Tsepon W.D. Shakabpa

Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa (Tibetan: རྩིས་དཔོན་དབང་ཕྱུག་བདེ་ལྡན་ཞྭ་སྒབ་པ, Wylie: rtsis dpon dbang phyug bde ldan zhwa sgab pa, January 11, 1907 – February 23, 1989) was a Tibetan nobleman, scholar and former Finance Minister of the government of Tibet.

M. Shakabpa, was born in Tibet. His father, Tashi Phuntsok Shakabpa, was the steward of Lhasa. His uncle Trimon Norbu Wangyal, served as a Minister in the Cabinet of the 13th Dalai Lama. Shakabpa joined the Government at the age of 23, in 1930, as an official of the Treasury, and was appointed Minister of Finance in 1939, a position he held until 1950. His uncle, who had participated in the tripartite negotiations between Great Britain, China and Tibet in 1914, strongly encouraged him to take up an interest in Tibetan history, handing him in 1931 many documents he had personally collected from the Simla Accord negotiations, in order to counter the Chinese narrative accounts concerning his country.

Between late 1947 and early 1949, Shakabpa, in his capacity as Tibet's Finance Minister, was despatched abroad by the Tibetan Cabinet, or Kashag, as head of a Tibetan Trade Mission, a delegation that travelled around to world to investigate the possibilities of commercial treaties, particularly with the United States. He travelled to India, China, USA, England, France, Switzerland and Italy. The mission was intended also to strengthen claims for Tibet as an independent, sovereign nation. The Tibetan Government in Exile argues that the official passport he was issued with at the time illustrates that Tibet was an independent country.

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