From 1727 until 1912, roughly corresponding to the era of Tibet under Qing rule, the Qing Emperor appointed "imperial commissioner-resident of Tibet" (Chinese: 欽差駐藏辦事大臣). The official rank of the imperial resident is amban (Tibetan: བོད་བཞུགས་ཨམ་བན, Wylie: bod bzhugs am ban, colloquially "High Commissioner"). With increasing diplomatic contacts between the British and the Qing in from the 1890s, some assistant ambans (Chinese: 欽差駐藏幫辦大臣) were just as notable as the senior ambans. Two of them, Feng Quan and Zhao Erfeng, who were stationed in Chamdo, were both murdered, the former in the Batang uprising and the latter in Xinhai Revolution.
List
The ethnicity of several ambans are unknown. By ethnicity, of the 80 ambans, most were Manchu and four were Han: Zhou Ying, Bao Jinzhong, Meng Bao, and Zhao Erfeng. At least fifteen Mongols were known to have served as ambans, perhaps more.[1]
(H=Han, M=Mongol, ?=unknown, unmarked=Manchu)
Sengge 僧格 1727–1733
Mala 馬臘 1728,1729–1731, 1733–1736
Mailu 邁祿 1727–1733
Zhou Ying 周瑛 1727–1729 (Han)
Bao Jinzhong 包進忠 1729–1732 (Han)
Qingbao 青保 1731–1734 (Mongol)
Miaoshou 苗壽 1731–1734
Lizhu 李柱 1732–1733
A'erxun 阿爾珣 1734
Nasutai 那素泰 1734–1737
Hangyilu 杭弈祿 1737–1738
Jishan 紀山 1738–1741
Suobai 索拜 1741–1744, 1747–1748
Fuqing 傅清 1744–1748
Labudun 拉布敦 1748–1749
Tongning 同寧 1750
Bandi 班第 1750–1752 (the first with official Amban title)
^ a bIn 1904, when the British sent the Younghusband expedition to Lhasa, it is said that You Tai had not yet arrived, and Yugang continued running the office. Other assistant ambans, Naqin and Gui Lin had not arrived either.[2][3]
References
^Kolmaš 1994, pp. 461–465.
^ a b cXiuyu Wang 2011, pp. 90–91.
^Coleman 2002, p. 41.
^Coleman 2014, pp. 211–212.
^ a b cXiuyu Wang 2011, p. 91.
^Hui Wang 2011, p. 167.
^Ho 2008, p. 212.
^Teichman, Eric (28 February 2019). Travels of a consular officer in eastern tibet. CUP Archive. p. 22. Retrieved 28 June 2011.
^Mehra 1974, p. 124.
^Ho 2008.
Sources
Coleman, William M. (2002), "The Uprising at Batang: Khams and its Significance in Chinese and Tibetan History", in Lawrence Epstein (ed.), Khams Pa Histories: Visions of People, Place and Authority : PIATS 2000 : Tibetan Studies : Proceedings of the Nineth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000, International Association for Tibetan Studies / BRILL, pp. 31–56, ISBN 90-04-12423-3
Coleman, William M. (2014), Making the State on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier: Chinese Expansion and Local Power in Batang, 1842–1939, Columbia University (PhD thesis)
Ho, Dahpon David (2008). "The Men Who Would Not Be Amban and the One Who Would". Modern China. 34 (2): 210–246. doi:10.1177/0097700407312856. ISSN 0097-7004. S2CID 143539645.
Kolmaš, Josef (1994), "The Ambans and Assistant Ambans of Tibet", Archiv Orientální. Supplementa 7, Prague: The Oriental Institute
Mehra, Parshotam (1974), The McMahon Line and After: A Study of the Triangular Contest on India's North-eastern Frontier Between Britain, China and Tibet, 1904–47, Macmillan, ISBN 9780333157374 – via archive.org
Wang, Hui (2011). The Politics of Imagining Asia. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-05519-3.
Wang, Xiuyu (2011), China's Last Imperial Frontier: Late Qing Expansion in Sichuan's Tibetan Borderlands, Lexington Books, ISBN 978-0-7391-6809-7