CHINA: A. D. 1897 (November). Germany opens the attack of European Powers on the integrity of the Chinese Empire. Seizure of the port of Kiao-Chau. Concessions obtained as reparation for the murder of German missionaries. "Among the recent events that have attracted especial attention to China is the lease to foreign nations of important strategic or commercial ports on the coast of the Empire. While the Portuguese have controlled the island of Macao, near Canton, since 1537, and the English became owners of the island of Hongkong, in the same vicinity, by the treaty of 1842, no other nation had possessions on or near the coast of China until within a comparatively recent date. One result of the war between China and Japan was that Japan obtained the island of Formosa, lying 90 miles off the coast of central China. By this treaty Japan was also to have certain territory on the peninsula of Liaotung, which commands from the north the entrance to the Gulf of Pechili, the gateway to the capital of China; but on the urgent protest of Russia, France, and Germany this was abandoned, and the mainland of China up to that time thus remained intact. On November 4, 1897, however, the German Government seized the port of Kiao-chau, on the northeastern coast of China, asserting as the cause of its action the desire to obtain satisfaction for the murder of [two] German missionaries by Chinese on November 1 of that year. This port was held by a German war ship until the announcement of a treaty with China by which the port of Kiaochau and adjacent territory were leased to Germany for a term of ninety-nine years, the German Government being given the right to land troops, construct fortifications, and establish a coaling and naval station, while German subjects were to have the right to construct railways, open mines, and transact business in the rich mineral and agricultural province of Shantung, in which Kiaochau is located, Chinese vessels, however, to have the same privileges in the port of Kiaochau that the German Government might decide to give to other nations." _United States Bureau of Statistics, Monthly Summary of Commerce and Statistics, March, 1899._ {81}