Foundation Of Xikang Side Of The Tea Trade And Its Significance

"Frontier tea" also known as "border market tea","Tibetan tea" and so on, promoted trade between the Mainland and Tibet, and played very important role in unifying Tibetan and Han nationality. Frontier tea, granted more political attributes, naturally was considered as political merchandise by dominator, and acted a unique role in politics and national defense. In addition to improving the living standard of Han and Tibetan people, the border trade, mainly basing on the frontier tea, which has already gone beyond the purely economic and trade aspects, penetrated into the social, political, cultural and other fields in the Sino-Tibetan, and greatly deepened the feelings of the two peoples in the Sino-Tibetan, but also laid a solid foundation for the successive central government ruling the Tibetan region. The strategy, evolution from the tea-horse trade to ruling the border by tea, was always applied into the jurisdiction and governance from Song dynasty to Qing dynasty.Since establishment of the Republic of China, due to internal political instability, and frequently wars, the economical exchange between the Tibet's and the mainland also was impacted in certain extent. However, the local wool, hides and skins, musk and other souvenirs from Tibet, Xikang were still flooding into the Mainland, meanwhile, tea from Sichuan and Yunnan Province is still daily necessities in Tibet. The frontier tea suffered severe damage, and the quantity and quality of frontier tea continued to declining, owing to the severe turbulence in the both urban and rural areas. Meanwhile, the Indian tea depending on its low cost, convenient transportation opened the market of Tibet. As the effective of frontier tea in connection of the economics and politics between the mainland and Tibet, and its status in livelihood, the crisis deriving from the decline of frontier tea inevitably aggravated the overall situation of Sino-Tibetan political and economic crisis.Facing the current dilapidated situation of frontier tea, the administration of Republic of China adopted some means to recover the frontier tea from 1911 to 1949, basing on the measurements made by Zhang Yin-tang, Chao Er-feng and other people in late Qing dynasty. However, because of the frequent wars and unstable society, and lacking of the stable environment to implement various measurements, the frontier tea did not appear signs of revitalization, coupling with the corruption of government, and misconduct in management. All of these efforts and experiences to recovery the frontier tea provided inspiration for the descendent.This essay will inspect the history of frontier tea, the tactics, and the production of frontier tea in Republic of China, so that restored the true history and proposed another interpretation of frontier tea.