The Snow Lion and the Dragon. Melvyn C. Goldstein

of Qing overlordship. He complained to the emperor Qian Long that Qing troops need not be stationed in Tibet and that the emperor's imperial commissioners, the ambans, were interfering in his administration and exploiting the people. Since Tibet had been peaceful and unproblematic for the previous two and a half decades, the emperor agreed to reduce the Lhasa garrison to a token one hundred troops and instructed the ambans in Lhasa not to interfere in Tibet's administration. He also agreed to send additional funds to cover the expenses of the ambans and troops, thus reducing the need for corvees (that is, taxation in the form of forced labor) to obtain goods and services. But Gyurme Namgye wanted all troops and ambans out of Tibet. He began to organize a secret Tibetan army of his own and, disastrously, began to intrigue with the habitual enemies of the Qing dynasty, the Dzungar Mongols.

      When the ambans in Lhasa learned of these machinations, they invited him to their residence in Lhasa and murdered him. In response, Gyurme Namgye's followers attacked the ambans' residence and killed them together with their troops. Another several hundred Chinese sought refuge in the Potala under the protection of the seventh Dalai Lama and were spared. The Qing emperor, Qian Long, ordered an army to march to Tibet.

      Into this political void, the seventh Dalai Lama intervened. He stopped the rioting and killing of Chinese and Manchu, appointed a lay aristocrat to operate the government, and had the leaders of the riot captured. Consequently, by the time the Qing emperor's troops reached Lhasa order had been restored under the authority of the Dalai Lama. The Qing commander publicly executed a number of Gyurme Namgye's supporters, and, as in 1723 and 1728, made changes in the political structure, this time drawing up a formal reorganization plan to permanently stabilize Tibetan politics called the "Thirteen Article Ordinance for the More Efficient Governing of Tibet." Having tried to control Tibet through a lay aristocratic family, the Qing now restored the Dalai Lama as ruler but elevated the role of the amban to include more direct involvement in Tibetan internal affairs. At the same time the Qing took steps to counterbalance the power of the aristocracy by adding officials recruited from the clergy to key posts. For example, a monk minister was added to the new council of ministers, and from this time the abbots and the chief managers (chiso) of the three great Geluk monasteries around Lhasa (Drepung, Sera, and Ganden) took part in discussions with the council ministers on important affairs.¹³

      For several decades, peace reigned in Tibet, but the country was weak and disunited. When a dispute between Tibet and Nepal precipitated a Nepalese invasion in 1788, the Tibetans could not defend their country. The Nepalese looted Tashilhunpo, the monastery of the Panchen Lama, and occupied a substantial portion of southwest Tibet. The Qing emperor sent a large Chinese army into Tibet that joined Tibetan forces in 1792 to push the Nepalese out and force them to sue for peace. It was the fifth army the Qing had sent to Tibet in the eighteenth century.

      The inability of the Tibetans to expel the Nepalese forces without an army from China, coupled with charges of poor leadership and organization in the Tibetan government, prompted yet another Qing reorganization of the Tibetan government, this time through a written plan called the “Twenty-Nine Regulations for Better Government in Tibet.” This reform package included the selection of top incarnations (hutuktus) like the Dalai and Panchen Lamas through a lottery conducted in a golden urn, the aim being to prevent the selection of incarnations being manipulated to fall in politically powerful lay families.¹⁴ It also elevated the ambans to equal political authority with the Dalai Lama for major administrative issues and appointments and mandated that nominations for top positions like council minister be submitted to the emperor for approval. The reforms also included regulations forbidding exploitation of peasants through the misuse of corvee labor, and prohibited the relatives of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas from holding public office during the lamas' lifetimes. Qing military garrisons staffed with Qing troops, moreover, were now established near the Nepalese border at Shigatse and Dingri.¹⁵

      The Qing rationale for these changes was conveyed by Fu Kangan, the general in charge of the expeditionary force, in comments to the Dalai Lama at that time:

