China invaded Tibet in 1950. Its occupation has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans and the imprisonment and torture of thousands more. After a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, Tibet’s political and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India followed by tens of thousands of Tibetans. Inside its borders and across the world, Tibetans have never stopped believing Tibet is a nation. Since 1959, they have continued to oppose and resist China's rule and China has responded with intense repression. From a legal standpoint, Tibet to this day has not lost its statehood. It is an independent state under illegal occupation. Neither China's military invasion nor the continuing occupation by the PLA has transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to China. As pointed out earlier, the Chinese government has not claimed to have acquired sovereignty over Tibet by conquest. Indeed, China recognizes that the use or threat of force (outside the exceptional circumstances provided for in the UN Charter), the imposition of an unequal treaty or the continued illegal occupation of a country can never grant an invader legal title to territory. Its claims are based solely on the alleged subjection of Tibet to a few of China's strongest foreign rulers in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. As the book addresses this crucial issue quite deftly, it is hoped that it would prove to be a source of great information for the reader.
