https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1936-0597
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ABSTRACT
Dalian is a particular Chinese city, which was occupied for half a century successively by the British, Japanese, and Russian Empires before 1949, with each imposing its own urban planning and building styles onto the city’s development. Since 1984, with China’s open-door policy and economic reform, dramatic changes have taken place in Dalian, transforming it into a modern and famous tourist destination within the country. However, with its rapid urbanisation, the built heritage is being compromised, and the preservation of colonial legacy has become contested. This paper reviews the unique planning history of Dalian and the challenges the city faces regarding its contested heritage, with a special focus on the case of Dongguan Street, which is a colonial legacy without any official designated status. Conflict arises between those who want to erase what they feel is a humiliating past, to make way for the modern city, and the ones who value the legacy to save the endangered heritage that remains.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Yang Liu is a PhD candidate in the School of Engineering and Built Environment at Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus. Her research interests are contested urban heritage, urban development, and tourism.
Karine Dupre is an associate professor from Griffith University. She is the programme director of Griffith Architecture School and a member of Griffith Institute for Tourism. Her research field includes regional development, cities and tourism, place-making, urban development and sustainability, building heritage and identity, etc.
Xin Jin is senior lecturer of Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, Griffith Business School, Griffith University. Her two main areas of research interest are event tourism and destination marketing.
David Weaver (Visiting Professor, International Services Management Research Institute, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics) is Professor of Tourism Research and conducts research in the areas of sustainable tourism, ecotourism, destination development and resident perceptions.
Notes
1 Dalian Government Portal Website, “Walk into Dalian,” August 3, 2018.
2 Jiang, Dalian Port Opening and City Construction, 18.
3 Qi, “GDP ranking of 2017,” February 1, 2018.
4 Zhang, “Keeping the Trace of Times,” 31.
5 Dong, Study on the Evolvement Trend of Dalian Urban Spatial Structure, 5.
6 Dong, Forty Years of Dalian: 1945–1985, 17.
7 Jiang, Dalian Port Opening and City Construction, 21.
8 Hess, “From Colonial Jewel to Socialist Metropolis”.
9 Ibid.
10 Drew, Yuri Semyonov, Siberia.
11 Njoh, “Urban Planning as a Tool of Power and Social Control in Colonial Africa”.
12 Jiang, Dalian Port Opening and City Construction, 144.
13 Ibid., 129.
14 Myers, “Intellectual of Empire: Eric Dutton and Hegemony in British Africa,” 1998.
15 Triggs, Town Planning: Past, Present and Possible, 102–103.
16 Denison and Ren. Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria, 22.
17 Jiang, Dalian Port Opening and City Construction, 186.
18 Abramovich et al., “Imported Modernity and Local Design,” 8.
19 Please refer to Triggs, Town planning, past, present and possible.
20 Thawaba, “Building and Planning Regulations under Israeli Colonial Power,” 1.
21 Triggs, Town Planning: Past, Present and Possible, 102.
22 Denison and Ren. Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria, 87.
23 Official Report to DC by US Consul Miller in Manchuria in 20 Years, Far Eastern Review 22 (1926): 346.
24 Jiang, Dalian Port Opening and City Construction, 235.
25 Dong, Study on the Evolvement Trend of Dalian Urban Spatial Structure, 78.
26 Dong, “History of Dalian Urban Planning”.
27 Edgington, “Comprehensive Planning in Japanese Large Cities”.
28 Dong, Study on the Evolvement Trend of Dalian Urban Spatial Structure, 72.
29 Sorensen, The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty First Century, 2005; Denison and Ren, Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria, 90.
30 Jiang, Dalian Port Opening and City Construction, 286.
31 Ibid.
32 Hess, Big Brother Is Watching: Local Sino-Soviet Relations and the Building of New Dalian, 1945–55, 161.
33 Dalian Urban Planning Museum, 2018.
34 Hess, Big Brother Is Watching: Local Sino-Soviet Relations and the Building of New Dalian, 1945–55, 162–163.
35 Yeh and Wu, “The Transformation of the Urban Planning System in China from a Centrally-planned to Transitional economy,” 176.
36 Li, “Urban Regeneration through Public Space”.
37 Dong, Forty Years of Dalian: 1945–1985, 53.
38 Office of Dalian Municipal Government, Overview of Dalian Urban Construction and Development Structure, 9.
39 As part of China’s economic reform and policy of opening to the world, the Chinese government opened 14 coastal cities to overseas investment in 1984.
40 Dong, Study on the Evolvement Trend of Dalian Urban Spatial Structure, 75.
41 Wei, “Decentralization, Marketization, and Globalization,” 9.
42 Perra, “Demolishing Dalian: China's ‘Russian’ City is Erasing its Heritage – in Pictures”.
43 Mu and Martin, “Establishing the Conditions for Effective Transit-oriented Development in China,” 239.
44 Yin, “The Urbanization Process of Dalian and the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Aspects,” 73.
45 Hess, “China Behind the Headline.”.
46 Yeh and Wu, “The New Land Development Process and Urban Development in Chinese Cities,” 8.
47 Zhang, “Steering towards Growth,” 189.
48 Li et al., “The Analysis of Situation and Development Trends about Oversea Tourist Market in Dalian City,” 426.
49 Lai, “Regeneration of the 110 Years Dongguan Street”.
50 Gu, A Hundred Years History of Dalian.
51 Wang, Bin. “Many ‘firsts’ in Dalian modern history were generated from Dongguan Street. Peninsula Morning News, October 25, 2015. http://www.soupu.com/news/648560.
