China was neutral at the start of the war, as the country was financially chaotic, unstable politically, and militarily weak. In 1914, Japanese and British military forces liquidated some of Germany's holdings in China. Yuan Shikai secretly offered British diplomat John Jordan 50,000 troops to retake the German military colony in Qingdao, but he was refused. Japan went on to capture Qingdao and occupy portions of Shandong Province.