The Way to Freedom
-Taiwan, New China Dream and people who in between them
2023
First online published in 2023, English version by Nusantara Archive, Chinese version by South Asia Watch
The funds of preliminary research by Department of Culture Affairs Taipei City Government
Special Thanks | Dolma Tsering, Rinzin Dolma
The funds of preliminary research by Department of Culture Affairs Taipei City Government
Special Thanks | Dolma Tsering, Rinzin Dolma
Ever since the Dalai Lama’s first visit to Taiwan in 1997, discussions and studies of issues related to Tibet have gradually increased. Among these discussions and studies, some have focused on the complicated 20th-century history involving Taiwan, Tibet and China, such as Lin Chao-Chen’s The Lama Killing (1999) and Lin Hsiao-Ting’s Tibet and Nationalist China's Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928-49 (2006). Also, movements for supporting Tibet also unfolded slowly in Taiwan, and have formed strategic alliances in recent years with non-governmental organizations engaging in other human rights issues. Moreover, Taiwan and the Central Tibetan Administration have broken the ice and attempted to establish a normalized relationship, for example, the Taiwan Parliament Group for Tibet (2016-), the Taipei City Council Tibet Caucus (2016-), etc. As a matter of fact, there have been Tibet-related literature and activities organized by the private sector for supporting the Tibet movement before 1997. For example, the travelogue of a missionary traveling through Tibet in 1927, which was written in “Pe̍h-ōe-jī” (Romanized Taiwanese). Due to underlying issues related to the Taiwanese identity, this written language was banned by both the Japanese colonial government and the Kuomintang (KMT) government. , Furthermore, doctor and Taiwanese literary movement advocate Wu Hsin-Jung, who was also oppressed later in the February 28 Incident, recorded in his diary the activity for supporting Tibet in 1959, which was organized by the Taiwanese people and local religious groups.[1] Yet, after different colonial regimes, in particular, a series of “sinicization” policies implemented by the KMT after its retreat to Taiwan, records as such have not been preserved systematically, and the remaining archives still await further organization.
As of today, interactions between the Central Tibetan Administration and the Beijing administration have long been in a standstill; Taiwan’s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission was officially dissolved in 2017; and early archives related to Tibet have been gradually released and open for public viewing. Therefore, we are in desperate need of new viewpoints that can help us sidestep viewpoints informed by the Han and Tibetan nationalist discourses. Through re-reading archives and re-exploring the history, perhaps a viable path for the China-Taiwan-Tibet relations could be found. Since 2021, I have been interviewing some Tibetan seniors living in Taiwan, and have written articles in this series based on some of the selected interviews. Through their stories, it might be possible to piece together a map leading to potential coexistence.[2]
As of today, interactions between the Central Tibetan Administration and the Beijing administration have long been in a standstill; Taiwan’s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission was officially dissolved in 2017; and early archives related to Tibet have been gradually released and open for public viewing. Therefore, we are in desperate need of new viewpoints that can help us sidestep viewpoints informed by the Han and Tibetan nationalist discourses. Through re-reading archives and re-exploring the history, perhaps a viable path for the China-Taiwan-Tibet relations could be found. Since 2021, I have been interviewing some Tibetan seniors living in Taiwan, and have written articles in this series based on some of the selected interviews. Through their stories, it might be possible to piece together a map leading to potential coexistence.[2]
I. The Leave Behind
Rinzin is her name. She lives in a rooftop addition in Taipei City. Judging from the way she dressed, she appeared no different from any other elder women one could see in Taipei. Every morning, she gets up at three o’clock in the morning to recite sutras. From Mondays to Fridays, she works part-time at a local McDonald’s. When she speaks Mandarin, people might notice her accent and guess that she comes from some rural region, but rarely do people hit the mark and figure that she is from Tibet. Perhaps, on this island with a population largely made up of immigrants, people have grown accustomed not to think too much about others’ background out of courtesy. As long as one has a National Health Insurance IC card, and pays the rent and utility bills duly, it is incredibly easy to survive and remain incognito here.
Rinzin was born in dbus gtsang in 1958, and spent her childhood with her parents living in exile in India. Around the age of three or four, she entered the Central School for Tibetans, Mussoorie. Her parents were the first group of Tibetans in exile who worked on the construction of the northern Indian highways. Later, they joined the reclamation team of the southern Indian community of Tibetans in exile, and had a temporary home in Mundgod. Before she was eighteen, she spent most of her time in boarding schools. Living in groups without much material comfort has made her independent and self-reliant. As far as she could remember, she has only cried twice in front of her family: the first time was when she went from the boarding school to visit her parents at the highway construction site. She cried upon seeing the terrible environment that her mother had to endure. The second time was when she left her family to study in an academy in Kolkata.
She is one of the few female Tibetans in exile that came to Taiwan not because of marriage or Kuomintang’s policy. However, the reason for her migration was no different to that of the most Tibetans in exile who moved from one place to another in the world today – to improve their financial condition. When she was in her twenties, her wages as a public servant at the local government in southern India was not enough to cover her aged mother’s medical bills and the living expenses of her family. Once again, she had no choice but to leave her family, and worked as an English teacher in a private school and a clinic clerk in Nepal. A while after the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize (1986), with her friend’s assistance, she came to Taiwan via Hong Kong, with all of her savings – one hundred US dollars.
It was not a long after she came to Taiwan that Rinzin met Thinley Puntsok, who was also Tibetan and her soon husband-to-be. In related Taiwanese archives, her husband is known as Che Er-mei. He was almost forty years older than Rinzin, and was one of the Tibetans in exile who left India by airplane and came to Taiwan. At that time, there were eight Tibetans on that plane, including Chama Samphe and his family, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Asha. In early photos of Chama Samphe, who was invited to take part in Taiwan’s political and military activities, Che Er-mei could always be seen in Mingyur Rinpoche’s company. Some of these photos were taken in military controlled zones restricted to the public.
She did not know much about her husband’s work, only that it had something to do with gathering intelligence. After all, her husband’s Mandarin was not fluent, and she only started learning Mandarin after she came to Taiwan. She would even need to rely on others for grocery shopping. So, she had no way of understanding the convoluted political struggles involved in his work. At first, they lived in a Japanese-style dormitory assigned by the KMT government in Tianmu, which was close to the National Security Bureau. The neighborhood named after Dai Yu-nong (also known as Dai Li) was nearby. Dai was the director of the KMT intelligence agency before the party retreated to Taiwan. The neighborhood was inhabited by families of intelligence officers. Those who wanted to live in the neighborhood would have to go through identity inspection. The dormitory assigned to Chama Samphe’s family was also nearby, and his daughters [3] were students at the American School, which mainly accepted children of Taiwan’s diplomatic personnel at that time.
