With the development of the national liberation movement of the colonial areas, it had become a trend of the times to break the bond of economic dependence, seek national self-consciousness and liberation. Under this circumstance, the term of Suzerainty was also easily used to define the traditional ties in China with double meanings. On the one hand, it contrasted between China’s imperial power and its vassal states, dividing China into the “Outer China” including Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Manchu, and the “Inner China”, or “China Proper”；On the other hand, it contrasted between Suzerainty and Sovereignty, defining neighboring states as polities diplomatically attached to their Suzerains with their own autonomy, which in fact, equaled to the relationships between sovereign states.

In fact, the above all derived from the translation equaling Suzeranity to Tributary or vassal states, which guided the Tibet policies of major Western countries including the United States and Britain. It is obvious that the concept of Suzerainty has been stylized, ignoring the historical distinction between Suzerainty in Europe and Tributary States in Asia.

Based on this concept, it is not difficult to understand why Tibet should become “a region with high-degree autonomy”under the auspice of Britian at the Simla Conference between October 1913 and July 1914, as well as the reconfirmation of British Foreign Affairs Ministry that “Tibet was not a part of China, but an independent country in 1950.” In other word, since 1914, Britain had accepted the fact that “Tibet had the right to interact with other countries as an independent state.”

It is his double-dealing policy that Western countries’ recognition of Tibet as part of China will not affect their support for“Tibet’s separatism”, and that Western leaders recently met with the Dalai Lama frequently without taking China’s opposition into consideration.

After the Lhasa Riots on March 14, 2008, Irish writer Fred Halliday wrote in his book Open Democracy that sovereignty should not totally depend on history, rather, it should depend more on international recognition. “Even if Tibet was a part of China centuries ago, it should not deprive its right of seeking independence.” His view that the formation of a sovereign state depends more on international recognition than completely on history is reasonable in a sense, but without the instigation of Western hemogism, and without the backup of the Western public opinion, the Independence Movement will not arise in Tibet in the early 20th century.