Qing dynasty in Inner Asia in the context of "Outer Manchuria"

Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North, Central, and East Asia. It includes parts of western and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some definitions of "Central Asia", mostly the historical ones, but certain regions that are often included in Inner Asia, such as Manchuria, are not a part of Central Asia by any of its definitions. Inner Asia may be regarded as the western and northern "frontier" of China proper and as being bounded by East Asia proper, which consists of China proper, Japan, and Korea.

The extent of Inner Asia has been understood differently in different periods. "Inner Asia" is sometimes contrasted to "China proper", that is, the territories originally unified under the Qin dynasty with majority Han populations. By the year 1800, Chinese Inner Asia consisted of four main areas, namely Manchuria (modern Northeast China and Outer Manchuria), the Mongolian Plateau (Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia), Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan or East Turkestan), and Tibet. Many of these areas had been only recently conquered by the Qing dynasty of China and, during most of the Qing period, they were governed through administrative structures different from those of the older Chinese provinces. A Qing government agency, the Lifan Yuan, supervised the empire's Inner Asian regions, also known as Chinese Tartary. The frontier regions of China proper—Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan—are also sometimes included as part of Inner Asia.

The Lifan Yuan (Chinese: 理藩院; pinyin: Lǐfān Yuàn; Manchu: ᡨᡠᠯᡝᡵᡤᡳ
ᡤᠣᠯᠣ
ᠪᡝ
ᡩᠠᠰᠠᡵᠠ
ᠵᡠᡵᡤᠠᠨ, Möllendorff: tulergi golo be dasara jurgan; Mongolian: Гадаад Монголын төрийг засах явдлын яам, γadaγadu mongγul un törü-yi jasaqu yabudal-un yamun) was an agency in the government of the Qing dynasty of China which administered the empire's Inner Asian territories such as Mongolia and oversaw the appointments of Ambans in Tibet. Until the 1860s, it was also responsible for the Qing's relations with the Russian Empire.

The Ten Great Campaigns (Chinese: 十全武功; pinyin: Shíquán Wǔgōng) were a series of military campaigns launched by the Qing dynasty of China in the mid–late 18th century during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1796). They included three to enlarge the area of Qing control in Inner Asia: two against the Dzungars (1755–1757) and the "pacification" of Xinjiang (1758–1759). The other seven campaigns were more in the nature of police actions on frontiers already established: two wars against the Gyalrong of Jinchuan, Sichuan, another against the Taiwanese aboriginals (1787–1788), and four expeditions abroad against the Burmese (1765–1769), the Vietnamese (1788–1789), and the Gurkhas on the border between Tibet and Nepal (1790–1792), with the last group having two campaigns waged against them.

Tibet under Qing rule refers to the Qing dynasty's rule over Tibet from 1720 to 1912. The Qing rulers incorporated Tibet into the empire along with other Inner Asia territories, although the actual extent of the Qing dynasty's control over Tibet during this period has been the subject of political debate. The Qing called Tibet a fanbu, fanbang or fanshu, which has usually been translated as "vassal", "vassal state", or "borderlands", along with areas like Xinjiang and Mongolia. Like the earlier Mongol led Yuan dynasty, the Manchus of the Qing dynasty exerted military and administrative control over Tibet, while granting it a degree of political autonomy.Starting with the establishment of the Imperial Stele Inscriptions of the Pacification of Tibet, the term Xizang was officially used to replace older names to designate the region.

By 1642, Güshi Khan of the Khoshut Khanate had reunified Tibet under the spiritual and temporal authority of the 5th Dalai Lama of the Gelug school, who established a civil administration known as Ganden Phodrang. In 1653, the Dalai Lama travelled on a state visit to the Qing court, and was received in Beijing and "recognized as the spiritual authority of the Qing Empire". The Dzungar Khanate invaded Tibet in 1717 and was subsequently expelled by the Qing in 1720. The Qing emperors then appointed imperial residents known as ambans to Tibet, most of them ethnic Manchus, that reported to the Lifan Yuan, a Qing government body that oversaw the empire's frontier. During the Qing era, Lhasa was politically semi-autonomous under the Dalai Lamas or regents. Qing authorities engaged in occasional military interventions in Tibet, intervened in Tibetan frontier defense, collected tribute, stationed troops, and influenced reincarnation selection through the Golden Urn. About half of the Tibetan lands were exempted from Lhasa's administrative rule and annexed into neighboring Chinese provinces, although most were only nominally subordinated to Beijing.