The origins of Tibet’s modern aspirations to nationhood go back to its role as a pawn in the Great Game, the battle for supremacy in central Asia between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia in the 19th century.

A British force under the charismatic explorer and soldier Francis Younghusband eventually invaded Tibet, cut down its warriors with the Maxim gun and occupied Lhasa in 1904.

The invasion led to a peace treaty between Britain and Tibet, a document that some Tibetan historians see as recognition of their remote mountain home as an independent entity.

Imperial China was outraged by the invasion but could do nothing to stop it and waged a diplomatic battle to protect its own claims over Tibet.

There was a well-documented history of Tibetan rulers proudly independent of China. But the Chinese said the presence of an imperial high commissioner as early as 1727 proved that Lhasa owed its loyalty to the empire.

The Simla Convention of 1914 set the boundaries of the Tibetan lands at the Yangtze river and the Himalayas though China never ceased to claim sovereignty. A complicated sequence of manoeuvres over the next 35 years ended with Tibet failing to gain international support for statehood.

Finally Mao Tse-tung ordered the “liberation” of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army in 1949-50. Many Tibetan nobles and working people cooperated with the Chinese. However clashes broke out over land reform and the Buddhist religion. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India.

The CIA funded a secret guerrilla war until President Richard Nixon decided to make up with Mao in 1969. Famines, followed by Chinese violence during the cultural revolution, intensified resistance to no avail.

The Dalai Lama himself has long since abandoned calls for independence and now seeks genuine autonomy and respect for Tibetans’ human rights. After the latest violence, the Chinese are more resolute than ever in refusing to deal with him.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment