Xikang
The Chinese province of Xikang ( Chinese 西康省 , Pinyin Xīkāng Shěng , Tongyong Pinyin Sikang , W.-G. Hsi-k'ang - "Province of West Kham") in the west of the country and in eastern Tibet existed as a special administrative zone from 1905 to 1927 and then as a regular province until 1955.
history
According to the common western view, the People's Republic of China divided the East Tibetan Kham into different provinces. In fact, however, the opposite is the case, as corresponding administrative structures based on the political fragmentation of Kham had already emerged in the late imperial period of China ( Qing dynasty 1644–1911). Under the name Xikang, a large part of the eastern Tibetan region of Kham ( Tib. ཁམས་ Wylie khams ; Chin. 康 , Pinyin kāng ) became an independent province in the time of the Republic of China (1912–1949), but more on paper than in the reality existed. While Kham extends over the east of today's Tibet Autonomous Region (AGT, in the administrative districts of Nagqu and Nyingchi and the city of Qamdo ), the south of Qinghai Province ( Yushu Autonomous District of the Tibetans), the west of Sichuan Province ( Garzê der Tibetans and Ngawa Autonomous District of the Tibetans and Qiang) and the north-west of Yunnan Province ( Dêqên Autonomous District of the Tibetans), Xikang only included those parts of Khams that are now part of the AGT and Sichuan.
This goes back to the phase after the invasion of the British Younghusband expedition , whose campaign led to Lhasa and even to the temporary capture of the Tibetan capital by the British and the flight of the 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso to Mongolia and China. In 1904 , the British expeditionary corps, under the command of Francis Younghusband, reached the city of Lhasa after destroying the Tibetan troops, which were far inferior in terms of weapons, in several bloody battles. There a trade treaty and a British base in Lhasa were forced upon the Tibetans. Subsequent negotiations contractually affirmed China's nominal sovereignty over Tibet, forcing the Tibetans to open trading posts and cede areas in the eastern Himalayan region (see Arunachal Pradesh ).
These events led the rulers of the dying imperial Qing dynasty (1644–1911) to the conviction that Tibet needed to be more closely integrated into the Chinese power and administrative apparatus. As a result, the Chinese general Zhao Erfeng (old spelling Chao Erh-feng) was given great powers in 1905 and authorized to intervene in Tibet. His campaigns left a bloody trail, which earned him the nickname "Zhao the Butcher". Since the Dalai Lama had fled to British India this time and the China-friendly Panchen Lama, who resided in Samzhubzê , was installed as chairman of the Lhasa government, Zhao reorganized the administration of the Tibetan territories. a. by bringing together the Tibetan counties east of Lhasa in the Xikang Special Administrative Region.
The authorities of the Republic of China began preparing to convert the Special Administrative Region into a province in 1927, but the great turmoil in China, which is ruled by warlords, prevented greater administrative progress. Although Xikang was granted the status of a regular Chinese province in 1939 - with the administrative seat in Kangding (Chin. "Kham stabilize"), the Tibetan Dartsedo or Chinese Dajianlu (old spelling Tatsienlu ) - the official authority was only over great distances nominally, especially in the areas near or west of the Yangtze . But the influence of the government in Lhasa also decreased sharply east of the Tanggula Pass (about 92 degrees longitude) and was more nominal than real. After the founding of the PR China, the province of Xikang was dissolved in 1955 and the culturally more Tibetan west was added to the province of Tibet (from 1965 AGT, Tibet Autonomous Region ), while the east was incorporated into the province of Sichuan .
literature
- A. Gruschke: The Cultural Monuments of Tibet's Outer Provinces: Kham , 3 volumes, White Lotus Press, Bangkok 2004 ff. ISBN 974-4800-49-6 Info
- Tsering Shakya: The Dragon in the Land of Snows. A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 , London 1999, ISBN 0140196153
