LU-TA

also called (locally) Ta-lien, Pinyin Lda, or Dalian, Russian Dalny, conventional and Japanese Dairen, city and port on the Liaotung Peninsula, Liaoning sheng (province), China. The name derives from a combination of L-shun and Ta-lien. When the Russians took the lease of the Liaotung Peninsula in 1898, they not only built up the existing Chinese naval base at Port Arthur as the ice-free headquarters of their Pacific Fleet but also selected a minor fishing village called Ch'ing-ni-wa to be developed as a major commercial port, which they called Dalny, connected by rail with the Chinese Eastern Railway at Harbin (Ha-erh-pin; Heilungkiang province). They laid out a spacious Western-style city and dredged the harbour and constructed wharves, piers, and breakwaters. Only the first stage was completed at the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. After the war the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) transferred control of the Liaotung Peninsula to Japan. The Japanese (under whom the port was renamed Dairen) completed the Russian plan, developing a fine modern city and an efficient modern port. The harbour was dredged to take large vessels, and new breakwaters and wharves were built. A separate coal-handling port was built at Kan-ching-tzu nearby; dry-dock facilities were also built, and warehousing was constructed. By 1931 Dairen was a major Chinese port, exceeded in its volume of trade only by Shanghai. Under the Japanese, Dairen also became a major industrial centre. From the completion of the South Manchurian Railway, in 1901, it had been the railway's headquarters; huge railway workshops were built to supply locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment to the railway and also to other rail lines in Korea and northern China. In the 1930s a further development of the machine-building industry came with the establishment of a large plant belonging to the Dairen Machinery Company. Shipbuilding also became important in the 1930s, and by 1941 the port was producing ships of 8,000 tons. A cement works (one of the largest in Manchuria) was founded by the Onoda Company in the 1920s. The chemical industry also became important under the Japanese. A large chemical plant was built in 1935 at Kan-ching-tzu, producing sulfuric acid for fertilizers and explosives, as well as sulfate of ammonia. In 1936 a soda-ash and caustic-soda factory was built in Dairen. The city also became a centre of the cotton textile industry, but development was hampered by the competition of Chin-chou (also in Liaoning) and by the depressed state of the Japanese cotton industry in the 1930s. The city, which was occupied by the Soviet Union in the period immediately after World War II, was less seriously damaged and looted than most of the Manchurian cities. It has since been vigorously developed both as a port and as an industrial centre. The prewar industries of shipbuilding and manufacturing railway equipment, locomotives, rolling stock, cement, and chemicals have been further developed; and machine tools are produced by the local engineering industry. A steelworks was installed toward the end of World War II, but after 1945 production declined to a low level. The industry was, however, expanded in 195557. By 1957 it was claimed that the city's industrial production was five times that of 1943. In 1984 L-ta was designated one of China's open cities in the new open-door policy inviting foreign investment. Industry is varied and includes a wide variety of light manufacturing, including food processing, cotton textiles, oil refining, fertilizer, and papermaking plants, besides the heavy industry for which L-ta is well known. The city is an important fishing and deepwater oil port, linked north to T'ieh-Ling and An-ta. L-ta has engineering and marine transport colleges. Pop. (1990) 1,723,302.