China

China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a sovereign state located in East Asia.

Shangri-La Base
S.H.I.E.L.D. had a base located in Shangri-La, Hunan Province. It was officially abandoned in 1968. It unofficially continued to be active well into the 90's with limited cooperation from the Chinese government.

Massacre in Hunan
Calvin Zabo and his wife lived together in China, where Zabo worked in a clinic and the woman who would become his wife worked with him, helping with translations due to his bad Chinese. They eventually fell in love, married, and had a child, whom Zabo delivered himself.

In 1989, a group of men identifying themselves as S.H.I.E.L.D., who were actually members of HYDRA, arrived in Hunan and intended to take the woman, saying that she was dangerous due to her gift. Zabo attempted to fight them off, but his wife was kidnapped along with the rest of elders from the village. Zabo left his daughter with people he trusted to search for his wife in Europe.

Zabo had killed many of the HYDRA operatives that went to the village, and S.H.I.E.L.D. tasked one of his teams, that included rookie agents Linda Avery and Richard Lumley, to investigate an 0-8-4 in Hunan, assuming the entire village died trying to protect the object. As Avery and Lumley lost communication with the first team sent, they investigated the area and found their senior agent under a bridge with a fatal wound, having managed to escape with the 0-8-4 but ultimately dying while doing so.

The object turned out to be a baby girl, who had fallen asleep in the dead agent's arms, and the five surviving agents took the baby and returned to the United States, where they began to be killed one by one, with Lumley the only survivor, although Avery devised a plan to erase all information about the baby and put her under an invisible protocol so that the foster system moved the child every few months in order to protect her.

Imprisonment of Akela Amador
"We looked for you. Heard rumors you'd been taken to Shanxi province."

- Phil Coulson

Akela Amador spent four years imprisoned in a copper mine in the Shanxi province of China following a failed raid into one of the gulags run by Vanchat.

Phil Coulson, her mentor in S.H.I.E.L.D., heard rumors of her whereabouts and led a team to secure her release, only to find that Amador had already been moved when he arrived.

Black Market
According to Tony Stark, China could have been one of the potential purchasers of Ivan Vanko's Arc Reactor technology. Although the technology has flaws, such as half of the rotations it could have or an inefficient use in its channels of ionized plasma, the price would have been high.

Battle of Hong Kong
Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes was assigned on several missions to battle different cells from the Ten Rings terrorist group, realizing after battling groups of heavily armed terrorists in Afghanistan, India and Sudan, that a common benefactor was supplying terrorists to fulfill his own agenda.

Rhodes obtained a lead about a plan to carry out a bioterror attack in Asia, and Rhodes intended to capture the responsibles of such an important operation, as they would probably have more knowledge about the organization than the rest of the operatives. As War Machine, Rhodes raided the intended target of the attack in Hong Kong, but found once again that the Ten Rings were one step ahead of him. His superiors informed Rhodes that they tracked the Ten Rings cell to a biotech research facility, but they had taken hostages and used them as human shields to escape from the police and military forces.

War Machine managed to disable the terrorists and let the hostages run, and resisted their attacks, retaliating without killing them, as War Machine aimed his shoots at the the terrorists' body armor, an used his repulsor to incinerate the virus they intended to release in Hong Kong.

When he finished off the terrorists, Rhodes received a call from Tony Stark, asking for his assistance in dealing with a situation in New York City, but Rhodes informed him that, being in Asia, it would take him at least an hour to arrive.

Meanwhile, Rhodes deduced that given the terrorists did not even have the usual weapons he previously fought, and the equipment of this cell could not even slow him down, the whole situation must have been a trap. At the same moment, the presumed hostages attacked him with heavy weaponry, intending to kill and destroy him. War Machine resisted the attacks, but a Battle Tank designed by Hammer Industries and under control of the Ten Rings attacked him, and its weaponry was a serious menace for him. Rhodes realized the Ten Rings had been planning to use it for a while, considering that Justin Hammer was taken into custody after the situation with Ivan Vanko.