Later, the dormitory was repurposed for dilapidation, so Rinzin and Che Er-mei moved to a new-style apartment allocated by the government. It was located in the present-day Xinyi district, next to the Tibetan Children’s Home established by the Free China Relief Association to help the Tibetan children in exile in Taiwan (related affairs were transferred to the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission later). She worked as a teacher at the Tibetan Children’s Home, and was responsible for teaching the Tibetan language. According to her, some of the children did not understand Tibetan at that time, and only responded when she asked them questions in Nepalese. Suddenly, she realized that some of them were probably local Nepalese.
She tried to teach the Tibetan national anthem at the Tibetan Children’s Home, but was stopped by other civil service workers who worried their supervisor would disapprove. They were mostly the first and second generations immigrants retreated to Taiwan with the KMT. A few of their supervisors came from regions close to the Tibetan borders, and could understand some Tibetan. When the Tibet uprising broke out following Lhasa protests in 1987, she was taking computer lessons offered by a career training program for overseas Tibetans provided by the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. Other Tibetans in exile told her to keep quiet and just be patient about it.
After Che Er-mei passed away, Rinzin was evicted from the allocated apartment by the government because she lacked the qualification of a civil service worker. She had worked as a private English teacher in the area inhabited by the largest number of diplomatic families in Taiwan, and used to clean Mingyur Rinpoche’s home shrine. She had met many people that were recorded in or forgotten by Taiwan’s Tibetan archives and cooked for their gatherings, which might have been joined by those who went back to Tibet for intelligence work, and had never returned to India, Nepal or Taiwan. She knew their real nicknames and dietary preferences. Comparing to the archives compiled and kept for all sorts of political struggles and for fulfilling the purpose of political propaganda by the authorities, she was perhaps the one who knew the most authentic facts, although they might be insignificant everyday trivia.
Rinzin was born in dbus gtsang in 1958, and spent her childhood with her parents living in exile in India. Around the age of three or four, she entered the Central School for Tibetans, Mussoorie. Her parents were the first group of Tibetans in exile who worked on the construction of the northern Indian highways. Later, they joined the reclamation team of the southern Indian community of Tibetans in exile, and had a temporary home in Mundgod. Before she was eighteen, she spent most of her time in boarding schools. Living in groups without much material comfort has made her independent and self-reliant. As far as she could remember, she has only cried twice in front of her family: the first time was when she went from the boarding school to visit her parents at the highway construction site. She cried upon seeing the terrible environment that her mother had to endure. The second time was when she left her family to study in an academy in Kolkata.
She is one of the few female Tibetans in exile that came to Taiwan not because of marriage or Kuomintang’s policy. However, the reason for her migration was no different to that of the most Tibetans in exile who moved from one place to another in the world today – to improve their financial condition. When she was in her twenties, her wages as a public servant at the local government in southern India was not enough to cover her aged mother’s medical bills and the living expenses of her family. Once again, she had no choice but to leave her family, and worked as an English teacher in a private school and a clinic clerk in Nepal. A while after the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize (1986), with her friend’s assistance, she came to Taiwan via Hong Kong, with all of her savings – one hundred US dollars.
It was not a long after she came to Taiwan that Rinzin met Thinley Puntsok, who was also Tibetan and her soon husband-to-be. In related Taiwanese archives, her husband is known as Che Er-mei. He was almost forty years older than Rinzin, and was one of the Tibetans in exile who left India by airplane and came to Taiwan. At that time, there were eight Tibetans on that plane, including Chama Samphe and his family, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Asha. In early photos of Chama Samphe, who was invited to take part in Taiwan’s political and military activities, Che Er-mei could always be seen in Mingyur Rinpoche’s company. Some of these photos were taken in military controlled zones restricted to the public.
She did not know much about her husband’s work, only that it had something to do with gathering intelligence. After all, her husband’s Mandarin was not fluent, and she only started learning Mandarin after she came to Taiwan. She would even need to rely on others for grocery shopping. So, she had no way of understanding the convoluted political struggles involved in his work. At first, they lived in a Japanese-style dormitory assigned by the KMT government in Tianmu, which was close to the National Security Bureau. The neighborhood named after Dai Yu-nong (also known as Dai Li) was nearby. Dai was the director of the KMT intelligence agency before the party retreated to Taiwan. The neighborhood was inhabited by families of intelligence officers. Those who wanted to live in the neighborhood would have to go through identity inspection. The dormitory assigned to Chama Samphe’s family was also nearby, and his daughters [3] were students at the American School, which mainly accepted children of Taiwan’s diplomatic personnel at that time.
Later, the dormitory was repurposed for dilapidation, so Rinzin and Che Er-mei moved to a new-style apartment allocated by the government. It was located in the present-day Xinyi district, next to the Tibetan Children’s Home established by the Free China Relief Association to help the Tibetan children in exile in Taiwan (related affairs were transferred to the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission later). She worked as a teacher at the Tibetan Children’s Home, and was responsible for teaching the Tibetan language. According to her, some of the children did not understand Tibetan at that time, and only responded when she asked them questions in Nepalese. Suddenly, she realized that some of them were probably local Nepalese.
She tried to teach the Tibetan national anthem at the Tibetan Children’s Home, but was stopped by other civil service workers who worried their supervisor would disapprove. They were mostly the first and second generations immigrants retreated to Taiwan with the KMT. A few of their supervisors came from regions close to the Tibetan borders, and could understand some Tibetan. When the Tibet uprising broke out following Lhasa protests in 1987, she was taking computer lessons offered by a career training program for overseas Tibetans provided by the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. Other Tibetans in exile told her to keep quiet and just be patient about it.
