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British Intelligence Files on the Chinese in Tibet (c. 1900–1950) |
Kontakt/Bestellung
Contact/Order: info@digento.de 
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Hrsg. v. A.J. Farrington |
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Online |
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Verlag :: Publisher Brill Academic Publishers |
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Preis :: Price Preise auf Anfrage / Prices on request |
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Das Angebot richtet sich nicht an Verbraucher i. S. d. § 13 BGB und Letztverbraucher i. S. d. PAngV. |
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ISBN/ISSN 2950-4945 Bestellnummer bei digento :: digento order number 10883314 |
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Verlagsinformation :: Publisher's information The files and associated confidential print which accumulated at the India Office in London during the first half of the twentieth century provide a unique primary source for understanding the historical background to the nature of China’s present position in Tibet. Different imperatives Much of the value of this present collection lies in the way it shows how the three players on the British side, the Government of India, the India Office, and the Foreign Office, grappled with different imperatives. The view from the British Embassy in Peking, and later from wartime Chungking, was frequently at odds with that from Delhi or the India Office. For decades, the British side juggled with the self-imposed conundrum that recognition of Chinese suzerainty should be conditional upon China’s recognition of Tibetan autonomy, while avoiding precise definitions of either concept. Meanwhile, Tibet went its own way in a semi-independent limbo, subject to varying degrees of British intervention and support channeled through Government of India officials at Gyantse and Gartok (in Sikkim), or latterly in its Lhasa Mission. Russian influence The collection begins with Lord Curzon’s ‘forward policy’ of 1903–04, which was designed to create a Tibetan buffer state against Russian influence—significantly, all this material was printed by the Foreign Office. Then follow negotiations to keep Russia at a distance, and the return of the thirteenth Dalai Lama from China to Tibet. There is extensive coverage of Tibet’s break with China after the 1911 Revolution, the subsequent Simla Conference of 1912, and the delimitation of Tibet’s borders. A fascinating group of files offers minute detail on an attempt to turn four young Tibetans into a vanguard of ‘modernisers’ through the medium of an English public school education, and a further large group records the way in which access to Tibet was closely controlled by the British. Dalai Lama Tibet’s internal affairs and British encouragement of de facto semi-independence during the 1920s and 1930s, led to a renewed concern for Chinese Nationalist claims during World War II. Particularly interesting from this period are the files on the ‘discovery’ of the fourteenth (i.e., the present) Dalai Lama in 1937–39. The collection ends with the complete reversal following the Independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, and the Communist victory in China. Provenance & historical background All the files and related confidential print reproduced, form part of the papers of the Political & Secret Department in the India Office Records (with the exception of three items from the Military Department and its World War II offshoot, the War Staff). The files comprise a wide variety of papers received from the Government of India Foreign Department and other sources in India, and from the Foreign Office in London, together with India Office-generated minutes, comments, and replies. In 1982 the Foreign & Commonwealth Office transferred the administration of the India Office Library & Records to the British Library, where it now forms a part of the Library’s Oriental & India Office Collections. |
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