Tibet under Qing rule
Tibet, ChinaTibet under Qing rule refers to the Qing dynasty's relationship with Tibet from 1720 to 1912. During this period, Qing China regarded Tibet as a vassal state. Tibet considered itself an independent nation with only a "priest and patron" relationship with the Qing Dynasty. Scholars such as Melvyn Goldstein have considered Tibet to be a Qing protectorate.
By 1642, the Güshri Khan of Khoshut Khanate had reunified Tibet under the spiritual and temporal authority of the 5th Dalai Lama of the Gelug school. 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 were subsequently expelled by 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. Qing authorities at times engaged in political acts of intervention in Tibet, 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.
By the 1860s, Qing "rule" in Tibet had become more theory than fact, given the weight of Qing's domestic and foreign-relations burdens.