End-point of the Great Wall: Shanhaiguan and Laolongtou Great Wall or Hushan / Bakjak Great Wall?

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Built Environment, Heritage & Conservation, Military history, National politics, Regional History

The world’s most famous bulwark

a href=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image-3.jpg”> Source: Wiki Commons[
China’s most distinctive and enduring icon is its Great Wall – Chángchéng 長城 – or as it is sometimes described, Wan-li Ch’ang-ch’eng 萬里長城 (10,000-mile Long Wall). The Great Wall is of course a global icon, one of the wonders of both the ancient and modern worlds, extending 21,196.18 km in length from west to east. Sections of the Wall are around 2,300 years old, dating from the Warring States era. The western end of the Wall by consensus is Jiayuguan Pass in Gansu Province (north-central region of China), but where is the eastern end-point?(Source: Lonely Planet)

ef=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image-4.jpg”> Source: Wiki Commons[/cap
Three hundred or so kilometres due east of Beijing is Shanhaiguan (literally “mountain – sea – pass”) in Liaoning Province, one of the Great Wall’s principal passes (popularly acclaimed in China as “the first pass under Heaven”. The Great Wall at Shanhaiguan dates from the 16th century and is 7,138m long with a central fortification, Zhendong Tower, a 4.8k square wall and barbican. The region it defends traditionally has had a strategic importance to China. The section of the Wall here stands between the Yan Mountains and the Gulf of Bohai, its location being easy to hold and hard to mount an assault against made it ideal to repel any invasions from the northern nomadic tribes of Manchuria such as the Khitan, Jurchen and the Manchus. [‘Shanhai Pass’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]

http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/image-5.jpg”> Laolongtou[/caption
‘Old Dragon’s Head’
Five kilometres east of central Shanhaiguan is the what is often commonly thought of as the ultimate stretch of the Great Wall, known as Laolongtou. The wall at Laolongtou (‘Old Dragon’s Head‘✱), built in 1381 during the Ming Dynasty, has been a strategic defensive point for much of Chinese imperial history. To the north of Laolongtou Wall is Ninghai City, a (roughly) square fortress. It’s architectural features include Chenghai Pavilion and Jinglu Beacon Tower. The site also contains an archery field and a military-themed museum (uniforms, helmets, a sabre weighing 83 kilos). The far eastern section of the wall is known as Estuary Stone, on either side of the end section are long strips of sandy beach.

Hushan Great Wall

虎山长城; Hǔshānchángchéng
On appearances ‘Old Dragon’s Head’ seems an appropriate point to locate the end of the Wall. Here’s where the eastward march of the Wall finally hits the sea at the Bohai Gulf, enters the water and continues some 22.4 metres and then abruptly ends⊟. Laolongtou seems a poetically apt spot for the long, long wall to end, and it seems logical, right?❂ Few would have disagreed with this before 1989…in that year another section of the Great Wall was unearthed further east and further north of Laolongtou. The wall, which extends over a mountain (Hushan or Tiger Mountain) for about 1,200m, is just north of a Chinese border city, Dandong (bordering North Korea across the Yalu River). In 2009 the Chinese government, based on the research undertaken by CASS, recognised the Hushan wall as the eastern terminus of the Great Wall. [‘Hushan Great Wall’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]

Hushan Wall, Dandong (Wikipedia Commons)
Hushan or Bakjak?
The Beijing recognition of the wall earned displeasure in the neighbouring ‘Democratic People’s Republic’. The North Korean authorities claim that the wall was originally a Korean one called Bakjak Fortress which the Chinese renamed Hushan to link it in as part of the historic Chinese Great Wall. Moreover North Korean academics assert that this is part of a broader Chinese agenda, one aimed at extending Chinese cultural hegemony. [‘Goguryeo controversies’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]

PostScript: Goguryeo controversy
The North Korean perspective maintains that Beijing’s identification of the Hushan wall as Chinese is a continuation of its practice of undermining the historical sovereignty of Korea’s Goguryeo Kingdom (1st century BC to 7th century AD). The background to this volatile issue lies in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’s (CASS) 2002 revision of the area’s history…CASS’s North East Project concluded that Goguryeo was not an independent state, the ‘proto-Korea’ that the Koreans affirm, it was historically merely a vassal of the ‘Middle Kingdom’. Both Koreas expressed outrage at this, feelings of nationalism were stirred up and Sino-Korean relations took a nosedive. Suspicions on both sides persist…the historic Goguryeo Kingdom encompassed an area comprising the bulk of the Korean peninsula and a portion of both Russian and Chinese Manchuria, so both Korea and China harbour fears that the other may at some point pursue irredentist claims on part of its territory. [‘How an Ancient Kingdom Explains Today’s China-Korea Relations’, (Taylor Washburn) The Atlantic, 15-Apr-2013), www.theatlantic.com].

