Tibetan independence movement

The Tibetan independence movement is a movement for the independence of Tibet and the political separation of Tibet from China. It is principally led by the Tibetan diaspora in countries like India and the United States, and by celebrities and Tibetan Buddhists in the United States and Europe. The movement is not supported by the 14th Dalai Lama, who although having advocated it from 1961 to the late 1970s, proposed a sort of high-level autonomy in a speech in Strasbourg in 1988, and has since then restricted his position to either autonomy for the Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region within China, or extending the area of the autonomy to include parts of neighboring Chinese provinces inhabited by Tibetans.

Among other reasons for independence, campaigners assert that Tibet has been historically independent. However, some dispute this claim by using different definitions of "Tibet", "historical" and "independence". The campaigners also argue that Tibetans are currently mistreated and denied certain human rights, although the Chinese government disputes this and claims progress in human rights. Various organizations with overlapping campaigns for independence and human rights have sought to pressure various governments to support Tibetan independence or to take punitive action against China for opposing it.

After the Mongol Prince Köden took control of the Kokonor region in 1239, he sent his general Doorda Darqan on a reconnaissance mission into Tibet in 1240. During this expedition the Kadampa monasteries of Rwa-sgreng and Rgyal-lha-khang were burned, and 500 people killed. The death of the Mongol qaghan Ögödei in 1241 brought Mongol military activity around the world temporarily to a halt. Mongol interests in Tibet resumed in 1244, when Prince Köden sent an invitation to the leader of the Sakya sect, to come to his capital and formally surrender Tibet to the Mongols. The Sakya leader arrived in Kokonor with his two nephews Drogön Chögyal Phagpa ('Phags-pa; 1235–80) and Chana Dorje (Phyag-na Rdo-rje; 1239–67) in 1246. This event marked the incorporation of Tibet into the Mongol Empire. Tibet was under administrative rule of the Yuan dynasty until the 1350s.

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