ABSTRACT
The fascinating life story of Wangchuk Tempa (1886‐1961), a fierce defender of local autonomy in Gyelthang, illustrates how the Chinese Communist Party utilized the power and charisma of local political and religious leaders to consolidate its rule in southern Kham between 1950 and 1958. Wangchuk Tempa’s legendary actions reveal that ‘collaboration’ is too simplistic a concept to explain why some local leaders joined forces with representatives of the Chinese state in response to mounting social and political pressures in the 1950s. Party officials turned to ‘political persuasion’ to entice recalcitrant Khampa leaders, such as Wangchuk Tempa, to cooperate, and they strategically granted pre‐revolutionary local elites positions in the post‐1950 government, in order to strengthen nascent Party control in Gyelthang.
