Talk:Tibetan sovereignty debate

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Until modern means of travel had been invented, Tibet was basically a very inaccessible place at an average elevation of 14,000 feet. This calls into doubt the ability of anyone to truly command the territory. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magwep (talk • contribs) 16:48, 8 October 2006.

Contents

[edit] Third-Party views

I have quite significantly altered the final paragraph of this section. No references were given for the assertions about the specific nations which satisfy the Montivideo Convention criteria for statehood, and the author(s) also implied that all movements in the List of active autonomist and secessionist movements meet these criteria. This is misleading and untenable, and my instinct is that the rest of this section could also do with a similar reworking. Please note that I employed the word 'nation' in its broadest sense, i.e. divested of political connotations. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.229.154.45 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 6 November 2006.

Having more carefully examined the section and its references, I felt that the best move was to remove the entire section. The bulk of it rested on a single 1989 history of Tibet by Melvyn Goldstein, and the included quotation '...even today international legal experts sympathetic to the Dalai Lama's cause find it difficult to argue that Tibet ever technically established its independence of the Chinese Empire, imperial, or republican' is from 1969. The crux of the section was that the lack of international recognition of Tibetan sovereignty indicates international agreement that Tibet is not a sovereign nation. However, the same Melvyn Goldstein wrote in a 1998 Foreign Affairs article 'The Dalai Lama's dilemma' at page 93 that the international position is merely one of acceptance for strategic reasons rather than actual agreement. Ultimately, this section in its present state is misleading and unilluminating, and I have therefore chosen to remove it. Ketahuan 08:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
As I said, the "single source" referred to here is a solidly researched book of almost 900 pages; a seemingly contradictory journalistic piece by the same author does not invalidate that work. I hope we can agree on that.
If this article needs revision, then efforts should be applied to the section on "Chinese views" which is disproportionately larger than the section on "Tibetan views." Among other things, it contains bizarre claims, such as the statement that the Ming dynasty exercised sovereignty over Tibet. While I have no doubt that the PRC government believes that was the case, I very much doubt that anyone can cme up with a credible source backing that claim.--Niohe 03:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
You can enlarge the Tibetan-in-exile views or challenge claims. But I find it difficult to argue subordination when Dali-Lahma succession must went through BeiJing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.88.70.36 (talk) 20:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

I find it very difficult to take any claims seriously from a government that first unilaterally withdraws from treaties, agreements and organizations which it finds "unfair", and then, in the next breath, invokes an agreement from 1792 to claim sovereignty over a territory its has just conquered by threat of force.--Niohe 23:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

hi, i would like to add some interesting information lost in an old national geographic article on the status of tibet. it adds some first hand accounts of a journalist, who witnessed china's exercise of suzuerainty over tibet. i think it may be a contribution for first hand accounts as a reliable source.

„since the fifteenth century all power, civil and spiritual, has been nominally in the hands of the Dalai Lama, but China maintains a Manchu resident and an army. Until the Dalai Lama’s 22 year, the government is in the hands of a regent appointed by the Emperor of the China.

In order to avoid strife in selecting a Dalai Lama, the electoral council places three stips of paper with the names of three boys in an urn, and the Manchu resident removes one with a small staff.

The dalai lama’s council, in whose hands is the actual power, embraces four so-called “Galons” appointed by the Emperor of China. The administration is in the hands of a closed aristocracy, and bribery and corruption are nearly universal.”

