Use of Shambhala in Russian & Japanese Schemes in Tibet

Badmaev’s Proposals for Russian Annexation of Tibet

The Manchu Qing Dynasty of China (1644-1911) declined during the nineteenth century. Many countries sought to take advantage of its weakness to gain either trade or territorial concessions. They included not only Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal, but also Russia and Japan.

For example, in 1893, the Buryat Mongol physician Piotr Badmaev submitted a plan to Czar Alexander III for bringing parts of the Qing Empire under Russian sway, including Outer and Inner Mongolia and Tibet. He proposed extending the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Buryat homeland at Lake Baikal through Outer and Inner Mongolia to Gansu, China, next to the Tibetan border. When completed, he would organize, with Buryat help, an uprising in Tibet that would allow Russia to annex the country. Badmaev also proposed establishing a Russian trading company in Asia. Count Sergei Yulgevich Witte, Russian Finance Minister from 1882 to 1903, supported Badmaev’s two plans, but Czar Alexander accepted neither of them.

The Trans-Siberian railway in the early 20th century
The Trans-Siberian railway in the early 20th century

Upon the death of Alexander, Badmaev became the personal physician of his successor, Czar Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917). Soon, the new Czar approved the founding of a trading company. Its focus, however, was the Pacific coast, where Russia and Japan competed for control of Port Arthur, an ice-free port at the southern tip of Manchuria. At first Japan gained Port Arthur, but soon Russia took over. The Czar extended the Trans-Siberian Railroad through northern Manchuria to Vladivostok and connected it to Port Arthur. Nicholas, however, did not take up Badmaev’s proposals concerning Tibet.

[For more detail, see: Use of the Shambhala Legend for Control of Mongolia]

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