History proves that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a place many Chinese nationalities once lived. They include the Tibetan nationality formed during the 7th century when the Tubo Kingdom unified many tribes in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. As the Tibetan have since been living and multiplying in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the lion's share of the plateau is referred to as the Tibetan areas. But the plateau is not a place solely inhabited by Tibetans. It has been home to many nationalities, including the Han, Mongolian, Tu, Hui and Qiang, who have played an important role in the development of the plateau. After the collapse of the Tubo Kingdom, no political power has ever controlled the whole plateau. Ever since the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was put under China's Yuan Dynasty, the plateau has been part of Chinese territory. Since the Yuan Dynasty, there were Sagya, Phagmo and Gaindain Phodrang ( Gaxag government) regimes in the Dbus and Gtsang areas. All of them were local powers of areas under the jurisdiction of the central government, areas which were part of today's Tibet Autonomous Region. The area controlled by the local government of Tibet ( the Gaxag government ) under the leadership of the Dalai Lama did not extend beyond the Jinshajiang River in the west and the Tanggula Mountain in the south.
Therefore, a so-called "independent country" with all Tibetan areas included, which some people make strenuous efforts to fabricate, has never really existed.
There are also some who, to mislead the world, take advantage of the fact that many in the world have little knowledge abut the administrative division of Tibet.
They bolster their view by alleging that Han people have migrated to Tibet in large numbers with the result that the Hans are numerically larger than Tibetans in Tibet.
When they say so, they mistakenly take the Tibetan areas in the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan as part of Tibet, and people of the Han, Hui, Mongolian, Tu and Qiang nationalities living there as migrants.
This way they come to the wrong conclusion that "Tibet is being assimilated and Tibetan culture is disappearing."
This misunderstanding impedes people from knowing the real history and present conditions of Tibet and Tibetan areas.