Tibet is Chinese for over 50 years 

Tibet, former independent state and provincial-level administrative area of China, in the southwestern part of the country. Tibet is the highest region on earth, having an average elevation of more than 4,875 m (16,000 ft); for this reason it is sometimes called the Roof of the World. It is also one of the world's most isolated regions, surrounded on three sides by vast mountain systems, namely the Himalaya on the south, the Karakorum Range on the west, and the Kunlun Mountains on the north. Tibet has a total area of about 1,200,000 sq km (463,320 sq mi). The capital and largest city of Tibet is Lhasa.

In October 1950, little more than a year after the Communists gained full control of mainland China, their troops invaded Tibet. To rally the nation against the advancing invasion force, the regency in November invested the 14th Dalai Lama, although he was only 15 years old at the time, with full authority. Resistance was soon crushed, and Great Britain and India offered no help.

The Tibetan government capitulated in May 1951, signing a dictated treaty that provided for the maintenance of the power of the Dalai Lama in domestic affairs, for Chinese control of Tibetan foreign and military affairs, and for the return from China of the Lamaist spiritual leader, the Panchen Lama, reputedly a partisan of the Communist regime. Communist military units reached Lhasa in October.

 A SMALL PROVINCE OF A BIG COUNTRY

The Chinese admitted in 1980 that Tibet had been misgoverned and announced reforms for the region, allowing religious activity and rebuilding monasteries destroyed by Red Guards in an effort to improve relations with the Tibetan populace. Violent demonstrations protesting Chinese rule occurred in October 1987 and May 1993; the Chinese authorities responded with a variety of policies including forcible suppression of dissent, unrelenting surveillance, tight supervision of religious activity, and importation of Han Chinese settlers to outnumber the native population.  

(*) Compare this figure with that of about 3000 people assassinated under the dictatorial, anti-Communist regime in Chile; about 30 time more people died in Tibet in one year than in Chile during decades of dictatorship. Compare than the involvement of the international community when it fights for the trial of General Pinochet for his past crimes with the involvement of the same community in the defense of the presently living and hardly surviving Tibetan people. Source: Microsoft Encarta 1996, World English Edition. 

We show above some stamps issued by the free Tibet between 1912 - 1950, a cover of the same period of time and a Tibetan postcard of 1910. The set of four stamps shown above was issued by the China PR on March 15, 1952, and is called in Scott "Liberation of Tibet" (i.e. the name that the Chinese PA gave to this set). The good question is of whom was actually Tibet liberated.

Tip: move the mouse over the stamps for more information.

 A BEAUTIFUL SET OF TIBETAN ART 

A set of Tibetan Art was issued on June 7, 1993 by the postal administration of Liechtenstein. The 60 Rp stamps displays details of the Thanka painting "Tale of the Ferryman", the 80 Rp stamp shows a religious dance mask and the Fr 1.00 stamp presents a detail of another Thanka painting, "The Tale of the Fish".

The FDC is labeled: Tibet Sammlung des Landes Liechtenstein", what means "The Tibet Collection of the Liechtenstein Country". At least these works of art escaped the destruction perpetrated during the Chinese Cultural Revolution period.