China, Japanese gains

With the outbreak of World War I, in August 1914, Japan joined the side of the Allies and seized the German leasehold around Chiao-chou Bay together with German-owned railways in Shantung. China was not permitted to interfere. Then, on Jan. 18, 1915, the Japanese government secretly presented to Yüan the Twenty-one Demands, which sought, in effect, to make China a Japanese dependency.