Rear Admiral Augustus Leopold Kuper initially commanded the combined East Indies and China Station from the steam frigate HMS Euryalus. His nominal area stretched across the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, the South China Sea, and a large part of the Pacific. Singapore was the practical hinge between those regions even before the command was formally reorganized. Kuper spent much of his attention on Japan because competing strategic priorities pulled him away from Chinese waters. Later officers, including George St Vincent King, therefore helped turn this sprawling responsibility into a more recognizable China Station with a clearer grasp of its piracy problem.
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How the China Station emerged from a vast combined command
The early China Station grew out of an East Indies and China command whose enormous geography pulled its commander toward competing priorities.