 In late 1901, Piemonte was assigned to the East Asian station after a year-long modernization. She passed through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea and stopped to coal in British Aden while en route to Asian waters. In September 1902 she was in Nagasaki, Japan, with the Italian cruiser Lombardia. Piemonte met the British cruiser HMS Talbot in the British colony at Weihaiwei. A party of officers and men from Piemonte visited the British ship on 28 July. That year, she was joined by the armored cruiser Vettor Pisani and the protected cruiser Elba. The following year, the armored cruiser Marco Polo and the protected cruiser Puglia were scheduled to replace Vettor Pisani and Piemonte, respectively, but due to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War on 8 February 1904, Piemonte remained in the region. On 24 February, Piemonte arrived in Seoul and landed a contingent of infantry to augment the guards at the Italian embassy. Piemonte was finally recalled to Italy in April; she stopped in Singapore on 22 April to coal, departing two days later for home.
