Following her arrival in the Pacific, Seeadler first went to the Admiralty Islands on 18 January 1900 in response to the murder of European businessmen by natives there. Starting on 30 January, she took a cruise to tour the German holdings in the area that lasted for several weeks. Stops included the Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands, both of which had been recently purchased from Spain. In May, a cruise to German Samoa followed; there she met Cormoran. The two ships then toured the islands with the governor of German Samoa, Wilhelm Solf, and the Samoan chief, Mata'afa Iosefo, aboard Seeadler. In July 1900, following the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising in Qing China the previous year, Seeadler was sent from the South Seas Station to assist in the Western suppression of the Boxers. She arrived in Tsingtau in the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory and joined the ships of the East Asia Squadron. She spent the following months off Chinese harbors with the armored cruiser and the protected cruiser .