Explorations in Tibet Date: Sept. 1903 Pages 353-355 National Geographic

How much time did the author of this piece spend in Tibet ... who is the author, anyway? How many of the facts did he witness firsthand, as opposed to being informed by sources? Who were his sources? For instance, there were no dalai lamas selected within 25 years of 1903, so he must have been told about this by somebody.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 11:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

a national geographic author summarized an account by G.Z. Zoubikov who resided in Lhasa for several months. He is a Russian buddhist and a graduate from the Oriental Faculty of the University of St. Petersbrg. He was also given the Przhevasky prize by the society, being the first Russian Tibet explorer. He entered Tibet from the north in the summer of 1900 and stayed for several months mostly in Lhasa. According to the article, I quote: "The present Dalai Lhama is 27 years old. He is the 5th since 1806, one of the regents having continued in authority for an ununsually long time, owing to 3 children selected to be lhamas having died before attaining majority." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.56.156.199 (talk) 16:28, 20 May 2007

correction, mr.zoubikov's stay lasted over a year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.56.156.199 (talk) 16:31, 20 May 2007

[edit] Reincarnation Application

The Reincarnation Application article is related to the Tibetan sovereignty article, but I'm not sure how to tie it in. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Clerks. 17:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Apparently, the "freedom" of speech on Wikipedia is even more restricted than North Korea. Most people who believe that this article is biased are often deemed as "Pro-Communist" and "Freedom Haters." PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THIS NPOV. I HAVE ALREADY NOTIFIED SOME ADMINISTRATORS ABOUT THE BIAS AND ADMIN ABUSE GOING ON. I assure you that I am only interested in the historical context of the Tibet. Unfortunately, many people try to mix politics and history together in order to create a feeling of domination and abuse by the People's Republic of China and such people are often Pro-Tibetan independence. I believe that sites or articles such as this should use academic sources rather than government or Pro-Tibetan sources. One will see that the sources linked to this website are mainly from Pro-Tibetan groups. Nationalism should be avoided on both sides. Ironically enough, no independent sources from academic history books are ever mentioned. Yet, people want to have a "fair" and "unbiased" debate about this topic. Anyone who reads this article can obviously feel that it is heavily supportive of Tibetan independence. Outside of the western world, almost no "Tibetan" groups exist! In the current political state of the world, many western countries are afraid of China's rise and its impact on the world. This not only goes for China but also for the Russian Federation as well. Many similar "groups" criticize Russia for not being "democratic" enough while Bush just vetoed a legislation allowing torture. Because of these modern events, I believe that the sources are also biased and tend to be very supportive of "western" nations. They have seem to have forgotten about both world wars fought in the 20th century and the reasons behind them!

I AM ASKING EVERY INTERESTED MEMBER TO SEARCH FOR ACADEMIC RESOURCES AND TRY TO BALANCE OUT THE BIAS. Bias is hard to avoid but we should try to introduce both sides' ideas fairly. Thank You! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historychaser4 (talk • contribs) 01:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Your edit history shows you are running around tagging Tibetan articles with the POV tag, and then pasting a message on the talk page which does not address what your specific concerns are. Post specifics, or the tags will be reverted as your own POV. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The article has well-classfied Tibetan, Chinese and Third-party viewpoint , please CLEARLY POINT OUT which area is POV.158.182.31.185 (talk) 11:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] article's introduction

As it's still controversial (and POV) claiming Tibet as independent during the years 1912-1951. I with no doubt reverted this edit. 219.79.27.59 (talk) 16:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Diplomatic relations with Nepal, Mongolia, Great Britain, and Ladakh, Poor Citation

On the claim of Tibet once had diplomatic relations with Nepal, Mongolia, Great Britain, and Ladakh (in the "Historical Status" section), the citation used (number 10 for now, titled "Language Log: Microsoft Outlaws Dzongkha", at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002619.html) turns out to be a blog entry, at a blog site primarily discussing language related technologies. The author of the cited post casually mentioned this claim without providing further citations or reasoning. I would suggest that we remove this claim for the time being, until more reliable and verifiable (see WP:V) sources can be cited. Claims as significant as the existence of diplomatic relations between two sovereign nations should have much more credible sources (than a casual blog entry at least). Steven li (talk) 22:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Nobody commented or objective to my view points above, I'm going ahead to remove the reference to diplomatic relations between Tibet and the four countries, until a reliable source can be found. Steven li (talk) 07:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Hang on a minute - this is in a section entitled "The View of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile". That "Government" expresses the view which you removed on its website: http://www.tibet.com/whitepaper/white1.html . I can think of no more reliable source of "The View of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile" than its own website! The text you removed is not stating that the diplomatic relations did exist, it is stating that it is the view of the Tibetan Government-in-exile that they did. Am I missing something obvious here? Paul Christensen (talk) 08:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Fair comment, I only removed it because the source (a technology blog site) was unreliable and not appropriate to support the claim (diplomatic relations), and after I waited a couple of days without hearing objections. If you believe you've found a better source, feel free to go ahead and re-word this section. However the material you mentioned describes the "diplomatic, economical and cultural relations" in a very ambiguous and nebulous way, you may want to spend some time writing up something more specific and crisp though. Steven li (talk) 21:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Keeping the intro NPOV

