Rimshi Ketuk - who was he?
The “Rimshi” was a fourth-rank official in the former Tibetan government, while the Ketuk is concievably a rendering of སྐྱིད་ཕུག་ This would make him the person known as Rimshi Kyipup, but Rimshi Kyipup is not apparently known as having been a collaborator.
I see three possibilities: i) this is the right person, and his time as a Chinese collaborator has not come to light; ii) the identification is simply wrong, and it is some other fourth-rank official with a similar sounding name who was involved – the transcriptions of the Tibetan into a pronunciation for English-speakers are often woolly; iii) the whole idea that “Rimshi Ketuk” was in command of the Chinese soldiers was a mistaken rumour, started in the heat of what, after all, was effectively war, and not corrected over the years.
We
may never know.


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