1887, he transferred to the corvette , operating from Zanzibar on slavery suppression missions. Promoted to sub-lieutenant on 14 November 1891 and to lieutenant on 28 August 1893, he joined the sloop on the Pacific Station later that year. After returning home in 1897 he became commanding officer of the destroyer at Plymouth in January 1898. China Keyes was then posted out to China to command another destroyer, , in September 1898, transferring to a newer ship, , in January 1899. In April 1899 he went to the rescue of a small British force which was attacked and surrounded by irregular Chinese forces while attempting to demarcate the border of the Hong Kong New Territories. He went ashore, leading half the landing party, and, while HMS Fame fired on the besiegers, he led the charge which routed the Chinese and freed the troops. In June 1900, early in the Boxer Rebellion, Keyes led a mission to capture a flotilla of four Chinese destroyers moored to a wharf on the Peiho River. Together with another junior officer, he took boarding parties onto the Chinese destroyers, captured the destroyers and secured the wharf. Shortly thereafter he led a mission to capture the heavily fortified fort at Hsi-cheng: he loaded HMS Fame with a landing party of 32 men, armed with rifles, pistols, cutlasses and explosives. His men quickly destroyed the Chinese gun mountings, blew up the powder magazine and returned to the ship. Keyes was one of the first men to climb over the Peking walls, to break through to the besieged diplomatic legations and to free them. For this he was promoted to commander on 9 November 1900. Keyes later recalled about the sack of Beijing: "Every Chinaman...was treated as a Boxer by the Russian and French troops, and the slaughter of men, women, and children in retaliation was revolting". Diplomatic and submarines service Keyes was appointed in May 1901 to the command of the destroyer serving in the Devonport instructional flotilla. In January 1902 he was appointed in command of the destroyer , which took Bat crew and her place in the flotilla, and four months later he again brought his crew and was appointed in command of the destroyer , which served in the flotilla from May 1902. He was posted to the intelligence section at the Admiralty in 1904 and then became naval attaché at the British Embassy