A Twisted History

TONGREN, China -- Tibet, if you listen to the Chinese government, has long been a part of China. Just as much a part of China, as say, Beijing.

That's true. The relationship between Tibet and China is an extremely old one. One memorable event occurred during the Tang Dyansty, when the Tibetan army sacked the Chinese capital at Chang'an. Beijing, meanwhile, wouldn't be built for another 600 years.

The history between China and Tibet is long, complicated and rather ambiguous. Tibetan and Western advocate argue that China never actually exercised political control, but rather occasionally was involved in the affairs of an independent Tibetan state.

The current government of China, of course, takes a different position, and travelling around Tibetan lands I've found it interesting how the government likes to cherry-pick information to support its case. Here's a short description of Tongren from a government travel agency, a small town with two important Tibetan monasteries:

"Tongren was a place for nomadic ethnic minorities in history. As early as in the Later Han Dynasty (947-951), the place had been a battlefield. In the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), the north of Tongren became the place that had garrison troops or peasants open up wasteland and grow grains. In the reign of Emperor Zhongzong in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), it was a state of Princess Jincheng conferred to Tubo. In the Yuan (1271-1368) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, the garrison troops from the central government were stationed here, forming the ruling system that combined Tibetan Buddhism and politics with the Longwu Temple as the center. Tongren was established as a county in 1992."

Every sentence might technically be true, but it adds up to a deliberately misleading summary.

Also, if the troops stationed during the Yuan and Ming dynasties formed a ruling system that combined the lamas and the Chinese government, where were they for the Qing Dyansty (1644-1911)? The answer is not found in the text. This town and most others in Tibetan lands were not ruled by China for most of the past 2,000 years.

I'm not asking for a nuanced description from a travel agency blurb, but perhaps pointing out that the place has traditionally been outside the Chinese dynastic system would be prudent. Just because the place is currently controlled by the Communists doesn't mean they have a monopoly on the region's history, too.