Anglo-Tibetan relations began in 1774 when Warren Hastings was in charge of the British East India Company. Warren Hastings sent George Bogle, a young officer of the Company, to visit the Tashi Lama, the spiritual head of Tibet. However, Bogle could not secure any advantage for the British because Tibet, since the early years of the eighteenth century, had acknowledged the suzerainty of China. In fact, Chinese authority over Tibet was represented by the presence of Chinese residents, known as Ambans, in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. China and Tibet jointly endeavoured to keep Tibet closed to the British and successfully excluded them until the end of the nineteenth century.
The situation changed after the Third Anglo-Burmese War. In 1886, the British made a treaty with China in which Britain recognized China's authority over Tibet, and China, in turn, accepted the British annexation of Burma. When the Tibetans attacked Sikkim, a British-protected state, they were easily repelled. In 1890, the boundary between Tibet and Sikkim was demarcated by a treaty between China and Britain. Thus, until the beginning of the twentieth century, Tibet remained a forbidden country to the British.
In the early twentieth century, the Dalai Lama, with the help of his tutor Dorjieff, a Russian Buddhist, sought to overthrow Chinese authority and engaged in negotiations with the Russian government. Lord Curzon, the energetic Viceroy of India, grew concerned about Russian dominance in Tibet. To counter this perceived threat, he dispatched an expedition led by Colonel Francis Younghusband. The expedition entered Tibet without resistance in July 1903, achieving an easy victory over the poorly armed Tibetan army at Guru in March 1904. After defeating a larger Tibetan force, they reached Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in August 1904.
The Treaty of Lhasa was an agreement signed on September 7, 1904, under Younghusband's terms. It required the Tibetans to open three trade marts for the British within Tibet, pay an indemnity of 75 lakh rupees (later reduced to 25 lakh rupees, repayable in three annual instalments), allow the British to occupy the Chumbi Valley (situated between Sikkim and Bhutan) until the indemnity was fully paid, and prohibit any foreign power from annexing Tibetan territory or building railways without granting similar rights to the British. This successfully curtailed Russian influence in Tibet but reinforced Chinese control, which had previously been nominal. China, on Tibet's behalf, paid the indemnity, prompting the British to vacate the Chumbi Valley.
In 1906, Britain and Nepal signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship (known as the Anglo-Nepalese Treaty of 1906), whereby Britain agreed not to annex any Tibetan territory or interfere in the internal administration of Tibet. In return, China agreed not to allow any foreign power to interfere in Tibet or disturb its territorial integrity. The following year, Britain and Russia agreed to conduct political relations with Tibet through China. Thus, Tibet was effectively handed over to China as a political gift. In 1913, when China was busy sorting out domestic squabbles, Tibet took advantage of this situation and overthrew China's suzerainty over Tibet. Russia, similarly preoccupied with its internal troubles since 1917, relieved Britain of the need to take an independent stance on Tibet. For the next thirty years, relations between Britain and Tibet remained cordial and peaceful. However, in the 1950s, the political situation changed. China, now a Communist state under the leadership of Mao Tse-Tung, sought to reassert its old authority over Tibet. As a result, the Chinese overran Tibet in 1959, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee for his life to India, while the Indian government looked on as a silent spectator. Thus, Tibet became an integral part of China, forming the northern boundary of India.
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