# Chinese expedition to Tibet (1910)

The Chinese expedition to Tibet of 1910, also known as Sichuan army entering Tibet, resulted from Qing worries about its national interests after a 1903 British expedition. Qing China sent a military force of 2,000 troops to Tibet, then its protectorate, to increase its authority in the region. This led to turmoil in Tibet, causing the Dalai Lama to flee to British India and a rupture in Sino-Tibetan relations.

## Background

Since the early 18th century, Tibet was a self-governing protectorate under Qing China. From then till the end of the 19th century, Tibet did not have an adult Dalai Lama and China played an increasing role in the internal governance of Tibet. China placed resident officials called ambans in Tibet who supervised the local administration.
With the coming to age of the 13th Dalai Lama, the Tibetans started asserting their autonomy. They also expected to be consulted on all aspects of external affairs conducted by China on Tibet's behalf. The treaties signed with the British Empire in India regarding Tibet's border or trade relations were not recognised by the Tibetan officials, claiming that agreements signed without consultation were invalid. Sensing a power vacuum in Tibet, the British sent an expedition to Tibet in 1904, led by Francis Younghusband, and signed their own treaty with Tibet. The Dalai Lama fled Lhasa before the arrival of the expedition, wanting to avoid the signing of the agreement.
However, the British allowed China to salvage the situation. They loosened the terms of the Anglo-Tibetan treaty, allowing China to pay the war indemnity on Tibet's behalf in a shorter time frame, and giving recognition to China's authority over Tibet in a separate treaty with China. They also signed a bilateral treaty with Russia in which Chinese suzerainty over Tibet was explicitly recognised. The Chinese negotiators continued to maintain that China possessed sovereignty over Tibet, not merely suzerainty.

### Reforms in Lhasa

The international developments caused a reduction in the status of Tibet and increased the assertion of power by China. The Dalai Lama, who left Lhasa in the wake of Younghusband expedition, spent time Buddhist monasteries in Amdo and Mongolia, and eventually went to Beijing to see the Chinese emperor, where he received an inferior treatment as a subordinate. During his absence, China implemented a variety of measures to increase its control over Tibet. Zhang Yintang, an official sent to negotiate with the British government in India, was appointed as the Imperial High Commissioner in Tibet. He introduced a variety of "new deal" reforms in the administration, vastly curtailed the British influence in Tibet, and managed to win over sections of Tibetan population. The amban, Lian Yu, had his own reforms to implement, which were said to be considerably less popular. The tensions between them caused Zhang to leave in June 1907. After his departure, Lian Yu had an unobstructed run on the administration of Tibet.

### Reforms in Kham

Concurrently, China was also beginning to exercise increased control over eastern Kham region, which had been nominally under its control since 1728. China's route to Tibet passed through the region, giving rise to its nickname "march country" (through which the Chinese troops would need to march en route to Tibet). In 1903, the Chinese officials in Sichuan decided to develop agriculture and mining in the area and used the Younghusband expedition to provide a renewed sense of urgency to the plan. The objective was to strengthen Chinese state control in the frontier area.
The Qing court approved the plan in March 1904 and ordered the newly appointed assistant amban of Tibet, Feng Quan, to take his station at Chamdo. Feng Quan decided to attempt the project at Batang (in eastern Kham, en route to Chamdo) and, within a hundred days, provoked the Batang uprising, in which he was murdered. The Qing court then appointed a new official Zhao Erfeng ("butcher Zhao"), who was already known for his tough methods, as the Imperial Commissioner for the Tibetan Marches. Zhao reduced all the autonomous native states in both the western and eastern Kham by 1910 and converted them into Chinese districts governed by magistrates. He signed an agreement with the Tibetan government setting the border between China and Tibet at Gyamda.

## Expedition

The Qing Government sent the 1910 expedition to Tibet for establishing direct rule and reoccupied Lhasa. According to scholar Dawa Norbu, the British expedition and Treaty of Lhasa prompted the Qing government to ensure that they could establish firmer control over Tibet. Afterwards, the Dalai Lama fled to India. Melvyn Goldstein, an American Tibetologist from the CWRU Center for Research on Tibet, indicated more specifically:
   The [British] invasion of Tibet and the Lhasa Convention of 1904 dramatically altered Chinese policy toward Tibet. Until then, the Qing dynasty had shown no interest in directly administering or sinicizing Tibet. The British thrusts now suggested to Beijing that unless it took prompt action, its position as overlord in Tibet might be lost, and with Tibet under the British sphere of influence the English would be looking down from the Tibetan plateau on Sichuan, one of China's most important provinces. The Qing dynasty, although enfeebled and on the brink of collapse, responded with surprising vigor. Beijing got the British troops to leave Tibetan soil quickly by paying the indemnity to Britain itself and began to take a more active role in day-to-day Tibetan affairs. Britain's casual invasion of Tibet, therefore, stimulated China to protect its national interests by beginning a program of closer cultural, economic, and political integration of Tibet with the rest of China.
After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution and the Xinhai Lhasa turmoil in 1911–1912, the Qing dynasty collapsed and was succeeded by the Republic of China. The 13th Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa and proclaimed an independent Tibet. All remaining Qing forces were expelled from Tibet.