Chinese sources regard the document as a legal contract that was mutually welcomed by both governments and by the Tibetan people.
Tibetan sources generally consider it invalid, as having been reluctantly or unwillingly signed, under duress
In 1959, the Dalai Lama on his arrival in India after he fled Tibet repudiated the Agreement as having been "thrust upon Tibetan Government and people by the threat of arms.
By 1950 international recognition of the Communist government had increased considerably, but it was slowed by China's involvement in the Korean War.
In October 1950, sensing a threat to the industrial heartland in northeast China from the advancing United Nations forces in North Korea units of the PLA--calling themselves the Chinese People's Volunteers--crossed the YaluJiang ( ) River into North Korea in response to a North Korean request for aid