Later, Britain hatched up the "Sino-British-Tibetan tripartite conference" (also known as the Simla Conference) which was held from October 1913 to July 1914.

Immediately after the conference began, representatives of Tibet's pro-British forces submitted a request for "independence of Tibet" following a secret agreement with Britain. This was aimed at forcing a concession from the representative of the Chinese central government.

They also collaborated with the British representative Arthur H. McMahon in drawing the so-called "McMahon Line" without consulting the representative of the Chinese central government through a secret exchange of letters. This line incorporated 90,000 square kilometres of long-standing Chinese territory into then British India.

The newly founded government of the Republic of China which reluctantly attended the conference in exchange for recognition of the republic by the British government immediately cabled its minister in Britain and instructed him to make a statement to. the British Foreign Office that the Chinese government could not cede any part of the Chinese territory and therefore it would not sign the "Simla treaty." It also instructed its representative to the conference not to sign the formal treaty under any circumstances. Simultaneously it instructed its representative to the conference and its minister in Britain to make an official statement that China would not recognize any treaty or similar documents signed by Britain and Tibet without the sanction of the Chinese government.

As a result, the "Simla treaty" without the signature of the Chinese government had no binding effect, and "Tibet's independence," a British plot supported by a handful of pro-British elements in Tibet, also came to naught.

None of the later Chinese governments recognized the so-called "McMahon Line." Instead, they lodged repeated protests and made statements with the British and　Indian governments.

The　so-called "Tibet's independence" scheme of the imperialists had never been recognized by any country. In the following years, local Tibetan authorities gradually detected from their own experience the British imperialists' aggressive ambition of using "independence" as a bait to annex Tibet, and hence changed their attitude towards the motherland.

In 1920, when the central government's representative arrived in Tibet, the 13th Dalai Lama said, "Being intimate with Britain was not of my own accord," "I pledge to devote myself for the happiness of the people of all nationalities."

Soon afterwards, the local government of Tibet expelled the British spy Charles Bell from Tibet. The relationship between Tibet and the motherland thenceforth improved.

Instigated by the British imperialists in the 1920s, the pro-British elements in Tibet launched several rebellions to subvert the local government headed by the 13th Dalai Lama. But the rebellions were all crushed by the patriotic forces, and the British imperialists failed to draw Tibet away from China.

In 1929, the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs of the Kuomintang government dispatched a representative to Tibet. Dalai Lama told the representative: "What I expect most of China is real unity and peace." "The British, indeed, have a mind to draw me to their side. Nevertheless, I know the importance of guarding national sovereignty." In 1930.the Tibetan local government established a representative office in Nanjing, capital of the Kuomintang government. Four years later the Kuomintang government also established a representative office in Lhasa. In 1939, the Kuomintang government sent another representative to Lhasa to officiate at the inauguration ceremony of the 14th Dalai Lama on February 22, 1940.

By that time, the abnormal status of Tibet created by the British imperialists took a turn for the better and the relationship between Tibet and the motherland had been restored and strengthened.

Peaceful Liberation

As early as the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-45), the US imperialists initiated conspiratorial activities against Tibet. After the war, the United States and Britain worked together to plot the "Tibet's independence."

In October 1947, at the bidding of the US and British imperialists, Tibet's separatists rigged up a "commercial mission" which went to the United States and Britain to receive the two governments' instructions for carrying out the splittist scheme in the name of investigating the commercial affairs in the two countries.

On the eve of nationwide liberation in 1949, an "expelling Han incident" occurred in Lhasa. This was a plot by the US and British imperialists in collaboration with the separatists among Tibet's ruling clique. On the pretext of "preventing the Communists from entering Tibet," they demanded that the Kuomintang government withdraw all members of its representative office from Tibet, for they believed that by evicting all the Kuomintang government officials from Tibet, the region could announce its "independence."