Jottings from the Granite Studio

In the chaotic years following the dissolution of the Qing Empire, several regions formerly under Manchu control either declared independence outright or fell into a pattern of de facto independence under local rulers.  A document, a treaty between Mongolia and Τibeτ, purportedly negotiated and signed during this time, has surfaced, causing quite a stir among groups advocating Τibeτan independence.

In an interview for the pro-independence website Phαyul*, Professor Elliot Sperling, a faculty member in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University, and director of the university’s Τibeτan Studies program, argues:

The Treaty is exactly what its appellation states it to be. It is a treaty signed and sealed by representatives of Τibeτ and Mongolia in January 1913. The treaty begins with Τibeτ and Mongolia attesting to their having emerged from under Manchu domination and constituted themselves as independent states. It goes on to different short articles which deal, among other things, with the provision of mutual aid and assistance, as well as commercial and financial matters.

As to why the treaty remained out of public view for so long:

The treaty was found in Mongolia. It was likely in the state archives (it bears the seal of the old foreign ministry); with copies beginning to circulate only last year. No doubt the delicate political situation of Mongolia, for most of the 20th century (positioned as it was between the USSR and China) played a role in keeping the original version of the treaty inaccessible.

Needless to say, many scholars, both inside and the outside the PRC, are dubious as to the value of the treaty in changing the debate on the current status of Τibeτ.  Chinese scholars either claim the document is a forgery or semantically downgrade it to the status of an ‘agreement’ rather than a treaty between sovereign states. Other scholars have suggested that the document was signed without the knowledge of the 13th Dαlαi Lαmα. Professor Sperling responds:

The treaty is real; it does exist and it is signed and sealed by officials acting in the capacity of Minister-Plenipotentiaries of the Dαlαi Lαmα, with full authority to conclude it. This is evident from the content of the treaty. In spite of the suspicions voiced about it, particularly on the part of Charles Bell, it seems inconceivable that the Τibeτan signatories would have fabricated evidence of the Dαlαi Lαmα’s permission for them to do what they did and then embedded the fraud (i.e., reference to their empowerment by the Dαlαi Lαmα as plenipotentiaries) in the very wording of the document itself.

If the document is real, then it’s a fascinating historical find. Politically though, whether the document is authentic or not, I’m not sure it really “proves” anything. The ‘national status’ of all the former Qing dominions (including China proper) was open to question in this period, and PRC claims to control over Τibeτ, as historically specious as some of those might be, date back centuries before this treaty.  The historical record regarding the status of Τibeτ is far from clear, and both sides can certainly find sufficient evidence to justify their beliefs.  Unfortunately, these fights over history distract from the issue at hand: What do the Τibeτan people in 2008 really want?

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*The original piece can be found at http://tinyurl.com/5muevd (cut/paste url). I’m not linking to it directly for the usual reasons.