After Che Er-mei passed away, Rinzin was evicted from the allocated apartment by the government because she lacked the qualification of a civil service worker. She had worked as a private English teacher in the area inhabited by the largest number of diplomatic families in Taiwan, and used to clean Mingyur Rinpoche’s home shrine. She had met many people that were recorded in or forgotten by Taiwan’s Tibetan archives and cooked for their gatherings, which might have been joined by those who went back to Tibet for intelligence work, and had never returned to India, Nepal or Taiwan. She knew their real nicknames and dietary preferences. Comparing to the archives compiled and kept for all sorts of political struggles and for fulfilling the purpose of political propaganda by the authorities, she was perhaps the one who knew the most authentic facts, although they might be insignificant everyday trivia.
II. The Romance
About Him
He has probably forgotten the name that he was given by his own family. Throughout the many years that have passed, he has used several names. Even his Tibetan wife did not know his real family name, and only learned it after they arrived in India. The thing that he is most proud of in his entire life would probably be the fact that he has never surrendered, whether during the war or in real life.
He was born in a large family in Henan Province, China in 1928, which was a few years short of two decades after the Xinhai Revolution broke out. At the time, his family still enjoyed the affluence of being a grain supplier. He belonged to a generation born in the transition from the old times to the new era. As a child, he was taught to read at an old-style private school. Later, he learned about the revolution and democratic ideals through newspapers and translated books. At the age of sixteen, he decided to give up his comfortable life, and joined the fortieth troop of the Kuomintang (KMT) army to fight in the Sino-Japanese War. It is hard to say whether it was his good luck or a misfortune, the war ended in the second year after he joined the military, which was ensued by the aggravating conflicts between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party. It was the beginning of a life-long drift from one place to another with the KMT army.
It was in 1955 that he arrived in Lhasa. At that time, the KMT’s main troops and the military dependents had already retreated to Taiwan, leaving behind a small number of troops scattered in Sichuan, who were chased by the Chinese Communist army. The KMT had gathered some of the soldiers and took them to the coastal region secretly through the Free China Relief Association, before bringing them all to Taiwan. However, he gave up the idea as his fellow soldiers surrendered and mutinied one after another during the retreat, and decided to move from Sichuan to the plateau region.
He had seen the outing of the Dalai Lama there. Concealing his past of being in the KMT army, he rented a store front near the city center from a family affiliated to the Mint of the Tibetan government, and opened a small restaurant to earn a living by selling noodles and momos. Another fellow soldier who escaped to Lhasa with him also went incognito and succeeded a beef shop on the street. He still remembered that Tibet had its own currency and laws back then. One hundred taels of silver could exchange for one Tibetan bank note of the largest face value. It was a time when the currencies were not unified. Silver ingots were used and circulated in the market of the Qing empire. One silver ingot was approximately fifty taels of silver, and one yak at the time was worth one hundred taels of silver.[4] The new Chinese government did not have governing power in Lhasa yet, so Chinese people living there governed by the Tibetan government.
Aside from the restaurant, he also did business with some big families in Tibet, among which were the Sichuan-based Chama family and the families of officials working in the Mint. He had looked at the granddaughter of an official in the Mint. Later, through the matchmaking of his Tibetan neighbor, they became husband and wife. Before the wedding, the would-be newlywed – the groom wore a military uniform, and the bride a new Tibetan outfit made from fabric imported from Britain – had their wedding photos taken at a photography studio. The wedding expenses were covered by the bride’s family that was financially comfortable. Yet, their happiness did not last long. No more than a year after they got married, the Communist Party’s power in Lhasa grew increasingly and began hunting down the remaining KMT soldiers. He was forced to leave his pregnant wife behind, and fled to India on horseback, with the bride’s elder brother as his guide.
With the assistance of overseas Chinese living in Kolkata and local KMT members, he found a job working as a chef there, and lived in a neighborhood with both Chinese and Tibetan residents[5] for three years. Lobsang Kyap, a Tibetan who regularly traveled between India and Taiwan and had received American intelligence training, also lived in the neighborhood. Eventually, with the help of Yeh Kan-Chung, the leader of the local Chinese community, and that of the Free China Relief Association, he and more than thirty refugees were granted the status to come to Taiwan. They boarded a steamer from Kolkata to Taiwan through Hong Kong. After he arrived in Taiwan, he then brought his wife and children to Taiwan as well. The family eventually settled down in Taipei. His fellow soldier, who retreated to Lhasa from Sichuan with him, was also assisted by a female Tibetan employee to flee to India, and arrived in Taiwan one year before he did. In the newspaper, they became propaganda material for campaigning harmony in between Han and minorities, it also showed that Tibetan were a part of Republic of China which led by KMT.
Perhaps he had seen too much of a life inflicted by frustrations and compromises, with ideals ground to dust by reality. Although he believed that living in Taiwan was living in a land of freedom and democracy – a land that was supposed to be China – he turned down the position arranged by the KMT government, and continued working as a chef. He had worked in a Chinese restaurant owned by an overseas Chinese in West Germany, and had opened his own restaurant in Taiwan as well, but he had not worked in and for the government ever again.
About Her
She was born in Lhasa in 1937. Her father was born in Tsang, and had served in the army of the thirteenth Dalai Lama. He met her mother during a deployment, and chose to stay in Lhasa permanently. Her maternal grandfather worked in the Mint of the Tibetan government. Her family controlled the mines and other businesses. Because her mother passed away when she was little, she had worked for her father and helped manage the family’s business since she was ten. She was a young girl who loved fashion. Even if her father would tell her off, she would still copy the way foreigners dress and wear traditional Tibetan clothes with shirts. However, the drastic changes of the times eventually caught up with her.
Her marriage was simply something she had to do due to her family. According to her, it was love at first sight for her, but she also said that very few Tibetan women married Han Chinese men at that time. So, examples of run-away brides were not unheard of back then. The way she left Lhasa showed her family’s capability of diplomatic negotiation: in November 1958, most embassies had stopped issuing travel documents amidst the turmoil of military conflicts. Her father was able to pull some strings and arranged for public officials working at the Nepal embassy in Tibet to take her and her newborn daughter with them when returning to Nepal. In the freezing coldness, they were escorted by Communist officers to Nathu La near the border of Tibet and Sikkim, where they then took the bus to Kalimpong via Gangtok. Her father’s friend who traveled between India and Tibet for business had a place in Kalimpong. She borrowed the place and stayed there for twelve days, trying to get some news about her husband in the local Chinese community. Finally, she reunited with him in Kolkata.