I have removed text from the introductory paragraph introduced recently by Yewhock. The views expressed were clearly not Neutral, and the viewpoint is already well covered in the Third-Party Views section. Given that views are so clearly divided on this issue the general introduction needs to remain as a statement of the scope of the problem, not of any specific views on it.Paul Christensen (talk) 09:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] need more restructing...

i am not sure both side are arguing the same point, it feel all over the place. can we have some kind of ex.summary for each side? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.8.10 (talk) 13:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nominal power

The article currently states that "The September 1903 issue of National Geographic stretches back to the 15th century Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and tells us that the power of Dalai Lama was only nominal". This is not what the following text says; which is that all power, both civilian and spiritual, is nominally in the hands of the Dalai Lama. The difference is subtle but significant. Cripipper (talk) 11:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Zahirrudin Ahmad

Do we have any evidence that this person is a historian? 'A Resume of Facts' does not sound like a very historical statement. Cripipper (talk) 11:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks OK to me - he has written a couple of works on Tibetan history & philospohy and his "Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century" is cited by a number of people (for example: http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~rmcclea/McCleary%20Formation%20of%20Tibetan%20State%20Religion.pdf )Paul Christensen (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Long March

I propose to excise the section on Deng Xiaoping's statement to Kissinger. It contributes nothing to the discussion of sovereignty, merely demonstrating that Deng Xiaoping claimed that the Red Army marched through southern Tibet. Cripipper (talk) 11:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree on this: Deng Xiaoping is still a key "thought leader" for the Chinese leadership so his observation that the Chinese Red Army marched through (implicitly without doubt that they were in Chinese territory) does reinforce the Chinese view that de facto independence was not extant at that time.Paul Christensen (talk) 13:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The logic of this argument doesn't stand up; the argument put forward, as cited in this article, is that "many other parts of China also enjoyed de facto independence" during this period. Therefore, the extension of your point means that any provinces through which the Red Army marched were not de facto independent, which is clearly a nonsense. During the Civil War Nationalist armies marched through Burmese territory; this has no bearing on whether Burma was de facto, or even de jure, independent. Furthermore, you are assuming to understand the thought processes and rationale of Deng during a period of flux in the party's official position on whether national minorities had the right to national self-determination. As I said, all this demonstrates is that Deng said they marched across a section of southern Tibet. Cripipper (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I see your point and I don't feel very strongly on this, so delete it if you do and no-one else has any input. Paul Christensen (talk) 15:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Balance

When I came to this page first a few weeks ago I was impressed by its breadth & balance: the Chinese and Tibetan views were given approximately equal weight. But in the last couple of weeks the "View of the Chinese Governments" has been expanded substantially, and the "View of the Tibetan Government-in-exile" has contracted a little. IN my opinion this leaves the article badly unbalanced in the weight of content, and there is now a need either to condense the Chinese view or expand on the Tibetan one. What do others think?Paul Christensen (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

   Let the pro-Tibet party add what they want. I am sure they are around and in due time we will read from them, and I want to see how they respond. I have seen their footprints in Tibet-related wikipedia articles. Yewhock (talk) 17:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