Rhodes' superiors ordered him not to attack the tank, as it was commissioned and the contract was cancelled due to a dangerous design flaw, a miniature nuclear reactor power core that, if breached, could have the same effect as detonating a dirty bomb. For that reason, Rhodes was ordered to contain it and disable its weapons, but without damaging it.

War Machine analyzed the weapons of the tank, deducing that the cannon was easily avoidable, and he could resist the shots of the gatling guns. The tank prepared a Sidewinder "Ex-Wife" Missile and attacked War Machine with it. Rhodes, confident the missile would not work like the one added to his previous armor, received a devastating hit of the missile.

War Machine's systems rebooted in time to avoid being crushed by the tank, and Rhodes tried to gain some time destroying the soil under the tank to bury it. However, the tank was able to crawl back to the surface and attack War Machine in coordination with the other terrorists.

Rhodes requested back up again, but the situation in New York City made it difficult. Rhodes was attacked with another Sidewinder "Ex-Wife" Missile, and although this time he could destroy it before being hit, the shockwave threw him into one of the nearby buildings.

To gain the upper hand in the battle, War Machine smashed the ground below the terrorists, and managed to disable them using a miniaturized Stark Sonic Cannon. Rhodes received another direct hit of the cannon, but let the tank pass over him, to reach the only place where he was out its weapons' reach.

Rhodes lifted the tank, and intended to transport it to a nearby battleship, but the activation of the tank's self-destruction forced him to devise a quick solution to stop its nuclear core from contaminating Hong Kong, and threw it to the bottom of the sea.

Rhodes' superiors deduced from the analysis of the remains of the tank and the scarce intel gathered from the captured terrorists that the intention of the Ten Rings was to lure War Machine and obtain his armor, as they obtained technology from over a dozen legit companies through the black market, including Stark Industries.

As the remains of the Battle Tank rested at the bottom of the sea and the radiation levels were as good as could be expected, War Machine abandoned Hong Kong in order to lend a hand with the "Battle of New York".

Surgery of Tony Stark
Tony Stark traveled to Shanghai, China to have surgery, in order to finally remove the shrapnel that penetrated his chest. He contacted Doctor Wu, whom he met during a science conference in 1999.

Doctor Wu and his assistant Wu Jiaqi operated on Stark, with Stark's closest friends Pepper Potts and James Rhodes accompanying him during the process. The surgery was a success, and eliminated the need for the use of the Arc Reactor in Stark's chest.

Kidnapping of Chan Ho Yin
In 2013, street magician Chan Ho Yin was performing one of his shows in the streets of Hong Kong. Having few economic rewards for his tricks, Chan decided to use his real pyrokinetic powers to impress the audience, scaring two teenagers, but satisfying one of his spectators, Raina.

Raina approached Chan, asking about his fire tricks, but he told her that a magician should never reveal his secrets. Raina flirted with him, using one of his quotes in the show to impress him, and Chan invited her to his house.

Chan spoke about how he idolized magicians like for many years, until realizing that what they did was not real magic, and Raina convinced him to show his powers, with Chan producing a small flame in the palm of his hand, something he had been able to do for some years.

Raina wondered why Chan did not show his gift to the world, something Chan had wondered himself, but there were people that did not want his gift to be revealed, although he thought he obtained his powers for a reason.

Flirting with Chan for the last time, Raina asked him to close his eyes, and two men in fireproof suits appeared and managed to knock him out.

Index Case Agents
S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Quan Chen, Index case agent of Chan Ho Yin, tried to make his regular contact with Chan but he was unable to locate him. As Chan had violated his Index agreement before, Quan investigated further, and realized this time he had been kidnapped by professionals, as evidenced by a scrap of fireproof tissue.

Quan informed fellow agent Phil Coulson and his team of the situation to enlist their help, and informed them of the details of the kidnapping and the reason why the perpetrators knew about Chan's powers, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s data streams had been hacked by the Rising Tide.

Birth of Scorch
Raina greeted Chan Ho Yin and apologized for taking him by force. At first, Chan thought Raina was part of S.H.I.E.L.D. and lectured her about not needing to read the power protocols for a simple street performance. However, Raina revealed that she did not work for S.H.I.E.L.D., but for another organization that intended to help him increase and control his gift.

