heavily Populated Tibet

Cook

Banned
Tibet’s little agricultural land has very low yields so it’d be a bit hard to achieve with a traditional agrarian economy.
 
Are there any minerals in Tibet that could be found and exploited to create an alternative to agriculture?

Also, if you want to go pre-1900, have the Tibetans not adopt Buddhism and thus not become pacifistic. Given their earlier militarism, they could hire out as soldiers and send their pay home.

About its effects on China, this could make the conquest in 1949 more difficult and their consequent attempts to Sinify the territory with outside settlers.
 
What are the consequences of this for china.

What, exactly, is heavily populated? Just more than OTL? Are we talking an urbanized, concentrated population? When does this all happen by?

Broadly speaking, Tibet just isn't a notably fertile region, so population is probably going to have certain natural caps (off the top of my head not sure what those would be), and even the green revolution isn't going to be terribly game-changing.
 
Are there any minerals in Tibet that could be found and exploited to create an alternative to agriculture?

Also, if you want to go pre-1900, have the Tibetans not adopt Buddhism and thus not become pacifistic. Given their earlier militarism, they could hire out as soldiers and send their pay home.

About its effects on China, this could make the conquest in 1949 more difficult and their consequent attempts to Sinify the territory with outside settlers.

Umm, Tibet in no way became pacifist after converting to Buddhism. Their major warmongering continued for centuries after the initial conversions. One of their Dharma Kings even sacked Chang An. Their later "pacifism" is a consequence of their defeat and becoming a tributary/protectorate of various Chinese dynasties, not its cause.
 
If Tibet was capable of sustaining larger populations it most likely would've been taken over during the Tang Dynasty. If the POD was later, the Qing Dynasty would've further consolidated its control and it would never had been allowed to drift away in the early 20th century. Tibet's barren land is it's greatest deterrent.
 
Also, if you want to go pre-1900, have the Tibetans not adopt Buddhism and thus not become pacifistic. Given their earlier militarism, they could hire out as soldiers and send their pay home.
Fun fact: Tibetan soldiers actually fought in the armies of Ungern Sternberg. Apparently it was thought that since he was fighting to restore the Bogd Khan (who was supposed to be the reincarnation of somebody important), it was worth it to send some troops to help out.

Tibetan/Mongolian Buddhism wasn't exactly pacifist.
 
As for how such a large population got to Tibet - and since this is After 1900 - I'd say a population resettlement would be the best bet on how. I mean, there's just too much overpopulation in eastern China, and moving people to less populated places might be a good way to make more room, and to make the citizens that previously had nothing to do something to do. I'd bet Mao would think of something like this and move hundreds of thousands of people (even millions!) into sparsely populated areas of China's wild west.

Of course, moving these people to Tibet would not make much since. The whole purpose of a transmigration program is so that people with nowhere to go and nothing to do could move and be given a job. Most of these occupations would be as farmers, or herders (as can be seen with previous transmigration policies, such as in America during the mid 1800's and Indonesia in the 70's). Tibet has little land for these agricultural jobs.

But, for the hell of it, lets say that Mao decides to move people there anyway - he's done crazier stuff. Most of these people would probably be the poorest of the poor, beggars, petty thieves, laborers, and the like. These city folks would be taken to a new land to start up on farming or something, unfortunately they have little experience. The crops would probably die, and these poor guys would probably die of starvation. The little crops that are grown would either be eaten by the farmers, given (or taken) to/by the Chinese military and government. The rest would be stolen due to probable famine.

Then, there's the problem of ethnic conflict. America had this with the Native Americans, Indonesia with the Batak tribesmen. The transmigrates in Tibet would probably have to deal with the Tibetians, who would be pissed that their land was given to some slumdogs from the east. They would fight back, and an insurgency would grow (not sure about this area of the world at the time). The transmigrates would probably fight back, flee, or request military help.

Basically, if there was a large population by transmigration program, Tibet becomes a (more) violent and war-ravaged place
 
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