HAI-NAN

Chinese (Wade-Giles) Hai-nan, (Pinyin) Hainan Dao, sheng (province) of China. The province, whose name means South of the Sea, is coextensive with Hai-nan Island. Hai-nan is located in the South China Sea, separated from Kwangtung's Lei-chou Peninsula to the north by a shallow and narrow strait. It is the southernmost province of China and, with an area of about 13,200 square miles (34,300 square kilometres), is also the smallest. For centuries Hai-nan was part of Kwangtung province, but in 1988 this resource-rich tropical island became a separate province. The capital is Hai-k'ou (Pinyin: Haikou). History Hai-nan was formally incorporated into the Chinese empire in 110 BC, when the Han government established a garrison in the north. Chinese sovereignty remained nominal, however, until the T'ang dynasty (AD 618907). During the Yan (Mongol) dynasty (12061368) it became an independent province, at which time it acquired the name Hai-nan. In 1370, however, it became a part of Kwangtung. Hai-nan's first major period of settlement occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries, when large migrations from Fukien and Kwangtung pushed the island's indigenous peoples into central and southern Hai-nan. In 1906 the Chinese Republican leader Sun Yat-sen proposed that Hai-nan become a separate province, and for a short time (191221) it was nominally independent under the name Ch'iung-yai Island. The Japanese occupied Hai-nan (193945) during World War II and began developing the island's resource potential. Hai-nan reverted to the Chinese Nationalists in 1945 and was one of the last places to fall to the Communists. After 1950 Hai-nan served as a military outpost and as a source of raw materials, but because of its strategic vulnerability the central government was reluctant to make it an investment priority. With China's shift in economic policy at the end of the 1970s, Hai-nan became a focus of attention. In 1984 the island was designated as a special zone for foreign investment; and, though it was still part of Kwangtung, it was upgraded to the status of a self-governing district, a prelude to its establishment as a province in 1988. Victor C. Falkenheim