She only started learning Mandarin after she arrived in Taiwan. Because of her superb language ability, she began working as a temporary interpreter at the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in 1968, assisting the commissioner general Kuo Chi-Chiao with administrative affairs. She could still remember Wangchen Geleg Surkhang[6] (1910-1977) and Yuthok Tashi Dundrup (1906-1983), who still worked in a style reminiscent of old aristocracy when they were in Taiwan. Other Tibetans who were also listed in the employee roster of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs[9] included Lobsang Yeshi, Tsepal Dorjee, who trained in the Chinese-American Composite Wing (CACW), and Kelsang Chomphel.
Her husband was proud of her job, even though her boss Kuo Chi-Chiao had changed commanders numerous times throughout his military career, and had been upgraded every step of his way, which differed greatly from his own circumstances in life. Since the 1980s, she has returned to Lhasa to visit her family several times. Young Chinese Communist Party officials curiously asked her why the Tibetan people would choose a life in exile in India, to which she replied, “cattle and sheep always go where the grass is good.”
He has probably forgotten the name that he was given by his own family. Throughout the many years that have passed, he has used several names. Even his Tibetan wife did not know his real family name, and only learned it after they arrived in India. The thing that he is most proud of in his entire life would probably be the fact that he has never surrendered, whether during the war or in real life.
He was born in a large family in Henan Province, China in 1928, which was a few years short of two decades after the Xinhai Revolution broke out. At the time, his family still enjoyed the affluence of being a grain supplier. He belonged to a generation born in the transition from the old times to the new era. As a child, he was taught to read at an old-style private school. Later, he learned about the revolution and democratic ideals through newspapers and translated books. At the age of sixteen, he decided to give up his comfortable life, and joined the fortieth troop of the Kuomintang (KMT) army to fight in the Sino-Japanese War. It is hard to say whether it was his good luck or a misfortune, the war ended in the second year after he joined the military, which was ensued by the aggravating conflicts between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party. It was the beginning of a life-long drift from one place to another with the KMT army.
It was in 1955 that he arrived in Lhasa. At that time, the KMT’s main troops and the military dependents had already retreated to Taiwan, leaving behind a small number of troops scattered in Sichuan, who were chased by the Chinese Communist army. The KMT had gathered some of the soldiers and took them to the coastal region secretly through the Free China Relief Association, before bringing them all to Taiwan. However, he gave up the idea as his fellow soldiers surrendered and mutinied one after another during the retreat, and decided to move from Sichuan to the plateau region.
He had seen the outing of the Dalai Lama there. Concealing his past of being in the KMT army, he rented a store front near the city center from a family affiliated to the Mint of the Tibetan government, and opened a small restaurant to earn a living by selling noodles and momos. Another fellow soldier who escaped to Lhasa with him also went incognito and succeeded a beef shop on the street. He still remembered that Tibet had its own currency and laws back then. One hundred taels of silver could exchange for one Tibetan bank note of the largest face value. It was a time when the currencies were not unified. Silver ingots were used and circulated in the market of the Qing empire. One silver ingot was approximately fifty taels of silver, and one yak at the time was worth one hundred taels of silver.[4] The new Chinese government did not have governing power in Lhasa yet, so Chinese people living there governed by the Tibetan government.
Aside from the restaurant, he also did business with some big families in Tibet, among which were the Sichuan-based Chama family and the families of officials working in the Mint. He had looked at the granddaughter of an official in the Mint. Later, through the matchmaking of his Tibetan neighbor, they became husband and wife. Before the wedding, the would-be newlywed – the groom wore a military uniform, and the bride a new Tibetan outfit made from fabric imported from Britain – had their wedding photos taken at a photography studio. The wedding expenses were covered by the bride’s family that was financially comfortable. Yet, their happiness did not last long. No more than a year after they got married, the Communist Party’s power in Lhasa grew increasingly and began hunting down the remaining KMT soldiers. He was forced to leave his pregnant wife behind, and fled to India on horseback, with the bride’s elder brother as his guide.
With the assistance of overseas Chinese living in Kolkata and local KMT members, he found a job working as a chef there, and lived in a neighborhood with both Chinese and Tibetan residents[5] for three years. Lobsang Kyap, a Tibetan who regularly traveled between India and Taiwan and had received American intelligence training, also lived in the neighborhood. Eventually, with the help of Yeh Kan-Chung, the leader of the local Chinese community, and that of the Free China Relief Association, he and more than thirty refugees were granted the status to come to Taiwan. They boarded a steamer from Kolkata to Taiwan through Hong Kong. After he arrived in Taiwan, he then brought his wife and children to Taiwan as well. The family eventually settled down in Taipei. His fellow soldier, who retreated to Lhasa from Sichuan with him, was also assisted by a female Tibetan employee to flee to India, and arrived in Taiwan one year before he did. In the newspaper, they became propaganda material for campaigning harmony in between Han and minorities, it also showed that Tibetan were a part of Republic of China which led by KMT.
Perhaps he had seen too much of a life inflicted by frustrations and compromises, with ideals ground to dust by reality. Although he believed that living in Taiwan was living in a land of freedom and democracy – a land that was supposed to be China – he turned down the position arranged by the KMT government, and continued working as a chef. He had worked in a Chinese restaurant owned by an overseas Chinese in West Germany, and had opened his own restaurant in Taiwan as well, but he had not worked in and for the government ever again.
About Her
She was born in Lhasa in 1937. Her father was born in Tsang, and had served in the army of the thirteenth Dalai Lama. He met her mother during a deployment, and chose to stay in Lhasa permanently. Her maternal grandfather worked in the Mint of the Tibetan government. Her family controlled the mines and other businesses. Because her mother passed away when she was little, she had worked for her father and helped manage the family’s business since she was ten. She was a young girl who loved fashion. Even if her father would tell her off, she would still copy the way foreigners dress and wear traditional Tibetan clothes with shirts. However, the drastic changes of the times eventually caught up with her.
Her marriage was simply something she had to do due to her family. According to her, it was love at first sight for her, but she also said that very few Tibetan women married Han Chinese men at that time. So, examples of run-away brides were not unheard of back then. The way she left Lhasa showed her family’s capability of diplomatic negotiation: in November 1958, most embassies had stopped issuing travel documents amidst the turmoil of military conflicts. Her father was able to pull some strings and arranged for public officials working at the Nepal embassy in Tibet to take her and her newborn daughter with them when returning to Nepal. In the freezing coldness, they were escorted by Communist officers to Nathu La near the border of Tibet and Sikkim, where they then took the bus to Kalimpong via Gangtok. Her father’s friend who traveled between India and Tibet for business had a place in Kalimpong. She borrowed the place and stayed there for twelve days, trying to get some news about her husband in the local Chinese community. Finally, she reunited with him in Kolkata.
