Supervisor: Lei Lin, Assistant Professor of Chinese History
Student Researchers: Ziyu Qiu (Class of 2024), Bikalpa Panthi (Class of 2027)
About the Project:
The research examines the Nepal-Tibet War (1855-1856), where Tibetan forces under China’s Qing Empire clashed with Nepal’s military. This conflict reignited due to Qing’s weakened mid-19th-century control, spurred by diplomatic and trade disputes, culminating in the 1856 Treaty of Thapathali. The study extends previous work on the Qing-Gurkha War by the faculty supervisor to understand the Qing’s strategic positioning during the Nepal-Tibet War, a relatively overlooked aspect in academia. It evaluates how Qing’s policies towards Tibet shifted from the Qianlong to the Xianfeng reign using Qing archives in Chinese and Manchu, challenging the presumption of Qing’s detachment and analyzing concepts like sovereignty within its frontier policy.
Furthermore, the project investigates the war’s global implications, incorporating the British Empire’s role. It critiques the simplistic historical view derived mainly from British records by integrating diverse perspectives from Beijing, Tibet, and Nepal. Utilizing multilingual sources in Chinese, Manchu, Nepali, and Tibetan, the researchers aim to compose a more rounded, transnational historical narrative of the Nepal-Tibet conflict, enriching our understanding of early modern global dynamics.
