Even from a legal standpoint, Tibet has to this day not lost its statehood. It is an independent state under illegal occupation. Neither China's military invasion nor the continuing occupation has transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to China. Where is the outrace about that? The Dalai Lama says Tibet was independent once and has been colonised. China says its sovereignty over Tibet goes back centuries. What is Tibet? China considers this to be the Tibetan Autonomous Region. One the other hand, the present Dalai Lama says it should then also include neighbouring provinces with Tibetan populations. The Tibet Autonomous Region is a province-level entity of the People's Republic of China. It is governed by a People's Government, led by a chairman. The Tibetan independence movement is no longer supported by the CIA, which ended its Tibetan program after the 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China. Later in the 1970s, the 14th and present Dalai Lama, who had backed it since 1961, also withdrew his support. He has spoken out in many international venues, including the United States Congress, and the European Parliament. In 1987, he has also started campaigning for a peaceful resolution to the issue of the status of Tibet, and has since then advocated that Tibet should not become independent, but that it should be given meaningful autonomy within the People's Republic of China. This approach is known as the "Middle Way". In November 2017, he stated that "the past was the past", and that he believed that China after opening up its economy, has changed 40 to 50 percent of what it was earlier. He claimed that Tibetans didn't want independence and instead wanted to stay and have more economic development from China. In October 2020, he said, "I prefer the concept of a 'republic' in the People's Republic of China. In the concept of republic, ethnic minorities are like Tibetans, the Mongols, Manchus, and Xinjiang Uyghurs, we can live in harmony". The Tibetan flag, which is also called the "snow lion flag" , is the national flag of Tibet. It was adopted by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1916 and banned by the government of China since 1959, and today the flag is used by the Tibetan Government in Exile, based in Dharamshala, India. བོད་རང་བཙན་
