Worried about its national interests after a 1903 British expedition, Qing China in 1910 sent a military force of 2,000 troops to Tibet, then its protectorate, to increase its authority in the region.

[citation needed] The international developments caused a reduction in the status of Tibet and increased the assertion of power by China.

The Dalai Lama, who left Lhasa in the wake of Younghusband expedition, spent time Buddhist monasteries in Amdo and Mongolia, and eventually went to Beijing to see the Chinese emperor, where he received an inferior treatment as a subordinate.

He introduced a variety of "new deal" reforms in the administration, vastly curtailed the British influence in Tibet, and managed to win over sections of Tibetan population.

[20] In 1903, the Chinese officials in Sichuan decided to develop agriculture and mining in the area and used the Younghusband expedition to provide a renewed sense of urgency to the plan.

[21][22] The Qing court approved the plan in March 1904 and ordered the newly appointed assistant amban of Tibet, Feng Quan, to take his station at Chamdo.

[25] Zhao reduced all the autonomous native states in both the western and eastern Kham by 1910 and converted them into Chinese districts governed by magistrates.

According to scholar Dawa Norbu, the British expedition and Treaty of Lhasa prompted the Qing government to ensure that they could establish firmer control over Tibet.