Old Lhaa witnessed stormy years in the first half of the 20th century. The lamaist stat, best with difficulties but internally and externally, was tottering.

Following the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China went through a period of upheaval. The Republic of China was established in 1911. but for almost 40 years-from 1911 to 1949-there was nationwide turmoil. First of all, there was the period of warlord rule. Then the Guomintang (Nationalists0 and the Communists cooperated and split on two occasions. Then there was the Anti-Japanese War, the Liberation War…. The social order was totally disrupted. The relationship between Tibet and the Central Government lapsed into the most abnormal period since the Yuan Dynasty.

Housed in the Tibet Archives today are 600,000 to 700,000 documents and objects, of which a large number record exchanges between the Tibetan government and the Central Government of the Republic of China from 1911. They do not include those kept in the Nanjing Historical Archives. They indicate that the government of the Republic of China did its utmost over several decades to exercise its sovereignty over Tibet despite all difficulties. It endeavored to save Tibet form being split from China and becoming a colony of Britain.

For the sake of state sovereignty and national unity, the Guomintang and the communists put aside their political differences, and upheld the banner of national sovereignty which had been handed down for a thousand years. the period of the Republic of China was short, but it accomplished a few things of great significance concerning Tibet. For instance, it restored the title to the 13th Dalai Lama, who had been removed by the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty. When the 13th Dalai Lama died, the government of the Republic of China sent Huang Musong to attend his funeral in Lhasa and restored the title to him posthumously. At the same time, the Tibet Office of the Republic of China was established. The Central Government was also involved in the confirmation and enthronement of the 14th Dalai Lama. Wu Zhongxin was sent to attend the enthronement ceremony on behalf of the Central Government of the Republic of China. Tibet also had offices of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas set up in Nanjing, capital of the Republic of China, at that time. delegates from Tibet also attended the National Assembly. One major responsibility of those offices was to arrange accommodation for Tibetan officials visiting Nanjing.

Before Huang Musong took office in Tibet, several groups of representatives of the Central Government had visited Tibet since 1919. one of them was a lady named Liu Manqing. Entrusted by Chinang Kaishek, she went to Tibet as a non-official representative in 1930. The 13th Dalai Lama, in an unprecedented move, received her in person. He told her that he would not be enticed by the British, and that his heart was with China. Liu later wrote a book titled, My Mission to Xikang and Tibet.

Huang Musong broke the ice between the Tibetan and Han peoples during his trip to Tibet in 1934 to deliver a memorial speech at the funeral of the 13th Dalai Lama. Instead of going there by the traditional sea route via India, he traveled along the Sichuan-Tibet route. For one thing, he wanted to avoid any obstruction by Britain, and for another, he wanted to investigate the disputed border between Xikang and Tibet. His mission involved restoring the title to the late Dalai Lama, delivering a memorial speech at the ceremony, and presenting gifts to officials and alms to monasteries. His major aim was to restore the relations between the Central Government and the local government of Tibet. The Gaxag government, including both monk and lay officials, convened the Tsongdu (People's Conference), and sent a letter to the Central Government stipulating 10 provisions, which included recognizing that Tibet was part of China and subject to the rule of the Central government and consenting to the stationing of representatives of the Central government in Lhasa. Before Huang left for Nanjing, he established a representative office, an observatory and a radio transmitter in Tibet.

Upon his return to Nanjing, he was appointed chairman of the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs. The Lhasa representative office, observatory, radio and Lhasa Primary School (which was opened by the Central Government later) operated until 1951, when Tibet was peacefully liberated.

