Dalian port area to be extended

[photopress:dalian.jpg,full,alignright]The plan is that Dalian Dayaowan Bonded Port Area will open Northeast China up to the outside world.

Wang Zhongyu, vice-chairman of National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s top political advisory body, said, ‘The construction of the Dayaowan Port Area will help the cluster of ports in Northeast China compete in the international market. The competition in the international shipping market is fierce. Neighboring countries like South Korea and Japan are also integrating their port-related resources to build international transportation hubs.’

Wang Zhongyu made these remarks at a seminar about the construction of the bonded port area.

The State Council approved the establishment of Dalian Dayaowan Bonded Port Area last August. It will be the third such area in the country after Yangshan Port in Shanghai and Dongjiang Port in Tianjin.

The new port area is expected to go into operation by the end of June. The first phase of construction on the port area has started within a 6.88 square kilometer area designated for the project.

The history of the area is totally fascinating.

First let us place it geographically. Dalian is one of the most heavily developed industrial areas of China and today consists of Dalian proper and the smaller Lüshunkou, formerly Lüshun city, known in western and Russian historic references as Port Arthur. Dalian is west of the Yellow Sea and east of Bohai Sea and roughly in the middle of the Liaodong/Liaotung peninsula at its narrowest neck or isthmus. It has a coastline of 1,906km.

Historically it has been called a lot of names. First Sanshan, then San Shanpu, then Sanshan Seaport, followed by Qing Niwakou in the Qing Dynasty. In the 1880s, the Qing government constructed loading bridges and fortifications with built-in cannons, and set up mining camps on the northern coast of Dalian Gulf, making it into a small. fortified town.

The settlement was occupied by the British in 1858, returned to China in the 1880s, and then occupied by Japan in 1895 during the first Sino-Japanese War.

In 1898, the Russian Empire leased the peninsula from the Qing Dynasty, and a modern city was laid out with the name of Dalny. It was linked to the Trans-Siberian Railway and became Russia’s primary port-city in Asia.

Then, as misfortune would have it, Dalny, that which we now call Dalian, was the main battlefield of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and Russo-Japanese War (1905).
After the Russo-Japanese war, Port Arthur (as it was then called in the west) was ceded to Japan.

In 1937, the modern Dalian City was enlarged and modernized by the Japanese as two cities: the northern Dairen (Dalian) and the southern Ryojun (Lushun).

In 1945 Dalian came out from under the control of Japan and was taken over by the Soviets. They had been there fighting the Japanese and remained in the city until 1955. The transfer of the area back to China from Russia was done on friendly terms.

In the 1990s Bo Xilai became mayor of the city. He banned bicycles (they exist now but are still not that numerous), created large, lush parks in the city’s many traffic circles and made Dalian into an attractive city.

Source: China Daily and research.