52 Ji, Memories of the Old Blocks in Dalian, 42.
53 Sun, “Many ‘firsts’ in Dalian Modern History Were Generated from Dongguan Street”.
54 Luan, “The Protection and Promotion of Dalian Dongguan Historic Block,” 24.
55 Cultural and Historical Records Committee of Dalian Xigang District. Historical Accounts of Xigang District, 36.
56 Lai, “Regeneration of the 110 years Dongguan Street”.
57 Cui, “Dongguan Street – A concern of Dalian”.
58 Qiao, “Dalian’s Relic of ‘Migration to the Northeast’, the Unrated Immovable Culture Relic Is Going to Be Demolished”.
59 Dalian Culture Radio & TV Bureau, Outline of Dalian Cultural Relics.
60 Qiao, “Dalian’s Relic of ‘Migration to the Northeast’, the Unrated Immovable Culture Relic Is Going to Be Demolished.”
61 Luo, “Liaoning's First Litigation Case of Non-removable Cultural Relic, One District Government of Dalian Became a Defendant”.
62 Luo, “Liaoning's First Litigation Case of Non-removable Cultural Relic, One District Government of Dalian Became a Defendant,” 2016.
63 16 words policy on heritage proposed by Xi, http://cpc.people.com.cn/xuexi/n1/2016/0414/c385474-28275331.html (accessed March 30, 2019).
64 Dalian Urban Planning Museum, 2018.
65 Gu, A Hundred Years History of Dalian, 85.
66 Lai, “Regeneration of the 110 years Dongguan Street”.
67 Sun, “Many ‘firsts’ in Dalian Modern History Were Generated from Dongguan Street”.
68 Ji, Memories of the Old Blocks in Dalian, 28.
69 Zhu and Xiaomin, “Dalian's pillars of protection”.
70 Ji, Memories of the Old Blocks in Dalian, 35.
71 Ibid.
72 Wang, and Zhao, “Protection and Renew of Urban Historical Blocks- Taking Dalian Nanshan Historic Block and Qingdao Zhongshan Road as Examples,” 522.
73 Ji, Memories of the Old Blocks in Dalian, 16.
74 Zhu and Zhang, “Dalian's pillars of protection”.
75 Ibid.
76 Sofield and Li, “Tourism Development and Cultural Policies in China,” 363.
77 Blumenfield and Silverman, eds. Cultural Heritage Politics in China.
78 Ingerpuu, “Socialist Architecture as Today’s Dissonant Heritage,” 954–968; Ivanova, “The Inclusion of the Communist/Socialist Heritage in the Emerging Representations of Eastern Europe,” 31–46; Parkinson et al. “Contesting Conservation-planning: Insights from Ireland Since Independence,” 1–30.
79 Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage.
80 Silverman, ed. Contested Cultural Heritage: Religion, Nationalism, Erasure, and Exclusion in a Global World, 1.
81 Leung, “Fates of European Heritage in Post-colonial Contexts,” 24.
82 Jacobs, Edge of Empire; Shaw and Roy, Contested Urban Heritage; Yeoh, “Postcolonial Cities,” 456–468.
83 Ibid.
84 Han and Lim, “Battambang City, Cambodia”.
85 Amayu, “New Uses for Old Churches: An Examination of the Effects of Planning Regulations on the Adaptive Reuse of Church Buildings”.
86 Weaver and Lawton, Tourism Management.
87 Jacobs, “Re-branding the Levant,” 322; Amae, “Pro-colonial or Postcolonial? Appropriation of Japanese Colonial Heritage in Present-day Taiwan,” 23.
88 Worden, “Contested Heritage at the Cape Town Waterfront,” 59–75.
89 Graham, “The Contested Interpretation of Heritage Landscapes in Northern Ireland,” 10–22.
90 Pendlebury and Porfyriou, “Heritage, Urban Regeneration and Place-making,” 430.
91 Ashworth and Tunbridge. A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture, and Economy.
92 Steinberg, “Conservation and Rehabilitation of Urban Heritage in Developing Countries,” 464.
93 Ji, Memories of the Old Blocks in Dalian.
94 Parkinson et al. “Contesting Conservation-planning: Insights from Ireland since Independence,” 6.
95 Amar, “Conservation of Cultural Built Heritage- An Investigation of Stakeholder Perceptions in Australia and Tanzania”.
96 Svensson, “Evolving and Contested Cultural Heritage in China: The Rural Heritage Scape”.
97 Shen and Chen, “Cultural Heritage Management in China: Current Practices and Problems”.
98 Tam, “The Revitalization of Zhizhu Temple: Policies, Actors, Debate,” 248.
99 Young, Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism, 357.
100 Dong, “History of Dalian Urban Planning”.
101 Law, Urban Tourism: The Visitor Economy and the Growth of Large Cities.