For centuries, the Jokhang Temple, built by Emperor Songtsen Gampo (c. 605–650), stood as Lhasa’s historical and spiritual heart. Home to the Jowo, Tibet’s most revered statue, it drew pilgrims from across the land of snow, for whom “he who has not been to Lhasa has only half-lived.” In the square before the temple, two monuments bore silent witness to history: a stone pillar inscribed with the 822 AD Sino-Tibetan peace treaty, and a 1794 stele erected by a representative of the Chinese emperor bearing instructions on how to respond to a smallpox outbreak.

The 822 stele declares that “in order that this agreement establishing a great era when Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China shall never [be] changed, the Three Jewels, the body of saints, the sun and moon, planets and stars have been invoked as witnesses.”

In 2019, while the world was under lockdown, Chinese pavilions were erected over both steles — an attempt to reinforce the claim that Tibet has been part of China since ancient times. As the Chinese adage goes, “to erase a nation, first erase its history.” Yet the historical record tells a different story.