The reason was simple, a lot of third-party talks such as the citations from the Encyclopaedia Britannica and works of Melvyn C. Goldstein were put under the title of "view of the Chinese government". I suggest move all these contents into "Third-Party views". Clearly, some people have been treating "pro-China views" as "the Chinese government views". These two things, however, were very different.Speaker cn (talk) 00:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UN resolution 1723

Here is an excerpt (bolded emphasis is mine) from the UN resolution 1723:

The General Assembly ((...)) Solemnly renews its calls for the cessation of practices which deprive the Tibetan people of their fundamental human rights and freedoms, including their right to self-determination

This resolution is already mentioned in the article (tied to the footnote #82) in the following way:

The 1961 resolution, in the opinion of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, asserts that "principle of self-determination of peoples and nations" applies to the Tibetan people.

In which way doesn't this resolution clearly state that the right to self-determination applies to the Tibetan people? If it doesn't may we delete , in the opinion of the Tibetan Government-in-exile,?

Moreover, in such a case and if the UN is not the Tibetan Government-in-Exile(!), may we transfer this mention about the resolution 1723 into the Third-Party views section? Natmaka (talk) 18:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I think there is no deed to do so (the transfer thing) since large parts in "the view of the Chinese Governments" are also from the third parties' views. And we should note that PRC rejoined the UN in year 1971 which means the three UN resolutions were made when China was absent in UN. How effective and fair were those resolutions? It is still debatable.Speaker cn (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The sources cited on this article about the UN resolutions all came from the Tibetan exile government's website.--TheLeopard (talk) 21:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I beg to differ. How can the source of a UN resolution be the "Tibetan exile government's website"? The UN General Assembly publishes this resolution, therefore the source is the UN website, leading to (click '1723') to UN archives publishing the official document, which contains ("The General Assembly ((...)) Solemnly renews its calls for the cessation of practices which deprive the Tibetan people of their fundamental human rights and freedoms, including their right to self-determination"). Therefore this view is not, as stated in the article, "in the opinion of the Tibetan Government-in-exile" but the UN's view, and therefore pertains to the Third-Party views section. Natmaka (talk) 09:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Defination of Tibet

I propose to include the disputes of the defination of Tibet into this article too. Too often I have seen people who don't know the Tibet referred by the Tibet Government in Exile and the "TAR" by the Chinese government were two absolutely different concepts; the former entity was almost twice of the area of the later one. I believe the readers deserve to know, when talking about Tibet, the two sides were actually refering to very different geographical entities.

Good point. This is an important controversy and it should be discussed.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 23:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Return" to China

[edit] Question raised

Recently added text: "Dalai lama also pointed out that, for Tibetans to survive as a people, it was "imperative" that the Chinese people in the whole of Tibet known as Cholka-Sum (U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo) return to China.[1][2] Considering the region Dalai Lama claimed as the whole of Tibet, an estimation of the population of the non-Tibetan people who should "return to China" was around 50 million. The caculation was made by adding up most of the population of Qinghai(5.4 million in 2004), more than half of the population of Sichuan (87.3 million in 2004) and a portion of the population of Yunnan (44.2 million) and then substracting the population of the ethnic Tibetans in these region.[3]".

It's interesting that the Dalai Lama's five-point plan calls for some Chinese people to leave the Tibetan territories, and that is definitely worth mentioning. Still, what the source given actually says is that "Today, in the whole of Tibet 7.5 million Chinese settlers have already been sent ... it is imperative that the population transfer is stopped and Chinese settlers return to China." This clearly does not say that all Chinese people in Tibet must leave; it apparently means that 7.5 million settlers must leave, although it could also be understood as saying that some of them should leave. I have no idea what justifies the number "50 million" that is mentioned here—I don't see any source which says that more than half the population of Sichuan lives in Cholka Sum, and that hardly seems plausible.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 20:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Paradox of Dalai Lama's "Greater Tibet" Theory

[edit] Dalai Lama's Tibet

I have checked the map again and here is a more acurate explanation on the area of Tibet. The area Dalai Lama claimed as "the whole of Tibet" includes the whole of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the whole of Qinghai Province, about 1/6 of the Xinjiang Province, about 2/3 of the Gansu Province, about 3/5 of the Sichuan province and about 1/4 of the Yunnan province. It is about 1/4 of the area of China.

