The foreign powers have also taken over the peripheral states that had acknowledged Chinese suzerainty and given tribute to the emperor.

France had colonized Cochin China, as southern Vietnam is called at this time, and by 1864 had established a protectorate over Cambodia.

France also takes Annam following a victorious war against China in 1884-85.

Britain gains control over Burma.

Russia penetrates into Chinese Turkestan (modern-day Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region).

Japan, having emerged from its century-and-a-half-long seclusion and having gone through its own modernization movement, defeats China in the war of 1894-95.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki forces China to cede Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan, pay a huge indemnity, permit the establishment of Japanese industries in four treaty ports, and recognize Japanese hegemony over Korea.

In 1898 the British acquire a ninety-nine- year lease over the so-called New Territories of Kowloon (Jiulong in pinyin), which increases the size of their Hong Kong colony.

Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, and Belgium each gain spheres of influence in China.

The United States, which has not acquired any territorial cessions, proposes in 1899 that there be an "open door" policy in China, whereby all foreign countries will have equal duties and privileges in all treaty ports within and outside the various spheres of influence.

All but Russia agrees to the United States overture.