[2] The initial uprising occurred amid general Chinese-Tibetan tensions and a context of confusion, because Tibetan protesters feared that the Chinese government might arrest the 14th Dalai Lama.

Earlier in 1956, armed conflict between Tibetan guerrillas and the PLA started in the Kham and Amdo regions, which had been subjected to socialist reform.

[10] On 19 January 2009, the PRC-controlled legislature in the Tibet Autonomous Region chose 28 March as the national anniversary of Serfs Emancipation Day.

Tibetan exiles assert that threats to bomb the Potala Palace and the Dalai Lama were made by Chinese military commanders in an attempt to intimidate the guerrilla forces into submission.

[22] The next day, the Chinese leader saw a report from the PLA General Staff's Operations Department describing rebellions by Tibetans in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai.

[25][12] Dissatisfied, the Chinese Communist Party put pressure on the Dalai Lama's government to join the operations against the rebels, and made it increasingly clear that a spread of the insurgency would lead to "all-out repression" in Tibet.

[12] In this unstable situation, the Chinese generals resident in Lhasa was summoned back to mainland China, leaving the inexperienced PLA commander Tan Guansen in charge,[25] just as the date of the Monlam Prayer Festival approached.

[12] According to historian Tsering Shakya, the Chinese government was pressuring the Dalai Lama to attend the National People's Congress in April 1959, in order to repair China's image in relation to ethnic minorities after the Khampa rebellion.

[27]: 130 [28] However, Tibetologist Sam van Schaik stated that the Dalai Lama was the one who proposed that the dance should take place in the military headquarters as the Norbulingka was too small.

Both parties did not yet agree on a date, and the Dalai Lama seemed to put the event "out of his mind", focusing instead on his ongoing examinations for his Geshe degree as well as the Monlam Prayer Festival.

[25] As a result, the date for the planned performance was only finalized 5[4] or 3 days beforehand when Tan reminded the Dalai Lama of the dance; the latter then suggested 10 March.

According to historian Tsering Shakya, some Tibetan government officials feared that plans were being laid for a Chinese abduction of the Dalai Lama, and spread word to that effect amongst the inhabitants of Lhasa.

The huge crowd had gathered in response to a rumor that the Chinese were planning to arrest the Dalai Lama when he went to a cultural performance at the PLA's headquarters.

[4] One of the first casualties of the mob was a senior lama, Pagbalha Soinam Gyamco, who worked with the PRC as a member of the Preparatory Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region, who was killed and his body dragged by a horse in front of the crowd for 2 kilometres (1.2 mi).

[10] On 14 March at the same location thousands of women assembled in a protest led by "Gurteng Kunsang, a member of the aristocratic Kundeling family and mother of six who was later arrested by the Chinese and executed by firing squad.

"[39] After consulting the state oracle and concluding that the situation had become too unstable, the Dalai Lama and his close confidants opted to flee Lhasa.

[40] On 15 March, preparations for the Dalai Lama's evacuation from the city were set in motion, with Tibetan troops being employed to secure an escape route from Lhasa.

[45] On 20 March, the Chinese army responded by shelling the Norbulingka to disperse the crowd, and placed its troops at a barricade that divided the city into a northern and southern part in the following night.

[45] Two British writers, Stuart and Roma Gelder, visited the Chensel Phodrang palace in the Norbulingka in 1962 and "found its contents meticulously preserved".

[46] The Indian government under Nehru expressed concerns of the Tibetan people and condemned China as an aggressive power due to the violent suppression of the revolt by the PLA.

[citation needed] The Kuomintang had a history of using Khampa fighters to oppose both the Dalai Lama's Tibetan government, and battle the Chinese Red Army.

Rapga agreed to a plan in which the revolt against the communists would include anti feudalism, land reform, a modern government, and to give power to the people.

From 1971 to 1978, the MTAC also recruited ethnic Tibetan children from India and Nepal to study in Taiwan, with the expectation that they would work for a ROC government that returned to the mainland.

In 1994, the veterans' association for the Tibetan guerrilla group Chushi Gangdruk met with the MTAC and agreed to the KMT's One China Principle.

However, the Dalai Lama's first visit to Taiwan in 1997 was said to have somewhat improved the two communities' general relationship, although "tension" allegedly still exists between them due to considerable differences.

[52][53] Sinologist Colin Mackerras states: "There was a major rebellion against Chinese rule in Tibet in March 1959, which was put down with the cost of much bloodshed and lasting bitterness on the part of the Tibetans.

"[55] Warren W. Smith, a writer with Radio Free Asia, writes that the "secret documents" came from a 1960 PLA report captured by guerrillas in 1966, with the figures first published by the TGIE in India in 1990.

According to the TGIE, members of the Dalai Lama's bodyguard who were remaining in Lhasa were disarmed and publicly executed, along with Tibetans who were found to be harbouring weapons in their homes.

[59] In April 1959, the 19-year-old Panchen Lama, the second ranking spiritual leader in Tibet, residing in Shigatse, called on Tibetans to support the Chinese government.