You can free slaves without needing to annex the region. Claiming an independent country for your own government to control permanently (regardless of supposed initial intent) is called imperialism.
Tibet wasn’t an “independent country,” it was one of countless warlord states that emerged following the fall of the Qing. Both the CCP and the KMT recognized the need to pacify these states and reunify the country, so much so that they were both willing to put aside ideological differences and form a temporary alliance in order to do it. Tibet was always part of China, is still claimed by Taiwan, and never received international recognition as an independent country, just from like, Mongolia and one or two other countries.
If you want to treat Tibet as an independent country, then should we also treat all the other warlord states that were put down by the united front the same way? Should we just say that whoever has de facto control of a region is the rightful owner of it - even if it’s a theocracy with a brutal system of serfdom?
Tibet wasn’t an “independent country,” it was one of countless warlord states that emerged following the fall of the Qing. Both the CCP and the KMT recognized the need to pacify these states and reunify the country, so much so that they were both willing to put aside ideological differences and form a temporary alliance in order to do it. Tibet was always part of China, is still claimed by Taiwan, and never received international recognition as an independent country, just from like, Mongolia and one or two other countries.
If you want to treat Tibet as an independent country, then should we also treat all the other warlord states that were put down by the united front the same way? Should we just say that whoever has de facto control of a region is the rightful owner of it - even if it’s a theocracy with a brutal system of serfdom?