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| 1864–89 |
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| Protestant missionaries in China increased from under 200 to nearly 1,300. By the mid-1860s, over 30 different Protestant sects were represented in China. | 1 |
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| 1868–70 |
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| Anson Burlingame (1820–70), former U.S. minister to China, was sent on a goodwill mission with two Chinese associates to Western nations. | 2 |
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| 1870, June 21 |
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| The “Tianjin massacre” took place—13 Frenchmen and 3 Russians were killed by an angry mob in response to the shooting of a Chinese by the French consul. Reparations were paid, 16 Chinese were executed, and a mission of apology sailed for France (1871–72). | 3 |
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| 1871 |
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| Cables were laid from Vladivostok via Nagasaki to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. A land line was built, Shanghai to Tianjin, in 1881. | 4 |
| The first Sino-Japanese commercial treaty was signed on the basis of equality between the two countries in line with standards of international law. | 5 |
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| 1872 |
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| Yung Wing (Rong Hong, 1828–1912), a missionary-trained, English-speaking Yale graduate (class of 1854), led a group of 120 Chinese students, ages 12 to 14, to the United States. Thirty others were sent for technical training to France and Great Britain. | 6 |
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| 1874 |
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A Japanese expedition to occupy Taiwan to punish the murder by locals of Liuqiu (Japanese, Ry ky) islanders (1871) was withdrawn in return for an indemnity. The Japanese had claimed control over the Rykys in 1872; they were annexed several years later. | 7 |
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| 1875–1908 |
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| The GUANGXU REIGN of Emperor Dezong. Tongzhi died without an heir, and an infant cousin (b. 1871), a nephew of Empress Dowager Cixi, was adopted as the second son of Xianfeng to carry on dynastic sacrifices, and his prospective offspring was destined to be an adopted son of the late emperor. Prince Gong, his uncle, was named regent under supervision of the empress dowager. He began ruling in person only in 1889. | 8 |
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| 1875–78 |
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| Zuo Zongtang suppressed (1875–76) the Tungans of the northern Tianshan region, who had been in revolt since 1862, and reconquered Kashgaria (1877–78), which had become independent under Yakub Beg (c. 1820–77). Both areas were then organized as one territory, Xinjiang (literally, “new territory”), with its capital at Urumchi; it became a province in 1884. | 9 |
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| 1876, Sept. 13 |
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| The Chefoo (Zhifu) Convention was concluded between Li Hongzhang and the British. It was the result of the murder by local tribesmen of interpreter Augustus Margary (1846–75), who had been serving with a British railway survey team in Yunnan near the Burmese border. A large indemnity was to be paid, and ten new ports were to be opened to trade. It was ratified by Great Britain in 1885 with an additional article relating to the importation of opium—its annual average for 1875–85 had reached 82,000 chests, an amount greatly exceeded by production in China. | 10 |
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| 1877–80 |
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| Diplomatic missions, determined in 1875, established legations in London and Berlin (1877), Paris, Washington, and Tokyo (1878), Madrid and St. Petersburg (1879), and Lima (1880). | 11 |
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| 1881, Feb. 24 |
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| The Treaty of St. Petersburg was negotiated by Zeng Jize (1839–90), Zeng Guofan's son; it returned to China most of the Ili Valley and the passes. | 12 |
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| 1883, Aug. 25 |
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| The Treaty of Huê was concluded: Annam became a French protectorate, with the administration of Tonkin handled by French residents in disregard of Chinese suzerainty and protests (1881–82). | 13 |
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