Russia, owing to her geographical position and to the intercourse of her subjects with the Chinese, was chiefly interested in China, and the Taiping Rebellion of 1850 firmly established France and Great Britain in the exclusive Empire. In 1894 war broke out between China and Japan, which resulted in a complete and decisive victory for the latter. Peace was signed by Li Hung Chang on behalf of China at Shimonoseki on the 17th April, 1895, and the European nations realised at its conclusion that in Japan a new Power had arisen in the Far East, and that the beginning of a new epoch had begun. The Peace Treaty entered into between Japan and China in 1895 provided, for the absolute independence of Korea which had been a vassal of China since 1882, the cession to Japan of the Island of Formosa and the Liao-tung Peninsula at the foot of which lies Port Arthur (which was then occupied by the Japanese), and the payment of an indemnity of £30,000,000, pending the handing over of which Japan was to occupy the Port of Wei-hai-wei on the Shantung Peninsula. A further condition of the treaty was the opening of certain places to foreign enterprise and commerce. The conclusion of this treaty brought the European Powers on the scene. For some time Russia had been intent upon the problem of securing an ice-clear port on the Pacific Ocean as an outlet to her Siberian possessions--an ambition which was considered by British statesmen as not unreasonable--and therefore the occupation by Japan of all the coastline of Korea by no means suited Russia. She, therefore, invited the intervention of the Powers, and the invitation was accepted by France and Germany, but declined by Great Britain. A joint note was then presented to the Tokio Government by Russia, France and Germany, under which Japan was recommended not to occupy any of the Chinese mainland permanently. The Japanese, finding this force arrayed against them, stated that they "yielded to the dictates of magnanimity, and accepted the advice of the three Powers." Japan gave up the whole of her continental acquisitions under the war, and retained only Formosa; so the "integrity of China" seemed to be preserved for the time. The Japanese people were shocked at this incident. The attitude of Russia and France they could understand, but Germany, who had been worming her way into Japan's good graces by professions of friendship and who was wholly uninterested in the ownership of Manchuria, seemed to have joined in robbing Japan of the fruits of her victorious war merely to establish a title to Russia's goodwill, and to renew the good relations with Russia which had been broken by the Franco-Russian _entente_ of the years 1891-1895.