[iliveinchina]

Tibetan history, like Chinese history, is complicated.

On the subject of Tibetan assimilation: what most people think of Tibet - that is the current Tibetan autonomous region of the PRC - is actually only about 1/3 of what many Tibetans would call "Tibet."

What is culturally and ethnically Tibetan actually stretches across Qinghai province, as well as large swaths of Sichuan, and part of Yunnan and Gansu. If you go to these regions and talk to Tibetans, they will tell you you are in Amdo, Kham, etc, even though you may be in the administrative province of, for example, Sichuan. Residents will still sometimes even use these designations on their postal envelopes.

There are some historical reasons for the way Tibet is currently defined, but "Tibet" was also chopped up into a much smaller contemporary "tibet" for, er, strategic reasons.

If you are interested in the big 3 Tibetan regions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C-Tsang

[pldr1234]

Regional designations are complicated, but there is nothing complicated about passing judgment over the atrocities being perpetrated today by the CCP.

I'm simply glad that there's finally cohesion by many leaders across the world in urging that Beijing be completely stripped of the prestige of hosting the upcoming Winter Olympics.

[platinumrad]

"What is culturally and ethnically Mongolian actually stretches across the Middle East, as well as large swaths of Russia and Europe."

It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims.

[iliveinchina]

The point is these areas are still pretty actively Tibetan today, not just historically.

Is there a contiguous region stretching from Mongolia deep into the Middle East and to Europe where a high percentage of the population (like a quarter or more) speaks Mongolian as their native language?

I know that might be true for a small area surrounding Mongolia in Russia, but I think the comparison stretching into the Middle East and Europe is not accurate.

Qinghai is still almost a quarter Tibetan (a percentage that has probably been consistently shrinking in recent history due to migration) and is almost as large, area-wise, as the formal Tibetan autonomous region.

[platinumrad]

The dedicated Turanist will talk your ear off about linguistic co-evolution, haplogroups, and so on, but no, of course not. The example was deliberately outlandish. A quarter is lower than the proportion of Russians in Crimea.

I think we may ultimately be making the same point, that political borders are by nature artificial and often fail to reflect the historical fluidity of culture and ethnicity, but I objected to the perceived implication that these regions are uniquely Tibetan.

[justicezyx]

Right, "It simply isn't feasible to grant every cultural group the full extent of their historical claims."

Doing this will extinguish multiple continents...