In 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded, and most parts of the country had been liberated. Based on the actual situation in Tibet at the time, the Central People's Government decided to peacefully liberate Tibet. Therefore, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China notified the local Tibetan government to send representatives to Beijing to discuss the peaceful liberation of Tibet. However, the regent of the Tibetan government, Ngawang Songrao, under the instigation and support of hostile foreign forces, disregarded the interests of the nation and its people, refused peaceful negotiations, and stationed the main force of the local army along the Chamdo line in Tibet, intending to confront the central government by force. Under such a severe situation, after careful consideration, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China ultimately had no choice but to send the People's Liberation Army into Tibet in October 1950, which first liberated Chamdo.
After the liberation of Chamdo, the central government, with great enthusiasm and sincerity, once again urged the Tibetan local government to come to Beijing for negotiations. This wise decision to conduct peace talks received support from progressive Tibetans and patriotic forces. Patriotic figures such as Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme strongly advocated for peace talks, and the 14th Dalai Lama, who had assumed full power, finally accepted the central government's opinion on peaceful negotiations. In February 1951, the Dalai Lama appointed Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme as his plenipotentiary representative, accompanied by Sonam Wangdui, Thubten Danda, Thubten Lemen, and Tenzin Thondup, to Beijing to negotiate with the Central People's Government. In May of the same year, representatives of the central government and the Tibetan local government reached an agreement on the peaceful liberation of Tibet and signed the "Agreement between the Central People's Government and the Tibetan Local Government on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet."
The signing of the Agreement on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was warmly welcomed by the Tibetan people. In September of the same year, the Tibetan local government convened a meeting of officials and representatives of the three major monasteries to discuss the agreement. Ultimately, it was deemed highly beneficial to political and economic development and should be implemented. Subsequently, the Dalai Lama telegraphed Chairman Mao Zedong, expressing the unanimous support of the Tibetan local government and the Tibetan people, both monks and laypeople, for the Agreement on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, and their willingness, under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee, to actively assist the People's Liberation Army troops entering Tibet in consolidating national defense and expelling imperialist forces. The Panchen Lama and the local government also issued statements supporting the signing of the agreement. On October 26, 1951, the Chinese People's Liberation Army successfully entered Lhasa.
After the liberation of Tibet, the central and Tibetan local governments, along with progressive patriots, began to fully implement the agreement. The Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama also attended the First National People's Congress in Beijing. At the congress, the Dalai Lama stated that under the wise leadership of the Central People's Government and on the basis of unity among all ethnic groups, Tibet would achieve prosperity and development. At this meeting, the Dalai Lama was also elected Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the Panchen Lama was elected a member of the Standing Committee. In April 1956, the Dalai Lama became a member of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region.
That same year, the Dalai Lama traveled to India to participate in the commemoration of the Buddha's birth. Upon his arrival, he was immediately surrounded by reactionary forces both inside and outside the country. They tried to lure the Dalai Lama into staying in India, plotting Tibetan independence activities, and the Dalai Lama and some of his accompanying officials began to waver. In response, the central government and the People's Liberation Army had already made ample preparations, and the Tibetan local government had also formulated measures to wage political struggle against the reactionary elements.
At this critical juncture, the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao decided to temporarily halt democratic reforms in Tibet, giving the Tibetan local government ample time to consider the matter before implementing prudent reforms at a more opportune time. During his visit to India, Premier Zhou Enlai conveyed the Central Committee's decision to the Dalai Lama and sternly addressed his desire to remain in India and engage in independence activities, stating that any activities that endanger national independence or split Tibet were impossible. This move had a significant effect; the Dalai Lama's stance immediately changed, and he returned to Lhasa in 1957.
Despite this, the Dalai Lama's activities to undermine peace in Tibet continued until the late 1950s. He instructed his confidants to instigate armed rebellions in Chamdo and Dingqing, and even established a rebel armed force in Shannan, creating a base for the rebellion, disrupting national road transport, and besieging and attacking the Tibet Autonomous Region's Chongbei Committee offices in these areas. In March 1959, the Dalai Lama finally broke the agreement and launched a large-scale armed rebellion in Lhasa, killing and wounding PLA soldiers stationed in Tibet and state personnel, thus embarking on the path of treason. On the night of March 17, the armed rebellion failed, and the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in haste, crossing the border to India, where he continued his activities aimed at splitting the country and instigating Tibetan independence.
Before the reforms, Tibet was a feudal serfdom society ruled by a theocratic clergy and aristocracy. A tiny minority, including serf owners, nobles, and upper-class monks, controlled all of Tibet's arable land, pastures, forests, mountains, and most of its livestock. The vast majority of the Tibetan population, the serfs, had no land, property, or personal freedom. Furthermore, serfs were treated as the private property of their owners and were freely bought, sold, transferred, given away, and exchanged. Despite years of arduous labor, serfs struggled to even obtain basic sustenance and often relied on high-interest loans to survive.
