While the Mongols and Tibetans had a priest-patron relationship, the Mongols treated China as inferior to them. During Kublai Khan's reign, China was divided into 12 provinces, which were granted to princes and generals to rule (Morgan, 126). These provinces however did not include Tibet. .
Since the rule of the Mongols, Tibet has not changed much. The real problem began as soon as the Chinese invaded Tibet on October 7th 1950. Units of the, so-called, People's Liberation Army crossed the River Yangtze into Kham, the eastern province of Tibet. The invasion had been planned in detail by Deng Xiaoping, a future Chinese leader, and two other senior Communist officials in China's Southwest Military Region. When the Tibetans heard about the possibility of China invading Tibet, they set up a Tibetan army with fewer than 10,000 men. They were outnumbered and outclassed. With only some fifty artillery pieces, 250 mortars, and a couple of hundred machine guns, the Tibetan Army was hopeless to prevent invasion. (Cavendish 1). The Chinese goal was to get into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and within 11-12 days China was able to have Tibet surrender. On October 19th, Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, a Tibetan provincial governor, told the Chinese that he would surrender. With the Chinese demanding negotiations with Lhasa, the Tibetans appealed to the United Nations; sadly without effect. Ngabo led a delegation to Beijing and an agreement was concluded in May of 1951. They were forced to accept the terms of the 17 Point agreements for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. This occupation of Tibet then, in turn, gave China direct access to the Indian sub-continent (Lama 1). For eight years, Tibetans and Chinese lived in tense coexistence, as Tibet was achieving its socialist transformation from a traditionally feudal society. This period ended in March of 1959, after a riot in Lhasa, where the Chinese army crushed the Tibetan people.