URBANISING TIBET: ASPIRATIONS, ILLUSIONS, AND NIGHTMARES

ON 28 MARCH 2019, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrated ‘Serfs Emancipation Day’ 西藏 百万农奴解放纪念日 or, alternatively, the sixtieth anniversary of ‘democratic reform in Tibet’ 西藏 民主改革. Exiled Tibetans commemorate 10 March 1959, the date of the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India, as ‘Uprising Day’, when thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa and skirmished with the military after rumours circulated that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) planned to kidnap the Dalai Lama and assume full control over Tibet. According to Beijing, the PLA ‘peacefully liberated’ Tibet in 1950 and claimed the territory for the new PRC, citing Tibet’s historical connection with former Chinese empires. The PLA allowed the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government limited autonomy, which lasted until the uprising of 1959. However, Tibet had enjoyed de facto independence since the collapse of the Qing empire in 1911, and many Tibetan exiles and their supporters maintain that Tibet was forcefully invaded in 1950. Some continue to challenge the legitimacy of Chinese rule, even as all member countries of the United Nations now recognise the PRC’s sovereignty over Tibet