'Great connections': The creation of a city, Dalian, 1905-1931. China and Japan on the Liaodong Peninsula.

摘要

The city of Dalian, on the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula in China's Northeast ('Manchuria'), underwent rapid development during the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1905 and 1945, Dalian and its environs were administered by Japan as part of the Guandong Leased Territories. This study examines Dalian's history during the initial period of Japanese rule, and places it within the broader context of Chinese urbanization. Although Dalian was governed by the Japanese administrators of both the leasehold and the South Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu), this study emphasizes that the city was only 'leased' to Japan and that Dalian's Chinese inhabitants played as equally an important role in its history as did the foreign rulers.; One of the major themes of this history of Dalian is the periodization of Japanese imperialism in China, and specifically 'Manchuria.' The traditional view of both Chinese and Western historians, (that the September 18 Incident of 1931 marked the start of Japan's aggression in the Northeast), is challenged since the Guandong leasehold had been under Tokyo's direct control since 1905. Subtle shifts in the severity of Japanese rule occurred during the subsequent four decades, but the origins of Japan's expansion in China clearly began around the turn of the century and not in the 1930s. The key to understanding Dalian's history is the concept of 'contractually limited formal imperialism,' or leasehold colonialism. Within a chronological framework that traces the shifts in degrees of formal Japanese control, this work examines the issues of Chinese labour, the rise of Chinese nationalism, and the development of the region's economy.; This dissertation traces Dalian's growth and evolution between 1905 and the 1931 Manchurian Incident utilizing a variety of contemporary sources including documents of the Guandong and Mantetsu administrations, Chinese and Japanese newspapers, American consular reports, and British Foreign Office documents. These primary materials are incorporated within a comprehensive review of recent scholarship by Chinese historians working in the People's Republic. The result is an account of Dalian's history in which the Chinese factor is returned to a story which until now has largely emphasized the Japanese 'side of the coin.'