<Article> The Dalai Lama government's rule of Eastern Tibet and the Kingdom of Derge during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

After the collapse of the Qing Empire in 1912， the Republican China asserted its authority over the whole of Tibet． The Dalai Lama government， in turn， also claimed independence and planned to unify Tibetan borderlands overlapping Chinese provinces． Therefore， Eastern Tibet， located between Tibet and China， inevitably became a central issue of this border dispute． Previously， many scholars have examined this dispute from the perspective of the historical process of the binary relationship between China and Tibet and from that of the history of the Chinese frontier policy． However， they have rarely focused on the indigenous Tibetan leaders who actually ruled Eastern Tibet． My paper examines the development of tripartite relationship between Qing Empire， Dalai lama government and indigenous leaders in Eastern Tibet， by clarifying the Kingdom of Derge（sDe dge）， De ge Tusi（徳格土司）， was committed to the Dalai Lama government and the Qing Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries． To do this， I based on primary materials in English， Chinese and Tibetan。 This historical process of the Derge Kingdom shows us part of the radical change of Eastern Tibet from the intermediate region between China and Tibet to the front line that both governments planed to unify