Following the fall of the Qing Dynasty (and the ensuing Kuomintang government led by Sun Yat-sen and then Chiang Kai-shek), Tibet separated from China (an de facto independence which was never recognized by either China, Britain, or India) and began negotiations with the British to demarcate the line separating Tibet from India. In an effort to gain de jure recognition of the Tibetan state, Tibet gave up Arunachal Pradesh (among other territories) to the British. China at the time has bigger issues to worry about (internal turmoil from regime change, the Japanese threat, and then the civil war that saw the formation of the PRC), and while it never recognized British-Tibetan negotiations it took no action against it. In 1949, the PRC officially supplants the ROC and by 1950, Mao Zedong annexes Tibet with less than 300 total casualties from both sides.
The British negotiated with a government they didn’t recognize to take territory away from a government they did. Sounds familiar? Maybe it’s understandable, since Britain had more pressing concerns in Europe at the time.
Following the fall of the Qing Dynasty (and the ensuing Kuomintang government led by Sun Yat-sen and then Chiang Kai-shek), Tibet separated from China (an de facto independence which was never recognized by either China, Britain, or India) and began negotiations with the British to demarcate the line separating Tibet from India. In an effort to gain de jure recognition of the Tibetan state, Tibet gave up Arunachal Pradesh (among other territories) to the British. China at the time has bigger issues to worry about (internal turmoil from regime change, the Japanese threat, and then the civil war that saw the formation of the PRC), and while it never recognized British-Tibetan negotiations it took no action against it. In 1949, the PRC officially supplants the ROC and by 1950, Mao Zedong annexes Tibet with less than 300 total casualties from both sides.
The British negotiated with a government they didn’t recognize to take territory away from a government they did. Sounds familiar? Maybe it’s understandable, since Britain had more pressing concerns in Europe at the time.