The reincarnation ("soul boy") of the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was supposed to have occurred in a peasant family in Qijiachuan (Taktser), Huangzhong County, Qinghai Province, in 1935, when Tenzin Gyatso was identified as the soul boy by the government of the Republic of China, at the request of the local government of Tibet Central Government ordered Ma Bufang, warlord of Qinghai, to send troops to escort the boy to Tibet, at a cost of 100,000 yuan. To manifest its sovereignty and to follow historical tradition, the Nanjing government also sent Wu Zhongxin, chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, to preside over the confirmation and enthronement ceremonies. On February 5,1940, the government of the Republic of China issued an order announcing that Tenzin Gyatso was the 14th Dalai Lama, and allocated 400,000 yuan for the enthronement ceremony. On February 22, 1940, Wu Zhongxin presided over the enthronement ceremony, held in the Potala Palace, on behalf of the Central Government of the Republic of China. Britain, which at that time was seeking to wrest Tibet from China, also sent a delegation to offer congratulations, but the government of Tibet made an appropriate arrangement which clearly indicated that Tibet was an inalienable part of China.

For decades, to be united with or split from China has been an issue of great concern with the ruling elite of Tibet. It hesitate, finding it difficult to determine its own position. It was true that there was a separatist force. But how could the long-standing political and economic ties between Tibet and the hinterland be severed as simply as that? What benefit could Tibet get from independence? Throughout history, every time communications between Tibet and the hinterland were interrupted, the Tibetans suffered. Take tea, for example. Tea has long been indispensable to the Tibetan people. Aristocrats, high-ranking officials and commoners all drank tea. Tibet produces no tea at all, and so if the route to the hinterland was blocked the supply of tea was reduced, and its price would immediately rise.

The economy, the foundation of a society, is something the rulers could not afford to neglect. During the second expulsion of Han people from Tibet in 1949, only those related to politics were expelled, such as the staff working in the Tibet Office of the Central Government and secret agents of the Kuomintang, and not Han traders. The Han merchants shut their stores in Barkor Street for only a few days and then reopened to resume their businesses.

From the time of Huang Musong's 1934 mission to 1949, only the Tibet Office of the Central Government represented the Republic of China. The directors of the Office in this period were Kong Qingzong and Shen Zonglian. An acting director stayed on until the last minute. The staff included Li Youyi, a scholar, and English interpreter Liu Shengqi. Apart from them, there were groups of Kuomintang secret agents. Compared with the high commissioners sent by the Qing Court, their position and power were far inferior.

In 1947, the government of Tibet, headed by Taktra Rimpoche, executed Living Buddha Reting for the crime of being "pro-Han." After that, Lhasa was in a white terror. Those who had been close to the Tibet Office of the Central Government had to stay away. At the same time, the Kuomintang itself was on the verge of collapse. All those working for Kuomintang were on tenterhooks. Nevertheless, it managed to keep a presence in Lhasa until it was driven from the mainland in 1949.

In retrospect, no matter how little the Tibet Office of the Central Government could achieve, its mere existence had significance.
Unfortunately, the Kuomintang government was fully occupied in the battles against Japan externally and against the Communists internally. It was too busy to take care of Tibet. Its reaction to the positive attitudes of the Tibetan government was slow or even indifferent. Its instructions to the Tibet Office was "to make no error is a great achievement; to take no move is a great merit." Such a policy made the staff unable to do anything significant. Many of them wrote memoirs describing life of that period.

It was also in this period that the Dalai Lama and Panchen lama set up their respective offices in Nanjing, capital of the Republic of China. In 1923, the ninth Panchen Lama, complaining of a sudden huge increase in military expenditure and exorbitant taxes in Tibet created by the Dalai Lama, left Tibet for the hinterland. There he spent the last 14 years of his life. He prayed for the prosperity of the motherland, made generous donations for the War of Resistance Against the Japanese Aggression. He enjoyed high esteem among the Chinese people. In 1937, when he was on his way back to Tibet, he died in Yushu in Qinghai Province. A massive funeral ceremony was held for him by the Central Government.

In 1949, the enthronement of the 10th Panchen Lama was held in the Kumbum monastery in Qinghai. He live there until December 1951, when he left for Tibet.