The Augusta remained on training and fleet maneuvers in the eastern Pacific with Scouting Force, and was still on the west coast when the time came for Fleet Problem XIV in February 1933, and the Roosevelt Administration, which took office in March, proceeded to keep it there indefinitely. Consequently, Augusta continued to operate in the eastern Pacific until relieved of duty as Scouting Force's flagship late in October 1933. The heavy cruiser sailed for China on 20 October.

Steaming via the "Great Circle" route (the Northern Pacific) from Seattle to Shanghai, Augusta moored in the Whangpoo River, at Shanghai, on the morning of 9 November 1933. That afternoon, Admiral Frank B. Upham, Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet (CinCAF), broke his flag on board the newly arrived heavy cruiser, and his old flagship, Houston (CA-30), sailed for the United States, trailing a long homeward bound pennant in her wake.

Soon after she broke Admiral Upham's flag and Houston sailed for home, Augusta proceeded south from Shanghai in December 1933, and, over the next few months, operated in the Philippines interspersing training with her yearly overhaul at Cavite and Olongapo.

• For a brief chronology of the US Navy in Chinese waters during this period of time see the Yangtze Patrol & South China Patrol website