She only started learning Mandarin after she arrived in Taiwan. Because of her superb language ability, she began working as a temporary interpreter at the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in 1968, assisting the commissioner general Kuo Chi-Chiao with administrative affairs. She could still remember Wangchen Geleg Surkhang[6] (1910-1977) and Yuthok Tashi Dundrup (1906-1983), who still worked in a style reminiscent of old aristocracy when they were in Taiwan. Other Tibetans who were also listed in the employee roster of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs[9] included Lobsang Yeshi, Tsepal Dorjee, who trained in the Chinese-American Composite Wing (CACW), and Kelsang Chomphel.
Her husband was proud of her job, even though her boss Kuo Chi-Chiao had changed commanders numerous times throughout his military career, and had been upgraded every step of his way, which differed greatly from his own circumstances in life. Since the 1980s, she has returned to Lhasa to visit her family several times. Young Chinese Communist Party officials curiously asked her why the Tibetan people would choose a life in exile in India, to which she replied, “cattle and sheep always go where the grass is good.”
III Gambit
“There are no gods nor ghosts in this world. Human beings are the most horrible ghosts in this world. We are living in hell,” said Tashi.[13] This is what he says most frequently. In this life, he has lots of names. None of his names have ever been remembered, but this is perhaps the reason why has survived until now.
Tashi was born in Tibet in the 1960s. Strictly speaking, he is neither Tibetan nor Han Chinese. His paternal great grandfather had lived in Beijing, and was exiled to the peripheries due to a criminal offense. He was fortunate to have encountered the procession of the Prince of Khoshuud (ཨེ་རྟི་ནི་ཇུ་ནང། སོག་པོ་མངའ་ཚན་དཔོན།, or མདའ་ཚན),[14] and was recruited as part of the Prince of Khoshuud’s staff before following the group to settle down in Amdo. Tashi’s father had a Tibetan name, and his mother was from a local Tibetan family.
As far as he can remember, almost all of the adult men in both his paternal and maternal families had served in the Kuomintang (KMT) army, and could speak Mandarin and Tibetan fluently. He has never denied that his grandfather’s death in 1958 was a relief in some way—this is because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began settling score with his family after the death of his grandfather, and all their properties were seized by the authority, which sealed his fate for a struggling childhood inflicted by poverty.
In the early 1980s, he decided to leave this futureless life, and hitchhiked from the Qinghai and Gansu region all the way to Lhasa. After twists and turns, he arrived in India from a center for Tibetans in exile in Nepal. At first, he was assigned to study at the Central School for Tibetans, Mussoorie. Unfortunately, without sufficient financial support and having been deprived of education at a young age, he was not able to catch up in school, and dropped out soon. It was when he was loitering near the school that he met Phuntsok, who was working for the KMT.
In the existing early Tibetan files, Phuntsok was called Tsai Chih-chung (蔡執中). His elder brother was named Tsai Yung-chung (蔡永中), and his eldest younger brother Tsai Ting-chung (蔡定中), whose Tibetan name was Tsepal Dorjee. Phuntsok’s eldest younger sister Karmo was married to a regional leader of the Tibetans in exile named Gungthang Tsering, and his second younger brother Gonpo Dhondup had exiled in India, and was killed in a drunk fight shortly after returning to Tibet with his mother. Currently, there are many files about Tsepal Dorjee, but it is difficult to determine their authenticity. In one of the file, he claimed to be the son of a local Tibetan tribe in the region of guoluo. According to him in this file, he was born in 1932, and his father and Lobsang Drewang had purchased military aircrafts (Mandarin name: Huang Cheng-ching) as a gift to Chiang Kai-shek. When he was twelve years old, he was accepted into the program of the 5th Lanzhou Special Training, with the recommendation of Dai Yu-nong (Dai Li), the leader of intelligence affairs for the KMT. He later enjoyed a recommended admission into the Air Force Academy. According to A Brief History of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, he began working at the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in the October of 1967, and his titles were pilot, liaison officer of the 2nd Division in the Qinghai, Tibet and Gansu regions, and supervisor and advisor in the Tibet region. In the declassified internal files of the KMT,[15] he was an underground worker assisting the “resistance against the CCP.” He had stationed in Kalimpong, India, and had approached important figures in the Tibetan community in exile, such as the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).
At that time, Tsepal Dorjee had long-term residences in both Dehradun and Delhi, India, and Phuntsok was running a tavern and a restaurant in Kathmandu, Nepal. Both of them had visited Taiwan, but only the former settled down in Taiwan. Tashi worked as a busboy in Phuntsok’s tavern and restaurant in Nepal, and served as a bodyguard for specific visitors.
As early as the 1960s, the KMT had already attempted at using Tibetans in exile living in India and Nepal to fight against the CCP for proving the KMT administration as the rightful legal sovereignty representing the New China, which also included Tibet. However, in the 1980s, the KMT forces in the South Asian region, whose main purpose was to approach and influence Tibetans in exile, already split up throughout a long-lasting internal strife. Three organizations were involved in this internal strife: the Free China Relief Association, the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, and the intelligence agency, which were competing against each other, and engaged in collaboration with Tibetans from different groups, as well as those who had lived in areas under Tibetan cultural influences and therefore knew Tibetan or Mandarin, whose ethnic identity remained difficult to determine. In fact, no matter which organizations this group of KMT collaborators worked for – maybe they had sought maximum benefit and worked for more than one organization – they all antagonized the Tibetan community in exile due to opposing pollical stances. When Tashi was still working for Phuntsok in the 1980s, he had encountered two deaths by assassination: one involved a person named kelsang from Jonê Zong in Gansu Province, and the other Gungthang Tsering. Both were assassinated by Tibetans in exile. In early Tibetan documents in Taiwan, the latter had tried to send nearly two hundred Tibetans from India to Taiwan in the name of a dance and singing group. Nevertheless, the plan was never approved, and there was no record of its actualization. In a declassified file from Taiwan’s Military Intelligence Bureau, it is stated that Gungthang Tsering was an unregenerate supporter of the “Tibetan independence,” and could not be trusted. To these people, who had established relations with but were never truly trusted by the KMT, and eventually died by the hand of Tibetans in exile, what was it that had made them strive so painstakingly for a better future?
