"Manchuria" was coined in the 19th century to refer to the northeastern part of the Qing Empire, the traditional homeland of the Manchu people.

[9][12]: 338 (map) The northern part of the area was disputed by Qing China and the Russian Empire, in the midst of the Russia's Far East expansion, between 1643 and 1689.

[12]: 38 In 1809, the Japanese government sent explorer Mamiya Rinzō to Sakhalin and the region of the Amur to determine the extent of Russian influence and penetration.

[18] On Sept. 3, 2024 Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that "the mutual renunciation of territorial claims by Moscow and Beijing had been enshrined in the July 16, 2001, Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, with Moscow and Beijing putting border issues to bed once and for all by signing the Additional Agreement on the Eastern part of the Russia-China Border on October 14, 2004, and ratifying the document later.

Despite the potential for territorial claims coextensive with the Qing dynasty, Chinese leaders as of 2014 had not suggested that Mongolia and part of Outer or Russian Manchuria would be a legitimate objective.

[10] In April 2023, US diplomat John Bolton speculated that China is "undoubtedly eyeing this vast territory, which potentially contains incalculable mineral wealth", referring to Asian Russia generally, further noting that "[s]ignificant portions of this region were under Chinese sovereignty until the 1860 Treaty of Peking".

Chang and Elleman note that in 1919 and 1920, Lev M. Karakhan, the Soviet deputy minister (also called "commissar") of foreign affairs, issued two legally binding "declarations" called the Karakhan Manifestos in which he promised to return to China all territories taken in Siberia and Manchuria during the Tsarist period and to return the Chinese Eastern Railway and other concessions.

[20][21] Here are three excerpts from the first Karakhan Manifesto (I) according to the translated, English version published by Allen S. Whiting:We bring help not only to our own labouring classes, but to the Chinese people too, and we once more remind them of what they have been told ever since the great October revolution of 1917, but which was perhaps concealed from them by the venal press of America, Europe, and Japan.

[13][23] On February 14, 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People's Republic of China relabelled eight cities and areas inside Russia in the region with Chinese names.