evidence: On May 23rd 1951, the "Seventeen Point Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" was signed. This agreement legitimized claims of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over Tibet and retroactively justified the previous year’s military invasion of eastern Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). [...] Tibet has long been a strategic issue for China. Chinese policymakers from the late Qing period onwards saw Tibet as the backdoor for invaders to attack the Middle Kingdom. The communists under Mao Zedong acted on that same assumption. [...] However, for the Chinese state, the desire to assimilate Tibet into the Chinese nation and thus strengthen its security took precedence over the actual implementation of the Seventeen Point Agreement. The promise of autonomy has rung hollow throughout the last 70 years, as Chinese authorities continue to make every important decision in the region.