Tibet's Long History of Isolation

Since 1800s, governments have secluded region from world

By Drew Nelles, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 15, 2009 4:08 PM CDT

(Newser) – Isolation has long defined Tibet and fueled the region's exotic history, Edward Wong writes in the New York Times. While China's recent clampdown is purely political—this is the 50th anniversary of an attempted uprising—natural remoteness and anti-imperialist struggles have also sealed its borders. “A large element of Tibet’s historical allure grew precisely out of its isolation,” an expert says.

Tibet's self-imposed seclusion in the 1800s prompted a wave of Western explorers and would-be colonizers to head for Lhasa. In 1904, British soldiers brutally tore up Tibet in search of Russian influence; the region's very isolation "had led the British to fill the void with their imaginings," Wong writes. Now, Beijing easily vilifies its neighbor with Orwellian propaganda. “Even for me, a real Chinese, Tibet is such a remote and mysterious place," one man wrote.

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (2)]

Tibetan people take ritual walks in Lhasa. Paramilitary and plainclothes police imposed what witnesses called a tense calm on the first anniversary of last year's anti-Chinese riot yesterday. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Soinam Norbu)

A Tibetan monk walks past a security checkpoint into the Tibetan quarters in Chengdu, southwestern China's Sichuan province on Saturday, March 14 , 2009. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

A Tibetan exile writes a letter with her own blood, drawn into a cup with a syringe earlier, as she sits with others at a protest in New Delhi, India, against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

An exile Tibetan nun looks on during a function at a temple in Dharmsala, India, on Thursday, March 12, 2009, to mark the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising that forced the Dalai Lama into exile. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

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...there is a certain irony in the fact that China, which had been successful in removing a good deal of the allure of the Tibet mystique to Westerners by making it so accessible, now once again feels obliged to ‘close’ it. - author Orville Schell

Even for me, a real Chinese, Tibet is such a remote and mysterious place. I don’t have an idea what all these things are about. - Cao Wei

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Tibet's Long History of Isolation