church authorities through the French minister at Peking. Li was negotiating with the Bishop when word came that the French minister, Rochechouart (see under Ch'ung-hou), was on his way up the Yangtze to investigate other cases in Hupeh, and Li hastened back to meet him at Wuchang. These negotiations were scarcely completed when Li was again ordered to Kweichow to investigate the failure of the provincial forces of Szechwan, Kweichow and Hunan to co-operate in their conflict with the Miao. But when about to assume this duty he was summoned north to cope with the Mohammedan uprising. Gathering his forces at Tung-kuan he reached Sian in July 1870. But in the meantime another crisis had arisen which caused him to be summoned to the coast—namely the Tientsin massacre of June 21, 1870 (see under Ch'ung-hou). Tsêng Kuo-fan had not reached a complete settlement of this issue and was ill; the French were bringing warships, and panic had seized the authorities in Peking. At first Li seemed inclined to fight, but grew more cautious as he approached Tientsin. His appointment to succeed Tsêng as governor-general reached him en route and Tsêng returned to Nanking after having virtually settled the case.
Hereafter routine administrative duties held Li Hung-chang in Chihli for a quarter of a century. During this period he served concurrently as Grand Secretary (1872–1901) and after 1879 held the honorary title of Grand Tutor of the Heir Apparent. As Superintendent of Trade for the North almost every question involving foreign relations, the adoption of Western techniques, or the dispatch of students abroad (see under Jung Hung) came to his attention. To carry out these multifarious duties he at first divided his time between Paotingfu and Tientsin, but later spent most of his time in the latter place.
Li's first experience as a diplomat came in 1871 when he was called upon to negotiate a treaty with Japan. China was unwilling to concede 'most favored nation' rights or to permit trade in the interior. The resulting treaty signed on July 29, 1871 between Li and Date Munenari 伊達宗城 (T. 藍山, 1818–1892) was highly unsatisfactory to Japan but she soon obtained a diplomatic victory which resulted in her first seizure of Chinese territory. China had declined in 1871 to assume responsibility for the murder by Formosan savages of a number of shipwrecked Loochoo Islanders, on the ground that the issue was a purely Chinese one. However, rather than go to war, for which the country was then unprepared, an indemnity was paid to Japan. Unfortunately, however, in the documents which were drawn up the Chinese government referred to the Loochoo Islanders as "people belonging to Japan" and from 1874 onward Japan seized upon this as a sufficient renunciation to organize the islands as a feudal dependency and in 1879 to incorporate them as a Japanese prefecture. When General Grant was in China on his world tour Li requested him to plead in Japan for reconsideration of the annexation issue, intimating that China in return would facilitate the proposed negotiations for limiting the emigration of Chinese to the United States. Grant was instrumental, as a private citizen, in securing a re-study of the case with the result that, early in 1880, Japan sent Takezoe Shinichiro 竹添進一郎 (T. 光鴻, 1842–1917) to negotiate with Li at Tientsin. Li at first agreed to Takezoe's proposal to divide the islands between China and Japan, as suggested by others; but several months later, when opposition in China grew stronger and when it became known that the islands to be ceded were barren, the agreement was allowed to lapse.
The settlement of the stormy issues that the British Minister raised in connection with the Margary case (see under Kuo Sung-tao and Ts'ên Yü-ying) was finally entrusted to Li Hung-chang. As plenipotentiary he reached Chefoo in August 1876, and there he concluded the Chefoo Convention (September 13) which not only settled this case but provided for the opening of new ports, for regulation of the trade between Burma and Yunnan, and for rules of procedure in the reception of foreign envoys.
During this time Korea was steadily slipping legally from the suzerainty of China and the status of that kingdom became problematical when China declined to assume responsibility in a dispute which arose between Korea and Japan in 1875. Since China's relationship was rather that of a patron than a protector she encouraged Japan to negotiate with Korea directly. Japan, therefore, made a treaty in 1876 as though dealing with an independent power. The question of Korea's relationship to China was temporarily deferred, but the ground was steadily being cut from under China's claim. This became apparent a few years later when the United States tried to open trade with Korea. Though Commodore Shufeldt availed himself of Li's aid in negotiating in 1882 a treaty of commerce, and though the terms were actually drawn up by the
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