There are libraries of literature on the Cold War as seen from Western, Soviet, Third World or independent scholarly perspectives. But rarely has there been a book on how the Cold War as it was played out on the remote, sprawling plateau of Tibet reveals the Chinese state’s weakness back then and provided Beijing the opportunity to strengthen its presence in its new imperial real estate. Pragmatic and hard nose as ever, Beijing brewed an ideological storm of “the east wind prevailing over the west wind”, socialism over the capitalist West. At the same time, Beijing used the Cold War it helped to launch and the age of decolonization to which it paid lip service to strengthen its weak imperial structure in Tibet. During this period, Beijing moved from “empire-lite” to “empire-heavy” on the Tibetan plateau.[Source]
