Liu Manqing

Liu (or Yudhona) was born in Lhasa, Tibet, the daughter of a Tibetan or Chinese father, Liu Rongguang, and a Tibetan mother.{{Cite book|last=Atwill|first=David G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y1T0DwAAQBAJ&dq=Liu+Manqing&pg=PA183|title=Islamic Shangri-La: Inter-Asian Relations and Lhasa's Muslim Communities, 1600 to 1960|date=2018-10-09|publisher=Univ of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-97133-2|pages=46–49, 183, note 61|language=en}} She spoke Tibetan as her first language, and her family was Muslim. She lived in Darjeeling for a time in childhood, when her parents were expelled from Tibet. She was later educated in Beijing,{{Cite news|date=20 September 1930|title=Who's Who in China|page=108|work=The China Weekly Review|url=https://archive.org/details/millards-1930.09.20/page/108/mode/2up?q=Liu+%22Man-ching%22|access-date=November 10, 2021|via=Internet Archive}} where she learned Mandarin, and may have trained as a nurse at a missionary hospital.{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/5edwhoswhoinchina00shanuoft|title=Who's who in China; biographies of Chinese leaders|date=1936|publisher=Shanghai China Weekly Review|others=Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library – University of Toronto|pages=168|via=Internet Archive}}{{Cite journal|last=Jagou|first=Fabienne|date=October 2009|title=Liu Manqing: A Sino-Tibetan Adventurer and the Origin of a New Sino-Tibetan Dialogue in the 1930s|url=http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_17_01.pdf?fbclid=IwAR09a_w9rPCi3xjqL2XIKeLulCAIMU6JN2y1AlrZZRmKnaS5goaFoFJ6OF0|journal=Revue d'Études Tibétaines|volume=17|pages=5–20}}

Liu returned to Tibet as a young woman, despite the travel difficulties of reaching Lhasa. She proceeded by water, on horseback, and on foot over rugged land,{{Cite news|last=Meng|first=C. Y. W.|date=6 September 1930|title=Miss Liu's MIssion to Tibet|pages=22, 24|work=The China Weekly Review|url=https://archive.org/details/millards-1930.09.06/page/22/mode/2up?q=Liu+%22Man-ching%22|access-date=November 10, 2021|via=Internet Archive}} "successfully paving the way for a reconciliation between China and the Tibetan Government", predicted a 1930 news report.{{Cite news|date=13 September 1930|title=A Courageous Woman Who Walked to Tibet|page=44|work=The China Weekly Review|url=https://archive.org/details/millards-1930.09.13/page/44/mode/2up?q=Liu+%22Man-ching%22|access-date=November 10, 2021|via=Internet Archive}} She conducted negotiations during visits with the 13th Dalai Lama,{{Cite book|last1=Wang|first1=Jiawei|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ak3SQTVS7acC&dq=Liu+Manqing&pg=PA148|title=The Historical Status of China's Tibet|last2=Nyima|first2=Gyaincain|last3=尼玛坚赞|date=1997|publisher=五洲传播出版社|isbn=978-7-80113-304-5|pages=148|language=en}}{{Cite book|last=Ma|first=Lihua|url=http://archive.org/details/oldlhasasacredci0000mali|title=Old Lhasa : a sacred city at dusk|date=2003|location=Beijing, China |publisher= Foreign Language Press|isbn=978-7-119-03124-8|pages=147–148}} held a civil service appointment in China under Chiang Kai-shek,{{Cite book|last=Lin|first=Hsaio-ting|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=osn1WrRCelcC&dq=Liu+Manqing&pg=PA56|title=Tibet and Nationalist China's Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928–49|date=2011-01-01|publisher=UBC Press|isbn=978-0-7748-5988-2|pages=55|language=en}}{{Cite book|last=Grunfeld|first=A. Tom|url=http://archive.org/details/makingofmodernti0000grun|title=The making of modern Tibet|date=1996|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-713-2|pages=75}} and was an envoy, interpreter and messenger between Chinese and Tibetan leaders in the 1920s and 1930s.{{Cite book|last=Shakabpa|first=Tsepon Wangchuck Deden|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GTCwCQAAQBAJ&dq=Liu+Manqing&pg=PA816|title=One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History of Tibet|date=2009-10-23|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-474-3076-6|pages=816|language=en}}{{Cite news|date=14 June 1932|title=Girl Envoy to Tibet|page=415|work=North China Herald|url=https://archive.org/details/north-china-herald-1932.06.14/page/414/mode/2up?q=Liu+%22Man-ching%22|access-date=November 10, 2021|via=Internet Archive}} She wrote three books, two about Tibet and one about education. In 1938, she reported to the Kuomintang in Chongqing about conditions in Xikang province.{{Cite news|last=Meng|first=C. Y. W.|date=16 July 1938|title=Sikong: A New Wall in the Bulwark Against Japan|page=221|work=The China Weekly Review|url=https://archive.org/details/millards-1938.07.16/page/220/mode/2up?q=Liu+%22Man-ching%22|access-date=November 10, 2021|via=Internet Archive}}

In 1931, Liu was a founding member of the Association of the Border Areas of China, or Frontier Club. She spoke about her experiences to the Frontier Club at the University of Shanghai in 1932.

Liu used several names. She was also known as Yongjin and De Meixi.

• Expedition in a Carriage to Xikang and Tibet (1933)
• Tibet (1934)
• Education in the Chinese Border Areas (1937)

Liu was married and soon divorced as a young woman in Beijing. She died in 1941, aged 35 years, in Chongqing. She is "remembered as a heroine by the Tibetan people", among whom the story of her arduous journeys to Lhasa is well known.

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• Zhang, Huasha. [https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/our-kind-tibetans-political-life-times-liu/docview/2290056993/se-2 "Our Kind of Tibetans: The Political Life and Times of Liu Manqing, 1906–1942"] (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 2019).

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Category:1906 births

Category:1941 deaths

Category:People from Lhasa

Category:Tibetan women writers

Category:20th-century Chinese women writers

Category:20th-century Chinese writers

Category:20th-century Tibetan people

Category:Tibetan diplomats

Category:Chinese women diplomats