This act did much to persuade the Chinese of the
superiority of our civilization so they opened seven more ports and the
river Yangtze, paid an indemnity and granted us more territory at
Hong-Kong. In 1870, the Chinese were rash enough to murder a British
diplomat, so the remaining British diplomats demanded and obtained an
indemnity, five more ports, and a fixed tariff for opium. Next, the
French took Annam and the British took Burma, both formerly under
Chinese suzerainty. Then came the war with Japan in 1894-5, leading to
Japan's complete victory and conquest of Korea. Japan's acquisitions
would have been much greater but for the intervention of France, Germany
and Russia, England holding aloof. This was the beginning of our support
of Japan, inspired by fear of Russia. It also led to an alliance between
China and Russia, as a reward for which Russia acquired all the
important rights in Manchuria, which passed to Japan, partly after the
Russo-Japanese war, and partly after the Bolshevik revolution.
The next incident begins with the murder of two German missionaries in
Shantung in 1897. Nothing in their life became them like the leaving of
it; for if they had lived they would probably have made very few
converts, whereas by dying they afforded the world an object-lesson in
Christian ethics. The Germans seized Kiaochow Bay and created a naval
base there; they also acquired railway and mining rights in Shantung,
which, by the Treaty of Versailles, passed to Japan in accordance with
the Fourteen Points.
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