Still, there were some who were able to get away unscathed. Khochok from Jainca, Qinghai used to work for Kao Chien-kui (高千貴) from the Free China Relief Association. Kao had used Pempa Lhagyal as his Tibetan name to approach the Tibetan community in exile, but he could not speak fluent Tibetan. It is said that he ran a minor newspaper catering to the local Mandarin-speaking community in Nepal,[16] which was the most circulating Mandarin newspaper only second to the Central Daily News.[17] Khochok would sometimes copy faked intelligence from the BBC Radio and feed it to public officials from Taiwan in exchange for payment. He died of an old age in the foreign land in the end.
Having worked for Phuntsok for a while, Tashi met Lobsang Chompel, who was born in Dawu Zong, Kandze, Gansu Province, and was also called Dawu Compel. He was one of the Tibetan soldiers who retreated to Taiwan with the KMT. So, it can be inferred that he probably did not belong to the air force or the navy, both of which required special training. It is possible that he is recorded in related files under his Mandarin name. Lobsang Chompel and his younger brother worked for the KMT for many years, and the latter was assassinated in Kalimpong. In Nepal, Tashi would receive assignments from Lobsang Chompel to help confirm the authenticity of intelligence provided by different organizations, which became the beginning of Tashi’s involvement in and understanding of Taiwan’s politics.
The intelligence that Tashi needed to verify came from a wide range of sources, among which was his own boss, Phuntsok. As a matter of fact, Phuntsok would copy some news from Hong Kong and paste newspapers from China on the walls in his own home to stage a scene pretending that it was in China before taking photos to concoct fake intelligence.[18] Moreover, Phuntsok also participated in blowing up a bridge in Nepal, and had the locals worn the clothes of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to stage scenes of counterattacking China for faked intelligence photos as well. This event is also mentioned in The Lama Killing.
Part of the Tibetan intelligence provided to the KMT came from groups, who had been collaborating with the KMT to seek their own benefit. Some intelligence was fabricated, and some was authentic information from Tibet. At that time, some Tibetan soldiers, who had served in the PLA and fled Tibet, brought authentic military intelligence, hoping to exchange the information for pollical asylum. However, before they could reach real contacts, profiteering brokers would already clear up potential benefits during the process, leaving these people with no substantial assistance.
Fluent in both Mandarin and Tibetan, these people hiding and moving among different groups and communities possessed information needed by the CCP as well as the CTA. Consequently, they became people that the CCP, the KMT, and the Tibetans community in exile had wrestled to recruit or use. Sometimes, it might look like they worked for all three sides at the same time, yet it is also very likely that they had no clue as to for whom they were working for. There were some special cases: one individual was recruited by the Department of Security of the CTA after he exiled to India, and was then sent back to Lhasa to carry out a mission. However, when the mission failed, he was incarcerated. Eventually, he managed to escape back to India, carrying with him large sums of cash and wearing nice clothes. He was consequently suspected of being a spy, and was investigated by the Indian police, leaving him no choice but to flee to Europe. In another case, one Tibetan interpreter, who had worked for the PLA, later joined the army in Mustang after he exiled to India. Also being suspected of espionage, he was forced into exile again. These people had no choice but to use Nepal as a transfer hub, and had probably passed by Phuntsok or Tashi in the streets of Nepal. In one of the file from the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau,[19] it is recorded that Tsepal Dorjee acted strangely in Taiwan after returning from a mission in China, including expressing his longing for his hometown and the CCP, using aliases, and faking proofs of staying at hotels in Taiwan to avoid being followed. Before this incident, he was the person in charge of a USA-funded program, which involved selecting Tibetans born in India and Nepal to receive military training in Taiwan. His nieces were also among the selectees for military training in Taiwan.
In the 1990s, Tashi was arrested for participating in protests organized by Tibetans in exile in front of the Chinese Embassy in India. After he was released, he sought the opportunity to come to Taiwan. On the other hand, in his late years, Lobsang Chompel was fed up with increasing bureaucratic trivialities and corruptions within the KMT system, to which his organization was affiliated., and consequently turned to support the New Party, a new political party in Taiwan that more radically pursues the realization of the “Three Principles of the People” in China, the unification of races, as well as the Cross-Strait unification. After Lobsang Chompel’s younger brother died in the assassination, Tashi asked him if he would need Tashi’s help to avenge his brother, but he only shook his head and said, “forget it.” Later, Tashi was granted residency in Taiwan, and met some of the Tibetans living in Taiwan, including Thubten, whose children were studying at the Tibetan Children’s Home. According to Tashi’s recollection, one time, he was taking a walk with Thubten near the Taipei Main Station. A propagandist bandwagon with the portrait of Mao Zedong and broadcasting “L’Internationale” (The International) slowly drove towards them. Thubten suddenly acted crazy, and began shouting praises of Mao and damning bureaucracy and capitalism to hell. This caught people’s attention, and at that exact moment, Tashi thought, “we are living in hell.”
The completion of this series of article is indebted to many people’s assistance, for which I am deeply grateful.
Tashi was born in Tibet in the 1960s. Strictly speaking, he is neither Tibetan nor Han Chinese. His paternal great grandfather had lived in Beijing, and was exiled to the peripheries due to a criminal offense. He was fortunate to have encountered the procession of the Prince of Khoshuud (ཨེ་རྟི་ནི་ཇུ་ནང། སོག་པོ་མངའ་ཚན་དཔོན།, or མདའ་ཚན),[14] and was recruited as part of the Prince of Khoshuud’s staff before following the group to settle down in Amdo. Tashi’s father had a Tibetan name, and his mother was from a local Tibetan family.
As far as he can remember, almost all of the adult men in both his paternal and maternal families had served in the Kuomintang (KMT) army, and could speak Mandarin and Tibetan fluently. He has never denied that his grandfather’s death in 1958 was a relief in some way—this is because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began settling score with his family after the death of his grandfather, and all their properties were seized by the authority, which sealed his fate for a struggling childhood inflicted by poverty.
