Lushun

Lüshun 

(Port Arthur), a city and year-round seaport in China in Liaoning Province on the southern tip of the Liaotung Peninsula off the Yellow Sea. Together with the city of Talien it forms the administrative district of Lüta.

Until the late 19th century Lüshun was a small settlement with a convenient roadstead for the docking of ships. During the 1880’s and 1890’s the Chinese government attempted to convert Lüshun into a naval fortress. In accordance with the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895, it was ceded by China to Japan. In late 1895 it was returned by Japan to China under the combined pressure of Russia, Germany, and France. Under the terms of a Sino-Russian convention on Mar. 15 (27), 1898, Lüshun was leased to Russia for a period of 25 years. The tsarist government linked it by railroad with Harbin and turned it into the Russian naval fortress of Port Arthur. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, in accordance with the Treaty of Portsmouth, lease rights to Lüshun were granted by Russia to Japan. The Japanese government refused to return it to China after the lease period had expired in 1923.

Lüshun was liberated by the Soviet Army from the Japanese imperialists on Aug. 23, 1945. Under the terms of a Sino-Soviet agreement in 1945, the USSR and China negotiated the joint use of Lüshun as a naval base for a period of 30 years. After the victory of the popular revolution in 1949 in China and on the basis of Sino-Soviet accords in 1950 and 1952, the naval base of Lüshun was jointly used by the USSR and the Chinese People’s Republic. In May 1955 the USSR withdrew its military forces from Lüshun and transferred without charge to the government of the Chinese People’s Republic installations in the area of the base.

In Lüshun there are cemeteries for Russian soldiers who died during the defense of Port Arthur in 1904-05 and for Soviet soldiers who perished in the battle against the Japanese aggressors during the liberation of northeastern China (1945).

V. P. ILIUSHECHKIN