Foreign Military Invasion not “Peaceful Liberation”

On the dawn of 6th October 1950, the 52nd, 53rd & 54th divisions of the 18th Army3 of the Red Army (probably over 40,000 troops) attacked the Tibetan frontier guarded by 3,500 regular soldiers and 2,000 Khampa militiamen. Recent research by a Chinese scholar reveals that Mao Zedong met Stalin on 22nd January 1950 and asked for the Soviet air force to transport supplies for the invasion of Tibet. Stalin replied: “It’s good you are preparing to attack Tibet. The Tibetans need to be subdued.

An English radio operator (employed by the Tibetan government) at the Chamdo front wrote that Tibetan forward defences at the main ferry point on the Drichu River fought almost to the last man.5 In the south at the river crossing near Markham, the Tibetan advance guards fought heroically but were wiped out, according to an English missionary there.6 Surviving units conducted fighting retreats westwards, in good order. No unit fled or surrendered. Four days into the retreat, one regiment was overwhelmed and destroyed. Only two weeks after the initial attack, the Tibetan army surrendered. The biography of a Communist official states “Many Tibetans were killed and wounded in the Chamdo campaign.”7 and “… the Tibetan soldiers fought bravely, but they were no match for the superior numbers and better training” of the Chinese forces. According to the only Western military expert who wrote on the Chinese invasion of Tibet “…the Reds suffered at least 10,000 casualties.”8

It was not a peaceful liberation of Tibet as Beijing claims. In 1956 the Great Khampa revolt started and spread throughout the country culminating in the March Uprising of 1959. Guerilla operations only ceased in 1974. “A conservative estimate would have to be no less than half-a-million”9 Tibetans killed in the fighting. Many more died in the subsequent political campaigns, forced labor camps (laogai) and the great famine. The revolutionary uprisings throughout Tibet in 2008 and the brutal Chinese crackdown clearly demonstrate that the struggle continues today.