The laws established by the Tibetan rulers at the time upheld a strict hierarchical system, explicitly stipulating the inequality of people's legal status. For example, the lives of the upper class, such as princes and high lamas, were valued at gold equal to the weight of their corpses; while the lives of the lower-class serfs were valued at only a straw rope. In serfdom, the vast majority of serfs suffered severe oppression and exploitation. They attempted to resist, such as by petitioning, fleeing, resisting rent and corvée labor, and even resorting to armed struggle to fight for their personal rights, but all their efforts failed. They were forced to endure extremely barbaric and cruel punishments such as gouging out eyes, cutting off hands, stomping feet, having cramps pulled, and drowning.
After the rebellion was quelled, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in accordance with the demands of the Tibetan people, carried out democratic reforms in Tibet, abolished the feudal serf system, and enabled the serfs to be liberated and gain personal freedom. The central government also distributed the grain, arable land, and other means of subsistence owned by the serf owners to the landless serfs free of charge, giving them, for the first time, their own property.
In old Tibet, the local government operated under a theocratic feudal regime. The Dalai Lama was both one of the leaders of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and the head of the local government. Monastic officials were also appointed within the local administrative structure, and monasteries enjoyed special powers in handling political affairs. During the democratic reforms, the theocratic political system was abolished, replaced by a people's democratic dictatorship. The Tibetan people became the masters of the state and government, enjoying all rights granted by law. Citizens aged 18 and above, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, occupation, religious belief, education level, or property, have the right to vote and to be elected.
In September 1965, the First People's Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region was held in Lhasa. Most of the delegates were former serfs. At this meeting, the Tibet Autonomous Region Government was formally established, and Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was elected Chairman of the People's Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
After the formal establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region, in order to enable the Tibetan people to better exercise their right to manage national and local affairs, the state trained a large number of Tibetan cadres in the region and sent many Tibetan cadres to the mainland for study and training. In the various levels of government departments in the Tibet Autonomous Region, leadership positions were mostly held by Tibetan cadres, and women, who were at the bottom of society in old Tibet, also began to rise to leadership positions.
In terms of the legal system, Tibet had long practiced feudal serfdom, which severely hampered the development of productive forces and led to a very backward economy. For example, agricultural production methods remained at the level of using two oxen to pull wooden plows, and in some areas, even primitive slash-and-burn farming methods were still maintained, with grain yields per mu (a Chinese unit of area, approximately 0.165 acres) being only 80 kilograms. Moreover, due to their weak ability to resist natural disasters, fields often yielded no harvest, livestock died in large numbers, and livestock breeds were aging. At that time, Tibetan handicrafts were also very backward, with virtually no modern industry.
After the implementation of democratic reforms, the enthusiasm of farmers and herdsmen for production greatly increased. The central government not only formulated a series of guidelines and policies for developing agriculture and animal husbandry, but also provided strong support in terms of financial and material resources. Brother provinces and municipalities in the interior also provided strong support, allocating a large amount of aid materials to Tibet. A large number of intellectuals, cadres, and students from the interior responded to the call of the Party Central Committee—to go to the places where the motherland needs them most—and came to Tibet. Subsequently, the level of agriculture and animal husbandry in Tibet improved significantly. In 1966, the total grain output increased from 180 million kilograms to more than 300 million kilograms, and the number of livestock increased from 9.55 million to 18 million. In the 1980s, the central government also implemented a tax exemption system for farmers and herdsmen in Tibet and provided interest-free loans for agriculture and animal husbandry. At the same time, it vigorously developed basic infrastructure for farmland and grassland, constructed water conservancy projects, encouraged the development of family sideline businesses, and restored the original market trade. Before liberation, Tibet lacked agricultural machinery and fertilizers. After liberation, the interior provided Tibet with fertilizers and machinery, as well as high-quality seeds and livestock. All of these factors greatly promoted the application of advanced production tools and science and technology in Tibetan agriculture, leading to a significant increase in grain production, with an average yield of more than 220 kilograms per mu.
Previously, Tibet had no modern industry. After the democratic reforms, with the support of the central government and the rest of China, Tibet gradually established an industrial system consisting of enterprises in construction, electricity, auto repair, forestry, leather tanning, borax, and coal, while ethnic handicrafts also developed rapidly.
In the past, Tibet suffered from severe energy shortages. To change this situation, the central and local governments built power plants in Lhasa and invested in the construction of geothermal power plants. To solve the difficulties in fuel transportation in Tibet, the state allocated funds to build a refined oil pipeline more than 1,000 kilometers long from Golmud in Qinghai Province to Lhasa, gradually solving Tibet's energy supply problem.