Raina tried to convince Chan telling him he would obtain the fame that he craved, even suggesting to take a more powerful codename, Scorch, paralellizing his potential fame with that of Captain America. Chan, whose goal was just to be recognized for his power, agreed with Raina's proposal and accompanied her to a laboratory in Hong Kong.

Centipede Project
Chan Ho Yin was taken to a laboratory in Hong Kong in order to test his powers, being injected with the Centipede Serum to test the effects in an individual with powers of his own after being able to grant powers to average test subjects.

The serum increased Chan's natural powers without suffering the side effects derived from Extremis, and Chan thanked Raina for the opportunity to use his powers that S.H.I.E.L.D. denied him, not knowing her real intentions yet.

Raina and Debbie, one of the Centipede Project's researchers, discussed the effects the serum had on Chan, discovering tha the platelets in his blood prevented him from being burned with his own powers, and were able to neutralize the combustion of the Extremis element of the serum, so Debbie ordered to extract all his platelets.

Chan woke up tied to a machine, having been drained of his fire-resistant platelets, and was thanked for participating in the Centipede Project. As Chan tried to attack Debbie, he suffered burns in his hands, realizing that he was not resistant to fire anymore. Chan asked Raina why she did that, as she said he had a gift, but she replied that now he was sharing it.

Rescue Mission
S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered the location of the Centipede Project laboratory in Hong Kong by tracing the accounts used to pay Miles Lydon, and Phil Coulson coordinated Quan Chen's men to rescue Chan Ho Yin.

Coulson ordered two teams to secure the lower floors, while he accessed the top floor with Quan and Melinda May through the roof. May tracked Chan's heat signature and accessed the laboratory, where they found a tied and heavily burned Chan. Quan liberated Chan, but Chan killed him, tired of being controlled by S.H.I.E.L.D., and injected himself with another dose of the Centipede Serum to increase his powers.

Coulson and May tried to reason with Chan, but he had enough of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s protocols to hide his gift, and continued to attack them. Coulson tried to render him unconscious using the Night-Night Gun, but he shielded himself with fire.

Debbie received a call from her superiors, and informed them that, though S.H.I.E.L.D. had infiltrated the building, the situation was under control. Raina asked Debbie why she did not tell them all the truth about S.H.I.E.L.D. and Chan's current status.

Grant Ward and Skye infiltrated the building so Skye could hack the security system and open the doors that were automatically closed, something she did almost immediately, extracting some files from the building's mainframe in the process. As the doors were opened and Chan had escaped, Coulson ordered Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons to uncuff Miles Lydon, so that he could remotely control the building's computers. Chan confronted Debbie and Raina, but Raina managed to escape closing the door of the elevator and leaving Debbie behind. Debbie tried to convince Chan that she could fix him and give him more power, but Chan angrily attacked her and burnt her alive.

Coulson confronted Chan for the last time, distracting him while May injected him with a large dose of the Centipede Serum to make him explode. Lydon remotely controlled the ventilation systems to direct the blast to the roof.

Following the mission, Lydon was left behind in Hong Kong, with the money he obtained for hacking S.H.I.E.L.D. being donated to Quan Chen's family, and being outfitted with a Tracking Bracelet that would not allow him to access electronic devices.

Escape from HYDRA
The city of Shanghai in China was the intended destination of Raina after spending a while in Vancouver, having fled from the United States due to Daniel Whitehall's threats of killing her if she did not give him the Obelisk.

Jessica Jones' Escape Attempt
Jessica Jones attempted to escape to Hong Kong once she learnt that Kilgrave, the man that controlled all her actions for months and left her physical and mentally scarred, was not dead as she was led to believe.

She tried to buy a ticket to Hong Kong using Hope Shlottman's credit card first, and money borrowed from Trish Walker later, but ultimately Jones decided to stay in New York City and try to rescue Shlottman, convinced by what Shlottman's parents and Walker asked her to do.

Behind the Scenes

 * Parts of Iron Man 3 were filmed in China.