The Potala Palace Was Never Really Tibetan. Here’s Why That Matters.
The Potala Palace is revered as the ultimate symbol of Tibetan Buddhism. But the truth is brutal: it was a ruin for most of its history, and the grand structure we see today was built by Qing emperors and restored by Chinese workers in the 1980s. This article unpacks the uncomfortable history of Tibet’s most sacred icon and what it means for identity politics.