In the early 1980s, he decided to leave this futureless life, and hitchhiked from the Qinghai and Gansu region all the way to Lhasa. After twists and turns, he arrived in India from a center for Tibetans in exile in Nepal. At first, he was assigned to study at the Central School for Tibetans, Mussoorie. Unfortunately, without sufficient financial support and having been deprived of education at a young age, he was not able to catch up in school, and dropped out soon. It was when he was loitering near the school that he met Phuntsok, who was working for the KMT.
In the existing early Tibetan files, Phuntsok was called Tsai Chih-chung (蔡執中). His elder brother was named Tsai Yung-chung (蔡永中), and his eldest younger brother Tsai Ting-chung (蔡定中), whose Tibetan name was Tsepal Dorjee. Phuntsok’s eldest younger sister Karmo was married to a regional leader of the Tibetans in exile named Gungthang Tsering, and his second younger brother Gonpo Dhondup had exiled in India, and was killed in a drunk fight shortly after returning to Tibet with his mother. Currently, there are many files about Tsepal Dorjee, but it is difficult to determine their authenticity. In one of the file, he claimed to be the son of a local Tibetan tribe in the region of guoluo. According to him in this file, he was born in 1932, and his father and Lobsang Drewang had purchased military aircrafts (Mandarin name: Huang Cheng-ching) as a gift to Chiang Kai-shek. When he was twelve years old, he was accepted into the program of the 5th Lanzhou Special Training, with the recommendation of Dai Yu-nong (Dai Li), the leader of intelligence affairs for the KMT. He later enjoyed a recommended admission into the Air Force Academy. According to A Brief History of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, he began working at the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in the October of 1967, and his titles were pilot, liaison officer of the 2nd Division in the Qinghai, Tibet and Gansu regions, and supervisor and advisor in the Tibet region. In the declassified internal files of the KMT,[15] he was an underground worker assisting the “resistance against the CCP.” He had stationed in Kalimpong, India, and had approached important figures in the Tibetan community in exile, such as the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).
At that time, Tsepal Dorjee had long-term residences in both Dehradun and Delhi, India, and Phuntsok was running a tavern and a restaurant in Kathmandu, Nepal. Both of them had visited Taiwan, but only the former settled down in Taiwan. Tashi worked as a busboy in Phuntsok’s tavern and restaurant in Nepal, and served as a bodyguard for specific visitors.
As early as the 1960s, the KMT had already attempted at using Tibetans in exile living in India and Nepal to fight against the CCP for proving the KMT administration as the rightful legal sovereignty representing the New China, which also included Tibet. However, in the 1980s, the KMT forces in the South Asian region, whose main purpose was to approach and influence Tibetans in exile, already split up throughout a long-lasting internal strife. Three organizations were involved in this internal strife: the Free China Relief Association, the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, and the intelligence agency, which were competing against each other, and engaged in collaboration with Tibetans from different groups, as well as those who had lived in areas under Tibetan cultural influences and therefore knew Tibetan or Mandarin, whose ethnic identity remained difficult to determine. In fact, no matter which organizations this group of KMT collaborators worked for – maybe they had sought maximum benefit and worked for more than one organization – they all antagonized the Tibetan community in exile due to opposing pollical stances. When Tashi was still working for Phuntsok in the 1980s, he had encountered two deaths by assassination: one involved a person named kelsang from Jonê Zong in Gansu Province, and the other Gungthang Tsering. Both were assassinated by Tibetans in exile. In early Tibetan documents in Taiwan, the latter had tried to send nearly two hundred Tibetans from India to Taiwan in the name of a dance and singing group. Nevertheless, the plan was never approved, and there was no record of its actualization. In a declassified file from Taiwan’s Military Intelligence Bureau, it is stated that Gungthang Tsering was an unregenerate supporter of the “Tibetan independence,” and could not be trusted. To these people, who had established relations with but were never truly trusted by the KMT, and eventually died by the hand of Tibetans in exile, what was it that had made them strive so painstakingly for a better future?
Still, there were some who were able to get away unscathed. Khochok from Jainca, Qinghai used to work for Kao Chien-kui (高千貴) from the Free China Relief Association. Kao had used Pempa Lhagyal as his Tibetan name to approach the Tibetan community in exile, but he could not speak fluent Tibetan. It is said that he ran a minor newspaper catering to the local Mandarin-speaking community in Nepal,[16] which was the most circulating Mandarin newspaper only second to the Central Daily News.[17] Khochok would sometimes copy faked intelligence from the BBC Radio and feed it to public officials from Taiwan in exchange for payment. He died of an old age in the foreign land in the end.
Having worked for Phuntsok for a while, Tashi met Lobsang Chompel, who was born in Dawu Zong, Kandze, Gansu Province, and was also called Dawu Compel. He was one of the Tibetan soldiers who retreated to Taiwan with the KMT. So, it can be inferred that he probably did not belong to the air force or the navy, both of which required special training. It is possible that he is recorded in related files under his Mandarin name. Lobsang Chompel and his younger brother worked for the KMT for many years, and the latter was assassinated in Kalimpong. In Nepal, Tashi would receive assignments from Lobsang Chompel to help confirm the authenticity of intelligence provided by different organizations, which became the beginning of Tashi’s involvement in and understanding of Taiwan’s politics.
The intelligence that Tashi needed to verify came from a wide range of sources, among which was his own boss, Phuntsok. As a matter of fact, Phuntsok would copy some news from Hong Kong and paste newspapers from China on the walls in his own home to stage a scene pretending that it was in China before taking photos to concoct fake intelligence.[18] Moreover, Phuntsok also participated in blowing up a bridge in Nepal, and had the locals worn the clothes of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to stage scenes of counterattacking China for faked intelligence photos as well. This event is also mentioned in The Lama Killing.
Part of the Tibetan intelligence provided to the KMT came from groups, who had been collaborating with the KMT to seek their own benefit. Some intelligence was fabricated, and some was authentic information from Tibet. At that time, some Tibetan soldiers, who had served in the PLA and fled Tibet, brought authentic military intelligence, hoping to exchange the information for pollical asylum. However, before they could reach real contacts, profiteering brokers would already clear up potential benefits during the process, leaving these people with no substantial assistance.
