Debates over how Tibetan history should be construed have raged for centuries and have been particularly intense in recent years. Chinese historians wish to construct a narrative that gives them a right to be in Tibet and that justifies China’s record since its takeover in the 1950s. Tibetan historians offer a very different picture, one that excludes China and pushes it to the periphery and derives Tibet’s history and culture from indigenous sources and India. One of the main contributions of this book is its exploration of the ideology that underlies China’s concern with Tibet and its willin ... More

Debates over how Tibetan history should be construed have raged for centuries and have been particularly intense in recent years. Chinese historians wish to construct a narrative that gives them a right to be in Tibet and that justifies China’s record since its takeover in the 1950s. Tibetan historians offer a very different picture, one that excludes China and pushes it to the periphery and derives Tibet’s history and culture from indigenous sources and India. One of the main contributions of this book is its exploration of the ideology that underlies China’s concern with Tibet and its willingness to invest huge sums of money and attract worldwide criticism for its treatment of the Tibetan people. The author argues that the roots of Chinese attitudes lie in the Nationalist period (1911–1947), when public pronouncements and school textbooks declared that Tibet is the “back door to China” and that Western imperialists were plotting to conquer Tibet, which would later be a staging ground for invasion of interior China. The book looks at the key points of Tibetan history and how each side constructs them as part of a larger narrative, beginning with the marriage of the Tibetan king Songtsen Gambo in the 7th century to a Chinese princess. One important conclusion is that both sides agree on the main aspects of what happened, but disagree fundamentally on the psychological motives they attribute to historical figures. Where Chinese historians portray Tibetan historical figures as Chinese patriots seeking greater integration with the Chinese motherland, Tibetan historians tend to view them as devout Buddhists with purely religious motives.