Ngabo Ngawang Jigme

The Fall of Chamdo and the Negotiations

Ngabo Ngawang Jigme was born in 1910 into a Tibetan noble family and rose to become a senior official of the Tibetan local government, serving as Governor-General of Chamdo and commander of the eastern Tibetan army in 1950. After the PLA launched the Chamdo Campaign in October of that year, Ngabo was captured following the military defeat and subsequently became the principal Tibetan representative sent to Beijing for negotiations. In May 1951 he signed the Seventeen-Point Agreement on behalf of the Tibetan local government. He later stated that he had signed without formal authorisation from the Dalai Lama and that the seal used was hastily carved rather than the official seal of the Lhasa government — a claim that became one of the key arguments advanced by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile for the agreement's invalidity, though Beijing has never acknowledged it.

Remaining on the Mainland and Political Career

After the 1959 uprising, Ngabo did not follow the Dalai Lama into exile and chose to remain on the Chinese mainland. Over the following decades he held a series of senior political positions, including Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, becoming one of the most prominent Tibetan political figures within the official Chinese system. His political choice — to remain rather than go into exile — made him a controversial historical figure in the eyes of the Tibetan exile community, while in Beijing's narrative he was presented as a symbol of the legitimacy of Tibet's integration into the People's Republic of China. Ngabo died in Beijing on 23 December 2009, aged 99.