continuously ruled by Lhasa, including the period leading up to the establishment of the PRC (in the late 1930s and 1940s) when Kuomintang Muslim warlord Ma Bufang ruled Qinghai as part of the Republic of China (ROC).
Definitions of Tibet have been contentious. Under the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and the ROC (1912–1949), the part of Tibet governed by Lhasa was limited to the Tibet Autonomous Region and did not include China's Kham (Xikang) province. The western part of Xikang (Qamdo) and Qinghai were only governed by Lhasa during the Sino-Tibetan War of 1930–1932.
The Chinese government defines Tibet as the area it has designated the Tibet Autonomous Region: the traditional areas of Ü, Tsang and Ngari and Qamdo (western Xikang, which was incorporated into the TAR when Xikang Province was abolished by the National People's Congress in 1955. According to the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government-in-exile), other ethnically-Tibetan areas in the east and north are part of Greater Tibet; these areas are in the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.
Serfdom in Tibet is a politicised debate, with the term "feudal serfdom" largely used by China as justification for taking control of Tibet. According to China,"... There was a historically imperative need for the progress of Tibetan society and the welfare of the Tibetan people to expel the imperialists and shake off the yoke of feudal serfdom. The founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 brought hope for the deeply distressed Tibetan people. In conforming to the law of historical development and the interests of the Tibetan people, the Central People's Government worked actively to bring about Tibet's peaceful liberation. After that, important policies and measures were adopted for Tibet's Democratic Reform, regional autonomy, large-scale modernization and reform and opening-up." The Tibetan Government-in-Exile says, "... The Chinese justifications make no sense. First of all, international law does not accept justifications of this type. No country is allowed to invade, occupy, annex and colonize another country just because its social structure does not please it. Secondly, the PRC is responsible for bringing more suffering in the name of liberation. Thirdly, necessary reforms were initiated and Tibetans are quite capable of doing so."
History debates It is difficult to find academic consensus on the nature of society in Tibetan history. Sources on the history of Tibet exist from pro-Chinese and pro-Tibetan writers.
Pro-Chinese histories may be published by mainstream Western publishers or in China; Tibetan histories may be published by mainstream Western publishers or by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Both sides hope to persuade foreign readers to support their point of view.
Many pro-Chinese works in English on the subject were translated from the Chinese. According to John Powers, ideology was the most powerful influence on the translations: "In contemporary China, the Communist Party strictly controls the presentation of history, and several formal resolutions have been issued by the Central Committee, which are intended to guide historians in the 'correct' interpretation of historical events and actors."
Western authors' writings on Tibetan history are sometimes contradictory. Hugh Richardson, who lived in Lhasa in the 1930s and 1940s (before the 1951 takeover), writes in Tibet and Its History that Chinese versions of Tibetan history are contemptible; in his view, Chinese rule is brutal and illegal. Israel Epstein, a naturalized Chinese citizen born in Poland, supported Chinese rule. His firsthand experiences in Tibet were after annexation, and his opinion could be influenced by the Chinese narrative. There are few academic assessments of Tibet's recent history. Anthropologist and historian Melvyn Goldstein is fluent in Tibetan, and has done considerable fieldwork with Tibetans in exile and in Tibet. He considers pre-1950 Tibet a feudal theocracy impaired by corrupt, incompetent leaders. It was de facto independent of China from 1911 to 1949, but not recognized as de jure independent by any nation (including its protective power, Great Britain).
China seeks to persuade international perception of the justification of Chinese rule in Tibet. Their position is that Tibet historically belongs to China, that affairs of Tibet are internal matters and Tibetans seek to internationalize their cause, in part, by convincing readers that Tibet was independent. Concentrating on national sovereignty, the position of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile is more moderate than some of its more extreme supporters who conflate lama rule with Tibetan Buddhist ideals and seeking to promote a Buddhist dogma which competes with the Marxist one of "feudal serfdom" by portraying Tibet under the lamas as, in Robert Thurman's words, "a mandala of the peaceful, perfected universe". Tibetologist Robert Barnett writes,
"Chinese references to preliberation conditions in Tibet thus appear to be aimed at creating popular support for Beijing's project in Tibet. These claims have particular resonance among people who share the assumption—based on nineteenth-century Western theories of "social evolution" that are still widely accepted in China—that certain forms of society are "backward" and should be helped to evolve by more "advanced" societies. This form of prejudice converges with some earlier Chinese views and with vulgar Marxist theories that imagine a vanguard movement liberating the oppressed classes or nationalities in a society, whether or not those classes agree that they are oppressed. Moreover, the Chinese have to present that oppression as very extensive, and that society as very primitive, in order to explain why there were no calls by the Tibetan peasantry for Chinese intervention on their behalf.
The question of Tibet's social history is therefore highly politicized, and Chinese claims in this respect are intrinsic to the functioning of the PRC, and not some free act of intellectual exploration. They have accordingly to be treated with caution. From a human rights point of view, the question of whether Tibet was feudal in the past is irrelevant. A more immediate question is why the PRC does not allow open discussion of whether Tibet was feudal or oppressive. Writers and researchers in Tibet face serious repercussions if they do not concur with official positions on issues such as social conditions in Tibet prior to its "liberation," and in such a restrictive climate, the regime's claims on this issue have little credibility."
Political debate Chinese sources portray Tibet before 1950 as a feudal serfdom in which serfs suffered under the despotic rule of lamas and aristocrats. Tibetan sources describe the people as happy, content, and devoted to Buddhism. Tibetan Phuntsok Wangyal, who founded the Tibetan Communist Party in the 1940s, describes the old system as unequal and exploitative.
One of the earliest publications in English to apply the term "serf" to Tibet was Marxist journalist Anna Louise Strong's 1960 When Serfs Stood up in Tibet, published by the Chinese government. Another early promoter of the term is historian A. Tom Grunfeld, who based his writings on the work of British explorers of the region (particularly Charles Alfred Bell). His book is reportedly not supported by traditional Tibetan, Chinese, or Indian histories, contains inaccuracies and distortions, and Grunfeld's extracts from Bell were taken out of context to mislead readers. Grunfeld is a polarizing figure for the Chinese (who praise his work, scholarship, and integrity) and the Tibetans, who call him a "sinologist" who lacks authority on Tibetan history due to his inability to read Tibetan and not having visited Tibet before writing his book. Political scientist Michael Parenti's 2003 essay, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (revised in 2007), was largely based on Strong, Grunfeld, and Stuart and Roma Gelder's 1964 Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet.