ABSTRACT
As early as June 28, 1884, the Vicomte de Semalle, French Charge d’Affaires, had protested to the Chinese Foreign Office, making it clear that his government would demand an indemnity. The Chinese rejected the protest, insisting instead that the French had brought the disaster on themselves, and that if there had to be any talk of indemnities, it was for the French to do the paying, since China too had suffered casualties amounting to a total of three hundred men killed and wounded. The port of Keelung, in the north of Formosa, and the coalfields in its vicinity, would constitute a splendid prize which might be acquired without much risk of unwelcome complications, and would prove particularly valuable if the affair developed into a regular war and other countries considered themselves bound by the rules of neutrality to deny refuelling facilities to French naval vessels.
