In the scramble for concessions of the late 1890s, Germany, Britain, Japan, Russia, and France forced the government of the Qing dynasty to grant them concessions and exclusive spheres of influence in various regions of China.
On 14 November 1897, in retaliation for the killing of two German missionaries during the Juye Incident of 1 November, Germany seized Jiaozhou Bay, which it had coveted for many years. (Huenemann, The dragon and the iron horse: the economics of railroads in China, 1876-1937, pp. 50-51; Esherick 127-30)
- period from 1897 to 1900: "first real surge of railway construction in China's history"; contributed to the Boxer uprising by increasing foreign penetration of inland China (Huenemann 60)
- March 1898: an agreement was formalized that granted Russie a 25-year lease of the city of Port Arthur on the Liaodong peninsula, as well as the right to build a north-south railway that would connect Port Arthur to the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway further north (Huenemann 51).
- Useful wikis to link to: Jiaozhou Bay, Kiautschou Bay concession, Port Arthur, treaty ports, unequal treaty, gunboat diplomacy, Open Door Policy, New Territories
- Railroad right
- Marked the weakness of China after their defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) made China too weak to resist.
- Directly contributed to beginning of the sweeping but short-lived Hundred Days' Reform (1898).
- Aggressive defense of missionary activities also heightened the tensions that eventually led to the Boxer Uprising in 1899 and 1900.
- Fight for spheres of influence led to Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.