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eing in direct relations with the United States"; andit would immensely strengthen the position of theRussian Pacific fleet and serve as the arm for politicaland economic alliance with China against England orany other power.The opportunity of attaining this last aim was takenin 1895 when Japan defeated China in a war caused bytheir clash of interests in Korea, a semi-independentcountry over which China had long claimed suzerainrights. By the treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan, in additionto other gains, acquired the peninsula on which PortArthur stands (see map 2). Russia, in company with herally France and Germany, intervened diplomatically andforced Japan to restore it to China. Witte immediatelyfollowed up this support of China by guaranteeing a loanto her, by founding the Russo-Chinese Bank, one ofthe most important first-fruits of the Franco-Russianalliance, and by concluding (1896) an alliance with Chinaagainst Japan. This included the concession for aRussian broad-gauge railway straight across northernManchuria just under a thousand miles to Vladivostok.The new railway, called the Chinese Eastern, cut off thegreat loop of the Amur and thus saved about three hundredand fifty miles on the original trace of the Trans-Siberian,which was to run entirely through Russian territory toVladivostok, across very difficult country, and which wasnot completed till 1917. The Chinese Eastern, on theother hand, was pushed ahead very rapidly, and a yearbefore the outbreak of war with Japan there was throughconnexion between Vladivostok and Russia, except forthe heavily tunnelled section round Lake Baikal. Likethe Russo-Chinese Bank, the Chinese Eastern was in facta government concern, originally the preserve of Witteas finance minister. It had "the absolute and exclusiveright of administration'' over a large railway zone, whichwas substantially turned into Russian territory.Witte had from the first intended to secure economicdominance in southern as well as northern Manchuria,and in 1898 China was compelled to grant an extensionof the Chinese Eastern railway, with the same rights,due south to Port Arthur, which she had to lease to302