A senior U.S. diplomat in China in the early 1900s insisted that Tibet was an integral part of China and should obey the central government.
A bilingual edition of William W. Rockhill papers related to Tibet has been published by China Intercontinental Press, the publisher said Sunday.
The scholar-diplomat served as the minister of legation of the United States in China, the highest U.S. diplomatic representative to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), from 1905 to 1909.
The book has many documents relating to Rockhill and Tibet. In addition to his Tibetan travels and studies, it includes important archives and documents about the 13th Dalai Lama's requesting an audience with Emperor Guangxu, China's penultimate emperor; and Empress Dowager Cixi, Guangxu's aunt, in Beijing in 1908.
The book also contains diplomatic telegraphs, letters, minutes of talks, government documents, newspaper clippings, manuscripts and diaries, the publisher said.
Rockhill traveled to Tibet twice and was a renowned Tibetologist.
He explicitly expressed this view in his correspondence with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and declared his standpoint to the 13th Dalai Lama on behalf of the U.S. government.
The book is in Chinese and English.
