Having missed the Philippines, she quickly secured Samoa and purchased from Spain the Caroline Islands, east of the Philippines, and all that the United States had not taken of Spain's empire in the Pacific.
These latent rivalries had been brought into the open by the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which showed the powerlessness of China.

The western world was, indeed, divided in opinion as to whether this colossus of the East was essentially rotten, old, decrepit, and ready to disintegrate, or was merely weak because of arrested development, which education and training could correct.

At any rate, China was regarded as sick and therefore became for the moment even more interesting than Turkey, the traditional sick man of Europe.

If China were to die, her estate would be divided.

If she were really to revitalize her vast bulk by adapting her millions to modern ways, she had but to stretch herself and the toilfully acquired Asiatic possessions of the European powers would shiver to pieces; and if she awoke angry, Europe herself might well tremble.