The green part is the geographical definition of Tibet according to Dalai Lama
The green part is the geographical definition of Tibet according to Dalai Lama
Chinese provinces in English

[edit] Chinese "Return to China"

The second point of Dalai Lama's Five Point Peace Plan was, "Today, in the whole of Tibet 7.5 million Chinese settlers have already been sent, outnumbering the Tibetan population of 6 million. In central and western Tibet, now referred to by the Chinese as the "Tibet Autonomous Region", Chinese sources admit the 1.9 million Tibetans already constitute a minority of the region's population. These numbers do not take the estimated 300,000-500,000 troops in Tibet into account - 250,000 of them in so-called Tibet Autonomous Region. For the Tibetans to survive as a people, it is imperative that the population transfer is stopped and Chinese settlers return to China. Otherwise, Tibetans will soon be no more than a tourist attraction and relic of a noble past."[4]

My understanding was Dalai Lama treated all the non-Tibetan people in "his Tibet" as Chinese (actually there are Han Chinese, Muslim Chiese, etc) and he wanted those Chinese to "return to China". However, his claim of "7.5 million Chinese settlers" was not supported by any evidence.

Nobody can really calculate exactly how many non-Tibetan people are present now in "Dalai Lama's Tibet". I did a rough calculation assuming the population averagely spreads in each province. This assumption could be different from the real situation but at least we can have a rough idea about how many people we are talking about who should "return to China". My calculation result was around 50 million. People are welcome to post their calculation results.

[edit] Voting in a Democratic Entity Leads to...

One could argue that Dalai Lama did not have the intention to drive all the non-Tibetan people to leave Tibet as it was not explicitly stated in his proposal. But here is another intersting statement from Dalai Lama, "The whole of Tibet known as Cholka-Sum (U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo) should become a self-governing democratic political entity founded on law" [5]

The population of all the ethnic Tibetan people in China is under 6 million. If Dalai Lama does not drive the Chinese in "Tibet" away, the 50 million Chinese could easily vote for Tibet merging back to China in a "a self-governing democratic political entity". In that case, all of Dalai Lama's ideas about "Tibet" would become in vain. Then why would he bother to found the new Tibet anyway?

[edit] Charge of Ethnic Cleansing

With the reasoning above, we can conclude that Dalai Lama has to drive most of the non-Tibetan Chinese people away in Tibet for his new Tibet plan. But he would face a very serious charge if he really intends to do so: ethnic cleansing.

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group"[6]

To remove 50 million ethnic Chinese from Tibet certainly qualifies as ethnic cleansing, I believe.

So, what does Dalai Lama really want? I wonder.

I propose to put part of this discussion into the article and people should be aware that Dalai Lama's proposal to solve the Tibetan sovereignty debate is basically a deadlock.

[edit] Response

Speaker_cn, I think you're right to wonder about this, because the Dalai Lama has, as far as I can tell, not been very clear about his intentions in this regard. I also agree that it is very unfortunate that the Dalai Lama's people tend to play fast and loose with the numbers. However, I do think there are three important issues that should be brought up:

1) The map that you posted above, where does it come from? Is this an official document of the exile government or the office of the Dalai Lama? If the boundaries shown are slightly wrong, it makes a big difference, because it is in the areas along the border that the Tibetan claim is weak and the Chinese population is large.

2) The population of the provinces in question is definitely not evenly spread. For one thing, people tend to live in cities, and the Dalai Lama certainly does not claim Chengdu. Moreover, the countryside where Tibetans live is typically less densely populated than the countryside where Han people live.

