Russian influence is rising in East Asia…

Russian influence is rising in East Asia in direct conflict with the Japanese desire for expansion.

In alliance with France and Germany, Russia has just forced Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China (which Japan had seized during the First Sino-Japanese War), and now promptly leases the territory from China.

The secret Sino-Russian treaty signed in 1896 also gives the Russians the right to build and operate the Chinese Eastern Railway across northern Manchuria, which serves as a link in the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok.

Russia proceeds to acquire numerous concessions over Korea's forests and mines.