Treaty ports, international settlements, and European possessions lined the Chinese coast, including Hong Kong, Macau, French Indochina, and Shanghai. The period's place names differ from their modern forms, while Tsingtao itself had been a German colony captured by British and Japanese forces in the First World War. Japan's October 1938 advance around Canton, now Guangzhou, left Hong Kong close to the front and vulnerable even to accidental bombing. Colonial ports and foreign communities were therefore directly entangled with military operations.
Notable Point · 9:21-13:24
Tsingtao, Hong Kong, and a contested coast
Treaty ports, foreign possessions, and advancing Japanese forces left Hong Kong exposed and made Tsingtao strategically significant.