The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics - a Critical Review

For the past five decades the plight of the Tibetan people under Chinese occupation has been steadily garnering more and more media attention. To capitalize on this attention both the Tibetan Government in Exile and the People's Republic of China (PRC) have honed the arguments supporting their respective positions. However these arguments, while based on historical facts, are modern day constructs with each party putting forth their own interpretations of the past. To reconcile the modern day realities of the Sino-Tibetan conflict, Elliot Sperling a researcher at the Washington based think-tank East-West Center, set out to provide the reader a detailed examination of the major assertions by each party and the primary sources of historical information most often cited. In his book The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics, Sperling elucidates new details and insights regarding the Sino-Tibetan conflict by systematically examining original language documents dating back to the earliest days of the Chinese dynastic systems.

Sperling starts the discussion by first looking at the modern day arguments presented by both parties. At the heart of the prevailing Chinese position is the contention that Tibet has been an integral and inseparatable part of China since the early 13th Century Yuan dynasty. Modern day Chinese writers often present the issue as a patently obvious fact based on the historical record, however Sperling points out that this oversimplification of the issue lacks roots going back to the historical record and additionally ignores certain inalienable facts such as complete differences between the two languages, culture and religion.

The modern-day Tibetan position while based on historical fact is much more ambiguous. Tibetans claim that their country's relationship to the Yuan, Ming and continuing with the Qing dynasty was one of a "priest-patron" association. This type of reciprocal affiliation is quite unique and extremely