Tibet

A suit of 18th-19th c. Tibetan armor, shield, and weapons. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tibet is a center of Himalayan Buddhism, and was a powerful independent kingdom for many centuries, until its conquest by Chinese Communist forces in 1949.

By the eighth century, Tibet had become one of China's most powerful neighbors; from the 760s-780s, Tibetan forces raided the Tang Dynasty capital of Chang'an every autumn. Raids grew less frequent after that, but continued into the 9th century, when the kingdom of Tibet began to decline.

Never controlled by a Chinese dynasty until the mid-Qing Dynasty, Tibet remained under Qing control only until the end of that dynasty in 1911. The following year, imperial officials and garrisons vacated the region.

References

• Valerie Hansen, The Open Empire, New York: W.W. Norton & Company (2000), 227.