The Tibet-Japan Relations in the Era of the 1911 Revolution --Tibetan Letters from the Aoki Bunkyō Archive--

Abstract

It is fairly well known that Japanese Buddhist monks approached the 13th Dalai Lama and members of his administration at the beginning of the 20th century. Recent studies have clarified how these monks played a significant intermediary role between Tibet and Japan, and that Japan was an important actor in competition over Tibet in the international arena while Britain and Russia played out their "Great Game." However, Tibet's policy towards Japan in this period and how Tibet placed Japan within its entire diplomatic sphere have been less studied. This article analyzes the relationship between Tibet and Japan at the beginning of the 20th century by mainly focusing on valuable Tibetan letters housed in the Aoki Bunkyō Archive at the National Museum of Ethnology in Ōsaka. These letters, composed around the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, reveal that the 13th Dalai Lama and his attendants tried to seek the aid from the Japanese government to secure Tibet's "rang btsan, " which is translated as "independence" in the contemporary Tibetan language. I also elucidate how the Japanese government refused to support Tibet due to its policy towards China amid the 1911 revolution as well as the Japanese alliance with Britain, while Tibet's relationship with China deteriorated. Moreover, by comparing the letters to Japan with the letters to other countries such as Britain and Russia, I will show that Tibet recognized Japan as a potential country that could protect them while facing the difficulty to enlist the aid under the restriction of the Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907.