page_title: Protests and uprisings in Tibet since 1950
section_title: Early resistance
hierarchical_section_title: Protests and uprisings in Tibet since 1950 / Early resistance
caption_attribution_description: English: Andrutsang Gompo Tashi
context_page_description: Protests and uprisings in Tibet against the government of the People's Republic of China have occurred since 1950, and include the 1959 uprising, the 2008 uprising, and the subsequent self-immolation protests.
  Over the years the Tibetan government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, has shifted the goal of its resistance stance from attempting measured cooperation with autonomy, to demanding full independence, to seeking "genuine autonomy for all Tibetans living in the three traditional provinces of Tibet within the framework of the People's Republic of China". However, not all exiled Tibetans are content with pursuing the current CTA policy of the Middle Way Approach and many expressed their frustration in 2008, against the Dalai Lama's wishes, by agitating for independence.
  With the 14th Dalai Lama announcing his retirement from political life just before the April 2011 elections for Prime Minister or Sikyong, who will henceforth be Tibet's political leader, the nature of resistance may be moving into yet another phase, although the three leading candidates currently favor the Middle Way Approach.
context_section_description: In his essay Hidden Tibet: History of Independence and Occupation published by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives at Dharamsala, S.L. Kuzmin, quoting the memoirs of Soviet diplomat A. M. Ledovsky, claims that on January 22, 1950, during his negotiations with Joseph Stalin in Moscow, Mao Zedong asked him to provide an aviation regiment because he was preparing to advance towards Tibet. Stalin approved these preparations and provided military support with Soviet pilots and airfield personnel dressed in Chinese clothes, because this aid was illegal. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered Tibet and the US government made contact with the Dalai Lama's brother Gyalo Thondup, who was living in India, to offer US help, which was rejected. In May 1951, a delegation representing the Dalai Lama, 15 years old at the time, and led by Ngapoi Ngawang Jigmei, traveled to Beijing to be presented with the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, which established a PRC sovereignty over Tibet: assuming responsibility for Tibet's external affairs while leaving the domestic governance to the Lhasa government and assuring religious freedoms. The treaty was signed by the Lhasa delegation and the 10th Panchen Lama, who had already switched his loyalty to the PRC after flirting with the Kuomintang and conspiring against the central Tibetan government, which still refused to recognize him as the true Panchen Llama. Later there would be much controversy over the validity of the agreement stemming from claims it was signed under threat of arms and disagreements about whether the delegates had the authority to sign.
  But at the time, in Lhasa, the Kutra aristocrats mingled with Chinese officials and prospered from this association. Mixed parties were thrown throughout the year and even by the Dalai Lama himself. The burden on farmers and peasants of supplying the troops with food led to shortages and rising prices, coupled with influenza and smallpox outbreaks, weighted heavy on the majority of Tibetans, who were only marginally surviving before. Protests called "people's assemblies" began in Lhasa, where organizers sent letters of grievances to the government and posted anti-Chinese slogans in public places. The leaders were promptly arrested and the protests stifled.(106–108)
  In early 1952, Thondup returned to Lhasa with an economic reform plan that would include lowering taxes and land reform. With the Dalai Lama in agreement, Thondup went about implementing the reforms only to meet with strong resistance from the wealthy old guard who labeled him a radical communist. The label sparked the interests of the Chinese who invited him to Beijing to study, but instead he fled back to India, where he began working with the CIA to form and train a Tibetan insurgency. Again the US tried to convince the Dalai Lama to do the same with an offer of "full aid and assistance", but he refused.
  The Dalai Lama saw the need to modernize Tibet and was open to Marxism.
  It was only when I went to China in 1954–55 that I actually studied Marxist ideology and learned the history of the Chinese revolution. Once I understood Marxism, my attitude changed completely. I was so attracted to Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a Communist Party member. Tibet at the time was very, very backward [...] Marxism talked about self-reliance, without depending on a creator or a God. That was very attractive. [...] I still think that if a genuine communist movement had come to Tibet, there would have been much benefit to the people. Instead the Chinese communists brought Tibet so-called liberation.[...] They started destroying monasteries and killing and arresting lamas.
  — 14th Dalai Lama
  On the Tibetan leader's journey home from his year in China, Khampa and Amdowa clan leaders informed his chief of staff of their plans to rebel against the Chinese in retribution for land confiscation and attacks on monasteries. But all was relatively quiet in Lhasa and in April 1956 he received a Chinese delegation to
caption: Andrug Gompo Tashi[13] commonly known as "Gonpo Tashi" Andrugtsang before 1959[14][15]
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