This chapter looks at the external context of twentieth-century Chinese history, beginning naturally with the collapse of the old order. Certain patterns of Ch'ing response to encroachment may be seen all around the periphery of the empire. Instead of recognizing Outer Mongolia as a sovereign state open to international relations, Russia continued to recognize Chinese suzerainty. For Japan, the First World War provided the opportunity to stabilize its imperialist interests. The chapter lists the Japan's Twenty-One Demands. In less than half a year, the whole of Manchuria had fallen to the Japanese army and been severed from China. Japan had become the primary concern of Chinese foreign policy. Within less than a generation, a mere two decades, the East Asian regional order of the Ch'ing dynasty, the international legal order envisaged by the Washington Conference treaty powers, and the world revolutionary order dreamed of in Moscow, had all proved unavailing as an international matrix for the Chinese Republic.