Fluent in both Mandarin and Tibetan, these people hiding and moving among different groups and communities possessed information needed by the CCP as well as the CTA. Consequently, they became people that the CCP, the KMT, and the Tibetans community in exile had wrestled to recruit or use. Sometimes, it might look like they worked for all three sides at the same time, yet it is also very likely that they had no clue as to for whom they were working for. There were some special cases: one individual was recruited by the Department of Security of the CTA after he exiled to India, and was then sent back to Lhasa to carry out a mission. However, when the mission failed, he was incarcerated. Eventually, he managed to escape back to India, carrying with him large sums of cash and wearing nice clothes. He was consequently suspected of being a spy, and was investigated by the Indian police, leaving him no choice but to flee to Europe. In another case, one Tibetan interpreter, who had worked for the PLA, later joined the army in Mustang after he exiled to India. Also being suspected of espionage, he was forced into exile again. These people had no choice but to use Nepal as a transfer hub, and had probably passed by Phuntsok or Tashi in the streets of Nepal. In one of the file from the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau,[19] it is recorded that Tsepal Dorjee acted strangely in Taiwan after returning from a mission in China, including expressing his longing for his hometown and the CCP, using aliases, and faking proofs of staying at hotels in Taiwan to avoid being followed. Before this incident, he was the person in charge of a USA-funded program, which involved selecting Tibetans born in India and Nepal to receive military training in Taiwan. His nieces were also among the selectees for military training in Taiwan.
In the 1990s, Tashi was arrested for participating in protests organized by Tibetans in exile in front of the Chinese Embassy in India. After he was released, he sought the opportunity to come to Taiwan. On the other hand, in his late years, Lobsang Chompel was fed up with increasing bureaucratic trivialities and corruptions within the KMT system, to which his organization was affiliated., and consequently turned to support the New Party, a new political party in Taiwan that more radically pursues the realization of the “Three Principles of the People” in China, the unification of races, as well as the Cross-Strait unification. After Lobsang Chompel’s younger brother died in the assassination, Tashi asked him if he would need Tashi’s help to avenge his brother, but he only shook his head and said, “forget it.” Later, Tashi was granted residency in Taiwan, and met some of the Tibetans living in Taiwan, including Thubten, whose children were studying at the Tibetan Children’s Home. According to Tashi’s recollection, one time, he was taking a walk with Thubten near the Taipei Main Station. A propagandist bandwagon with the portrait of Mao Zedong and broadcasting “L’Internationale” (The International) slowly drove towards them. Thubten suddenly acted crazy, and began shouting praises of Mao and damning bureaucracy and capitalism to hell. This caught people’s attention, and at that exact moment, Tashi thought, “we are living in hell.”
The completion of this series of article is indebted to many people’s assistance, for which I am deeply grateful.
[1] The 1959 religious activity for supporting the protests in Tibet was organized by Taiwanese religious groups, which were closely related to Buddhism. In 2022, one of the religious statue worshipped in the event has been returned to and consecrated at the Dalai Lama Foundation. The Taiwanese temple where this statue was kept also houses an inscribed board donated by Chama Samphe, a Tibetan who had traveled between Taiwan and India half a century ago. The documentary.
[2] Because of parts of the content involve archives not yet released, some of the names mentioned here replaced with alias.
[3] A video of his daughter's wedding in Taiwan.
[4] This part is based on the oral records of the interviewee. Because of his old age, his memory might not serve him correctly. Currently, there is no other material available to validate the exchange rate of different currencies at that time.
[5] This is based on the interviewee’s recollection. Also see file no. A319000000B/0070/001404/51/0001/016 in the archives of the National Archive Administration , in which the list included some Tibetan names.
[6] See “The Case of Wangchen Geleg Surkhang Visiting Taiwan,” 1965.05.07-1967.02.08. No. 020-012600-0002 in the Historical Material Search System of Academia Historica.
[12] Liu, Xueyao. A Brief History of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. The Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, 1971.
[13] Tashi is an alias.
[14] Tashi Taering inherited the title of the 10th Prince of Khoshuud in 1941. Her husband Gonpo Namgyal (Mandarin name: Huang Wen-yuen) received an education at the Central Political Institute established by the KMT. According to declassified files, the couple had approached the KMT personnel through their housekeeper in 1958.
[15] File no.: 0046/總裁批簽/001/0005/47-0068
[16] No record of this newspaper is found in the existing archives in Taiwan.
[17] This newspaper was published by the KMT in Shanghai in 1928, which was moved to Taiwan when the KMT retreated, and kept its paper publication until it ended in 2006.
[18] For the released files containing similar descriptions, see the archives of the National Archive Administration, including file no. 0052/總裁批簽/001/0001/52-0025; 0052/總裁批簽/001/0001/52-0067; and 0052/總裁批簽/001/0001/53-0007.
[19] See the archives of the National Archive Administration , file no. AA11010000F/0045/3/12678.
[2] Because of parts of the content involve archives not yet released, some of the names mentioned here replaced with alias.
[3] A video of his daughter's wedding in Taiwan.
[4] This part is based on the oral records of the interviewee. Because of his old age, his memory might not serve him correctly. Currently, there is no other material available to validate the exchange rate of different currencies at that time.
[5] This is based on the interviewee’s recollection. Also see file no. A319000000B/0070/001404/51/0001/016 in the archives of the National Archive Administration , in which the list included some Tibetan names.
[6] See “The Case of Wangchen Geleg Surkhang Visiting Taiwan,” 1965.05.07-1967.02.08. No. 020-012600-0002 in the Historical Material Search System of Academia Historica.
[12] Liu, Xueyao. A Brief History of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. The Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, 1971.
[13] Tashi is an alias.
[14] Tashi Taering inherited the title of the 10th Prince of Khoshuud in 1941. Her husband Gonpo Namgyal (Mandarin name: Huang Wen-yuen) received an education at the Central Political Institute established by the KMT. According to declassified files, the couple had approached the KMT personnel through their housekeeper in 1958.
[15] File no.: 0046/總裁批簽/001/0005/47-0068
[16] No record of this newspaper is found in the existing archives in Taiwan.
[17] This newspaper was published by the KMT in Shanghai in 1928, which was moved to Taiwan when the KMT retreated, and kept its paper publication until it ended in 2006.
[18] For the released files containing similar descriptions, see the archives of the National Archive Administration, including file no. 0052/總裁批簽/001/0001/52-0025; 0052/總裁批簽/001/0001/52-0067; and 0052/總裁批簽/001/0001/53-0007.
[19] See the archives of the National Archive Administration , file no. AA11010000F/0045/3/12678.