3) It looks to me like the passage you quoted above clearly says "Chinese settlers return to China." The term "Chinese settlers" does not necessarily mean all Chinese people in a given area; only the ones who are settlers (i.e. not born or raised there). Moreover, the passage says that settlers "have already been sent" (emphasis mine), which makes it unclear whether "settlers" includes people who arrived voluntarily rather than being required to move there by a government program (which the Dalai Lama claims is happening). In any event, the passage clearly says how many people we are talking about: 7.5 million, not 50 million. I understand your point about the results of democratic elections, but since we are not, in fact, talking about 50 million non-Tibetan voters, there would not necessarily have to be ethnic cleansing. By my calculations, according to government statistics, 18.4% of the land area of the PRC consists of areas where Tibetans are a majority of at least 60%; in other words, this is most, but not all, of the Tibetan area claimed by Tibetan exiles. These areas taken together are 85% Tibetan, and that's without anybody being required to leave.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 01:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] A short explanation

Image:Tibet population pie 1.png

Nat Krause, you are right about one thing: in the Tibet Autonomous Region, around 95% of the resident population is ethnic Tibetan (about); far more than 60%. See the pie on the right side and I will give the source later. If the Tibet Autonomous Region is the Tibet Dalai Lama claimes, things would be a lot easier for him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Speaker cn (talk • contribs) 08:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right that the TAR is one of the areas where Tibetans are more than 60% of the population. I was referring also to the following autonomous areas: Kardze, Yülshül, Hainan, Huangnan, and Golog, along with the southwestern part of Qinghai, which is the discontinuous portion of Haixi.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 11:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Five point Peace Plan
  2. ^ Strasbourg Proposal 1988
  3. ^ Provinces, Autonomous Regions, Centrally Administered Municipalities and Special Administrative Regions
  4. ^ Five point Peace Plan
  5. ^ Strasbourg Proposal 1988
  6. ^ Hayden, Robert M. (1996) Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers. Slavic Review 55 (4), 727-48.

[edit] Yuan, Mongols, and khāns

Also recently added: "However, the successors of the Yuan Dynasty never attempted to stake claim over the Khagan title and saw themselves as Emperor of China, as the Yuan Dynasty became another one of the long list of dynasties in the history of imperial China." This is saying that none of the Yuan emperors (after Kublai?) used the title qaγan? Is that really correct, that they did not claim to be the great khan of the Mongols? I notice that the Wikipedia articles for each of the Yuan emperors actually lists "qaγan" as part of their Mongolian names. Besides, it's not clear what relevance this sentence has to the one before it, which is: "Among the historical claims to Tibetan sovereignty, supporters note that during the Yuan Dynasty, it was the Mongols who conquered Tibet, not the Chinese, and that the Mongols administered Tibet and China separately and very differently, allowing the Tibetans much greater autonomy." Since the Mongols conquered Tibet before Kublai Khan, what does that have to do with the emperors who came after him?—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 20:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


1. I think this history was no problem as I copied it directly from the Yuan Dynasty part of wiki. Those emperors did claim themselves as Chinese Emperors instead of Mongolian Khanates because only in this way could they rule a country whose major population was Han Chinese. The title "Chinese Emperor" is like "US President" which had nothing to do with their Mongolian names like "George W Bush"Speaker cn (talk) 19:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
2. The whole idea was the Yuan Dynasty was a Chinese Dynasty although its main rulers were Mongols. The referred arguement failed to realize that Tibet was an entity ruled by China instead of a parallel entity with China.Speaker cn (talk) 19:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
You're right that the article on the Yuan dynasty says that, but, then, you shouldn't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. I don' t really see why the Yuan emperors would need to abandon the title of qaγan in order to rule China—there have been many rulers who used multiple titles, so why couldn't they do that? In any event, this requires more information, so I'll bring it up at Talk:Yuan Dynasty.
As for your second point, the preceding sentence does not say anything about whether the Yuan dynasty was Chinese or not. It says that Tibet was conquered by Mongols, not by Chinese, which is true: Tibet was conquered before the establishment of the Yuan. It then says that Tibet was allowed autonomy under the Yuan, which is still true if the Yuan were Chinese.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 03:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)