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April 7, 2008 (LPAC)--The British Empire launched the invasions of Tibet which laid the basis for "Tibetan separatism," Prof. Hu Yan of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China said in an interview with Xinhua published yesterday. Chinese do not forget history, Prof. Hu said, and, this, is certainly true: In Beijing, there is a famous park of the ruins of the Summer Palace left by the foreign invaders in 1900, against the so-called "Boxer Rebellion." China has also produced accurate movies of the British role in the Opium Wars.

Tibet is "a region coveted by western nations since the Opium War in the 1840s," Xinhua cites Prof. Hu saying. "The so-called issue of 'Tibet Independence,' is originally an outcome of aggression by imperialist nations", as Britain invaded Tibet twice, Hu said, and British operations have "been the longest among all the aggressive activities launched by imperialists in Tibet." But, when these military operations failed to control Tibet, they, the British, resorted to other methods, and "fostered a hotbed for the emergence of the pro-Britain upper-class elements ... instigating them to oppose the Chinese government in a bid to separate Tibet from China."

Prof. Hu said that Britain launched two invasions into Tibet, in 1888 and during 1903-04, in an attempt to build up its exclusive colonial influence there. The British Empire tried to separate Tibet from China and make it a "buffer zone" between China and British-controlled India. "These two wars shall never be forgotten," Hu said. "You may tell those Tibet separatists that Chinese people will never forget history and it was imperialist nations that had invaded Tibet and had been trying to separate Tibet from China."

The Professor continued, reporting the history of British operations, beginning after the Opium War. The imperialists planned to build a road between southwest China and the then-colony of Burma, to expand their trade but obviously also with other designs. When a British official trying to work on the project was killed in 1875, the British forced the Chinese Qing government to sign the Chefoo Convention, which allowed the British to "visit and explore" Tibet. The Tibetans certainly did not welcome this invasion themselves, and fortified their border with Sikkim to keep the British out. The fortifications were too primitive to be of any use, and the British colonialists broke through in 1888. The Qing dynasty was forced to sign two more unfair treaties, in 1890 and 1893, making border concessions to British-controlled Sikkim. The British demanded an "extraterritorial" trade center at Yadong - something highly resented by the Tibetans, who protested the British claims.

In 1903-04, things got worse. British "Forward School" imperialist, Viceroy George Curzon, demanded an invasion of Tibet to offset Russia. The article quotes at length from Curzon's letters, which claim that China had no suzerainty over Tibet, and demand what became the invasion led by Col. Francis Younghusband - who himself ended up a pseudo-religious "mystic" after spending too long breathing the thin Lhasa air.

Hu said, therefore "expanded its influence," and "fostered a hotbed for the emergence of the pro-Britain upper-class elements." Realizing they could not control Tibet militarily, "the Britain imperialists began to build up their influence in the upper-class elements of Tibet, instigating them to oppose the Chinese government in a bid to separate Tibet from China, bring it into the British sphere of influence and become its dependency as well as a buffer zone in protection of the northeastern border of British India." Prof. Hu then cites a 2003 seminar in London on the British conspiracy, and Charles Allen's book Duel In The Snows which documented the imperial conspiracies. "These were the most commonly used despicable means by imperialists at the time," the Xinhua article states. Anyone's attempt to agitate for "Tibetan independence", like the serious crimes of aggression against Tibet committed by imperialist powers in the past, is doomed to failure.