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...Lhasa in 1932, yet only three years earlier Weir remarked on the situation with Tibet that 'our prestige has gone back woefully since I was last here'.
Weir's experiences in Lhasa are a fascinating example of the see-saw dynamic that dominated Tibet's relations with Britain in the early twentieth century. The relationship was dictated by issues of autonomy, territorial security and, crucially, the attitude and responses of China. However, his missions were not just of political significance. In 1930 he was accompanied by his wife, Thyra, and in 1932 by both his wife and eighteen-year-old daughter, Joan Mary. They were the first European women to be granted an official invitation by the Dalai Lama and both made written and visual records of their trips. Their documents provide an exceptional insight into life in Lhasa at the time; unusually they are written from a female perspective and are not circumscribed by either a political agenda or the possibility of publication.
From the early eighteenth to early twentieth centuries Tibet and China had co-existed in a tacit relationship, rooted in the common religion of Buddhism. China respected Tibet's political and cultural autonomy and Tibet acknowledged the Qing dynasty as 'overlords'. Imperial presence in Lhasa was limited to a Commissioner (Amban) whose role was to monitor possible conflict between Tibetan policies and Chinese interests. By the end of the nineteenth century the connection had become mainly symbolic; from the Tibetan perspective the potential threat to its independence came not from China but from the other great imperial power in central Asia, Britain.
The Tibetan government's distrust of Britain dated back to the end of the eighteenth century and the mistaken assumption that Britain had supported Nepalese attacks on Tibet. This resulted in the 1793 decree prohibiting the presence of foreigners in Tibet. So began a long period of isolation and a series of extraordinary attempts by explorers from all over the world to penetrate the mysteries of the 'Forbidden Land' (including covert expeditions, sent in the 1860s by the Government of India, for the purpose of 'information gathering').
As the nineteenth century progressed, the Tibetan government became increasingly concerned by the Government of India's growing influence and control in the Himalayan border states and principalities. (In 1861 the ethnically Tibetan principality of Sikkim, on the main trade route between Tibet and India, became a British protectorate.) Equally disturbing was the presence of numerous Christian missionary settlements in the border regions.
Tibet's political and cultural identity was defined by its Buddhist religion. Essentially a theocracy, it was ruled, in a sometimes uneasy alliance, by the Dalai Lama, responsible for both spiritual and temporal matters, and the Panchen Lama whose authority was entirely spiritual. The deep suspicion that Britain was motivated not only by territorial ambitions but by the desire to convert Tibet to Christianity had a powerful impact on its attitudes and policy. In fact British policy during this period was shaped by consolidation rather than expansion. Interest in Tibet was motivated by defensive (the security of the 'Jewel in the Crown') and commercial concerns and scientific curiosity about a country which remained largely unknown.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a series of events occurred which led to a dramatic end to the impasse that had dominated relations between the two countries in the previous century. The Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, frustrated by the Chinese failure to force Tibet to open up contact with his government and to control Tibetan border violations on the Sikkim frontier, and alarmed by the potential threat to Himalayan border security posed by an apparent alliance between Lhasa and imperial Russia, decided to take action. In 1903, with the agreement of the Chinese, a mission under Colonel Younghusband (1863-1942) was dispatched to Tibet. Curzon's intention was to create a diplomatic opening that would allow Britain to assess the extent of Russian influence while also persuading Tibet that British interest was friendly and commercially motivated. However on arrival at Khampa Dzong, Younghusband was greeted by...
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