2025 Theses Doctoral

Shifting Terrains of Authority: Religio-Political Governance in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, 1650-1911

Gyal, Palden

This dissertation investigates authority and governance in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands from the mid-17th to early 20th centuries, with a focus on the intersection of religious institutions and secular polities amid Qing imperial expansion into Inner Asia. It reevaluates the prevailing Beijing-centric interpretation of the “native chieftaincy system” (Ch. tusi zhidu) by approaching the frontier as dynamic and contested spaces where Tibetan polities and Qing state forces engaged in continual negotiation over sovereignty, legitimacy, and power. Centering on the Eastern Tibetan principalities of Gyalrong, the study recasts these kingdoms not as passive subjects of imperial incorporation but as active participants who shaped the trajectory of Qing expansion. Employing the concept of empire as a web of “reciprocal relationships” between Qing authorities and Tibetan elites, the project advances a model of imperial governance as layered, negotiated, and contested—marked by strategies of resistance, adaptation, and accommodation.

Based on extensive fieldwork and research in a multilingual archive—including Tibetan, Chinese, and Manchu documents housed in repositories across Taiwan, China, and India—the study draws on previously unexamined and newly published sources, such as imperial edicts, monastic abbatial records, land deeds, and legal documents. It demonstrates that Gyalrong rulers, far from being fully absorbed into the Qing administrative structure, mobilized religio-political ideologies, monastic networks, and customary legal systems to retain de facto autonomy and resist the imposition of gaitu guiliu (the replacement of native chieftains with regular officials). Ultimately, this dissertation offers a critical intervention in the historiography of the Qing empire and Sino-Tibetan relations. It challenges state-centric narratives of frontier consolidation—whether Chinese or Tibetan—by foregrounding the agency of Tibetan actors and reconceptualizing frontier governance as a product of mutual entanglement rather than unilateral domination. In doing so, it offers a more nuanced understanding of the region’s political trajectory leading up to its incorporation into the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s.