      The administration of Tibetan local affairs has never had any system to go by. All the Dalai Lama does is silent meditation and is therefore not well-informed of events taking place outside. The kaloons [council ministers] cheat with wild abandon in times of peace, and in times of war they are not able to do anything [in] defense. Extensive regulations are needed so that everyone knows what he is expected to do. In this regard His Majesty has instructed me in great detail what to do and has ordered me and the others to deliberate on his instructions to make sure that their execution will serve the interests of the Tibetans for a long time to come without creating any drawbacks. Since the Dalai Lama is grateful to His Majesty for what he has done for Tibet, he is expected to respect the changes to be made for better government in Tibet. If he persists in his old ways of doing things, His Majesty will call back the resident officials and evacuate the Tibetan garrison immediately after the withdrawal of the expeditionary army, and the Court will not come to the help of Tibet should any emergencies arise in the future. The Dalai Lama is asked to weigh the pros and cons and make up him [sic] mind.¹⁶

      Fu Kangan's comments reveal Beijing's frustration with the leaders of its Tibet dependency. Beijing had sought a peaceful Tibet that caused it no problems, but had already found it necessary to send five armies there in less than seven decades. The Dalai Lama agreed to the regulations and gave assurances that his ministers would do so as well.

      In the years immediately following the 1792 regulations, the ambans exercised their greatest authority, but they made no attempt to absorb Tibet into China as a province. Tibet maintained its own language, officials, and legal system, and paid no taxes or tribute to China. In fact, the 1792 reforms included the creation of Tibet's first standing army, the emperor's aim being to enable Tibet to defend itself and thus avoid having to send troops again. In modern times the popular name of this regiment was "Chinese trained" (or Gyajong).

      The actual role of the amban in Tibet is difficult to assess. Despite the rhetoric and rules the Qing prepared, their power appears to have varied considerably in accordance with many factors such as their personality and competence in relation to that of the leaders of Tibet, and the nature of the political situation in China and Tibet at any point in time. A comment by the Qing emperor to his amban in Lhasa in 1792 illustrates the gap between rules and reality since 1728:

      Usually capable, competent officials are assigned to posts in the capital; those sent to Tibet have been mostly mediocrities who did practically nothing but wait for the expiration of their tenures of office so they could return to Beijing. Because of that the Dalai Lama and the kaloons [council ministers] were able to do whatever they wished in the administration of Tibetan affairs, ignoring the existence of these incompetent officials. That is how the Resident Official [amban] has been reduced to nothing more than a figurehead. From now on the administration of Tibet should be effectively supervised by the Resident Official;…the Dalai Lama and the kaloons shall no longer be able to monopolize it.¹⁷

      However, as the nineteenth century unfolded, the Qing dynasty experienced pressing threats to its position as a result of internal disturbances such as the Taiping Rebellion (1848-1865) and external incursions by Western countries such as the Opium War of 1839-1842. Not surprisingly, the power of the ambans in Tibet waned, as did the involvement of the Qing emperors. Consequently, Tibet was able to conduct a war with the Sikhs and Ladakh in 1841-1842 and another war with the Nepalese in 1855-1856 with no involvement from China, although in the latter conflict Tibet was forced to pay Nepal an annual tribute and accept a Nepalese resident in Lhasa and extraterritoriality for Nepalese traders. Similarly, the thirteenth Dalai Lama was chosen in 1877 without recourse to the "golden urn" lottery that the Qing emperor, Qian Long, had ordered in 1792. And in 1897, two years after the thirteenth Dalai assumed political control, he stopped consulting the amban in the selection of top officials (in accordance with the 1792 regulations) and began appointing them directly. As Phuntso Tashi, the fourteenth Dalai Lama's brother-in-law (and a former Tibetan government official) explains, "For over 100 years Tibet's holders of political power had not been able to do that. The Manchu government was displeased with this but…they were unable to do anything about it."¹⁸ By the turn of the twentieth century, therefore, the