It was a war fought in 1894 to 1895 over control of Korea, which was a vassal state of China. When an uprising broke out in Korea in 1894, China sent troops in to suppress it. Korea’s ports had been open to Japan since 1876 and in order to protect its interests there, Japan, too, sent troops to the island nation when trouble broke out. But once the rebellion had been put down, the Japanese troops refused to withdraw. In July 1894 fighting broke out between Japan and China, with Japan emerging as the victor, having crushed China’s navy. A peace treaty signed on April 17, 1895, provided for an independent Korea (which only lasted until 1910, when Japan took possession) and for China to turn over to Japan the island of Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula (the peninsula was later returned to China for a fee after Russia, Germany, and France forced Japan to do so). The war, though relatively brief, seriously weakened China, and in the imperialist years that followed, the European powers scrambled for land concessions there.