Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in the context of "Tibetan diaspora"

The China–Nepal border is the international boundary between the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China and Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. It is 1,389 kilometres (863 mi) in length and runs in a northwest–southeast direction along the Himalayan mountain range, including Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. The boundaries of this particular border have changed dramatically over time, especially when considering relatively recent events such as the Annexation of Tibet in 1949. However, some of the most significant developments of modern times would be the signing of the "Agreement on Maintaining Friendly Relations between the People's Republic of China and the Kingdom of Nepal" in 1956 and the "Sino-Nepalese Treaty of Peace and Friendship" in 1960, both of which formally recognised Tibet as a part of China and confirmed the limits of the countries of China and Nepal as they are known today.

The Ganden Phodrang or Ganden Podrang (Tibetan: དགའ་ལྡན་ཕོ་བྲང, Wylie: dGa' ldan pho brang, Lhasa dialect: [ˈkɑ̃̀tɛ̃̀ ˈpʰóʈɑ̀ŋ]; Chinese: 甘丹頗章; pinyin: Gāndān Pōzhāng) was the Tibetan system of government established by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642, when the Oirat lord Güshi Khan who founded the Khoshut Khanate conferred all spiritual and political power in Tibet to him in a ceremony in Shigatse. During the ceremony, the Dalai Lama "made a proclamation declaring that Lhasa would be the capital of Tibet and the government of would be known as Gaden Phodrang" which eventually became the seat of the Gelug school's leadership authority. The Dalai Lama chose the name of his monastic residence at Drepung Monastery for the new Tibetan government's name: Ganden (དགའ་ལྡན), the Tibetan name for Tushita heaven, which, according to Buddhist cosmology, is where the future Buddha Maitreya resides; and Phodrang (ཕོ་བྲང), a palace, hall, or dwelling. Lhasa's Red Fort again became the capitol building of Tibet, and the Ganden Phodrang operated there and adjacent to the Potala Palace until 1959.

During the 17th century, the Dalai Lama established the priest and patron relationship with China's Qing emperors, a few decades before the Chinese expedition to Tibet (1720). Meanwhile, the Qing became increasingly active in governing Tibet with the establishment of imperial resident (Amban) and Chinese garrison stationed in Lhasa since the early 18th century and took advantage of crisis situations in Tibet to intervene in Tibetan affairs each time, although this also caused some dissatisfaction and uprisings within Tibet, such as the Batang uprising in 1905. A governing council known as the Kashag also operated in the Ganden Phodrang administration. During the British expedition to Tibet (1904) and the Chinese expedition to Tibet (1910) before the 1911 Revolution which led to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the Ganden Phodrang continued to govern Tibet under the Qing protectorate. After the Chinese Civil War which led to the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the subsequent signing of the Sino-Tibetan Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951, the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China began, although the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet and declared the revocation of the agreement following the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

The Tibet Area (Chinese: 西藏地方; pinyin: Xīzàng Dìfāng, also translated as Tibet Region in the 1954 Sino-Indian Agreement) was a province-level administrative division of China in the 20th century. It was de jure created after the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, and nominally includes the Ü-Tsang (central Tibet) and Ngari (western Tibet) areas, but not the Amdo and Kham areas. The territories were merely claimed by the ROC, but actually controlled by an independent Tibet with a government headed by the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. At this time, the scope of de facto independent Tibet included the "Tibet area" and the Chamdo area west of the Jinsha River, which claimed by China. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and lost control of mainland China to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; afterwards, the ROC continued to claim Tibet.

The PRC annexed Tibet in 1951 and continued to call it Tibet Area. It merged with the Chamdo Region and was transformed to Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965 after the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

Human rights in Tibet has been a subject of intense international scrutiny and debate, particularly since the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. Before the 1950s, Tibet's social structure was marked by inequality and described as a caste-like system or, controversially, as serfdom. Severe punishments, including permanent mutilation of body parts, were common, although capital punishment was banned in 1913. Muslim warlord Ma Bufang caused widespread destruction and deaths in Amdo, which is located northeast of Central Tibet.

It is difficult to accurately determine the scope of human rights abuses in Tibet after 1950 because the media is tightly controlled by the Chinese government and information about human rights is censored. Exile groups report that Tibetans in China are subjected to disappearances and torture, including electric shocks, cold exposure, and severe beatings. Hundreds have been killed in crackdowns, and thousands are arbitrarily detained. Freedoms of speech, the press, and political expression are suppressed or tightly controlled. Other methods which are employed by the Chinese authorities include heavy physical labor, "political investigation" sessions, and re-education through labor.

Amdo (Tibetan: ཨ་མདོ་, Wylie: a mdo [ʔam˥˥.to˥˥]; Chinese: 安多; pinyin: Ānduō), also known as Domey (Tibetan: མདོ་སྨད་), is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions. It encompasses a large area from the Machu (Yellow River) to the Drichu (Yangtze). Amdo is mostly coterminous with China's present-day Qinghai province, but also includes small portions of Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

In the 7th century, Amdo became a part of the Tibetan Empire until its dissolution in the 9th century. A local Tibetan theocracy called Tsongkha ruled the region from 997 to 1104. In the 13th century, Mongol forces conquered the area, which led to the beginning of a priest and patron relationship. From the 14th to the 16th century, the Ming Dynasty controlled some border areas of Amdo while Mongol presence remained significant. In the 1720s, the Yongzheng Emperor of Qing dynasty seized Amdo from the Dzungars and began forming the modern boundaries of Qinghai. He allowed most of the area to be administered by a series of local Tibetan rulers associated with the Ü-Tsang government through monastery systems but not directly governed by the Dalai Lama's Ganden Phodrang. From 1917 parts of Amdo were occupied by warlords of the Ma clique, who joined the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) in 1928. By 1952, Chinese Communist Party forces had annexed central Tibet and defeated both Kuomintang and Tibetan forces, solidifying their hold on the area roughly by 1958.