Historic map of the twin cities Dandong/Sinuiji ≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣≣
✱ so-called because the end part (above the sea) is thought to resemble a dragon (long) resting its head (tou) on the ground
⊟ from Laolongtou Wall’s end it is about 305km back to Beijing
❂ logical because the wall enters the sea at Bohai and the vast structure can be physically observed to end, but the issue here is that the Great Wall of China is not some unbroken, perpetually contiguous, frontier entity, it is a series of walls (sections) which meander, end then start again, right across the frontier of China

KMT’s Historical Australasian Presence: Sydney and Melbourne Offices and the Chinese Diaspora

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Built Environment, Heritage & Conservation, International Relations, Local history
KMT bldg in Sydney


 The above photo shows the well-worn, slightly scruffy and tarnished facade of an old building in the historic industrial inner city district of Sydney. The sign on the shopfront says ‘Chinese Ginsengs and Herbs Co’. Google Maps tells me the address is 4-10 Goulburn Street, although the sign above the entrance indicates the address is “75-77 Ultimo Road Haymarket”. I’m going to go with what the building says rather than what my iPhone indicates…the key point is that this building is within wok-tossing distance of Hay and Dixon Streets, the epicentre of Sydney’s traditional Chinatown.

The awning above the Ginseng shop gives the real clue to the building’s history – in faded blue and red (the colours of the Republic of China better known today as Taiwan or Chinese Taipei), are the words The Chinese Nationalist Party of Australasia. The letters ‘KMT’ and the building’s date, 1921′, at the top of the facade further emphasises its political association with China.

The Haymarket building was purchased in 1921 with funds raised by Chinese-Australian supporters of the KMT or Kuomintang, a Chinese nationalist party headed by Dr Sun-Yat-sen that gained prominence after the overthrow of the last Qing emperor and the transition to republican rule. The Australasian KMT had earlier evolved out of a grass-roots organisation in Sydney called the Young China League, the impetus for the emergence of YCL/Australian KMT came largely from Sino-Australian merchants James Ah Chuey and William Yinson Lee.

KMT Sydney’s regional leadership
Ultimo Road was KMT’s Australasian headquarters, from this building the local Party liaised with the KMT Central party in China and coordinated the activities of other regional KMT branch offices elsewhere in Australia, New Zealand and the wider Pacific Islands. The Sydney Office supervised seven branches – NSW, Victoria, WA, Wellington and Auckland (NZ), Fiji and New Guinea. It also directly administered Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin and had jurisdiction over Tahiti. Melbourne office having to defer to Sydney’s seniority and hegemony provoked KMT membership tensions between Australia’s two largest cities.

KMT and the Chinese diaspora in Australia
KMT’s Sydney branch performed several functions on behalf of the Party. One of these involved an educational role for the local émigré Chinese. The KMT association fostered modern political ideas, promoting pro-republican values and the virtues of parliamentary democracy as an antidote to the gains made by Chinese communists in courting popular support in the Chinese countryside.

Recruiting new KMT members from among the community in Sydney was part of the Australasian association’s growth strategy. To bind Chinese emigrants to the Party and its objectives, the Sydney office organised dances, dinners, social gatherings, held screenings of Chinese movies. Recreational activities were another means of incorporating the Chinese locals – gyms and sporting teams were established to encourage physical exercise.

At crunch periods in the 20th century during conflicts the KMT were embroiled in on mainland China (the National Defence War against Japan, the Nationalists/Communists Civil War), the offices in Sydney and Melbourne had an instrumental role on the ground in Australia. The two associations maintained solidarity with and mobilised support for the struggles of the Chinese Nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-shek…the local Sydney branch coordinated the collection of donations❉ that were remitted back to Nanking (the Nationalists’ Chinese capital) to finance the war effort (equip the KMT Army, buy fighter planes for the Air Force, etc).

KMT Club (pre-war)

Concurrently with the establishment of the KMT headquarters in Sydney, the Chinese Nationalists with money from Chinese benefactors resident in Melbourne (above ↥) commissioned famous Chicagoan architect Walter Burley Griffin to convert a brick warehouse at 109 Little Bourke Street into the city’s KMT association premises. Griffin’s design of a new facade for the building in 1921 was financed by Canton-born, Melbourne social reformer, Cheok Hong Cheong. Cheong had a long association with Griffin as a client and was a shareholder in the Griffins’ Greater Sydney Development Association.

KMT Club Melbourne – 1980s (Walter B Griffin design) ⬇️

Australasian Canton Club
The Australasian association role eventually extended to working for returning émigrés from Australasia and Oceania. This happened when the Australasian KMT Canton Club was set up in that southern Chinese city(office)◊…its purpose was to assist the émigrés who subsequently returned to China. This assistance took many forms such as advocacy in legal matters, providing board and lodging for members passing through Canton to and from Australia and NZ and advice on investments. The Canton office also produced the widely distributed official journal of the Australasian KMT.

Both 1920s KMT buildings, Sydney and Melbourne, are still standing (the Sydney one the recent beneficiary of a bright, fresh paint job – as can be seen below)…the two clubs continue to have social associations with the local Chinese-Australian community in their respective cities.

回÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷回
❉ this material support took on added significance and urgency for the KMT cause after imperial Japan invaded Manchuria in 1937
◊ the location was chosen mainly because of the pattern of past migration to Australia and New Zealand – most Chinese migrants had come from Canton (Guangzhou) or from the wider province of Guangdong

Sources:
Judith Brett & Mei-Fen Kuo, Unlocking the History of the Australasian Kuo-Min Tang 1911-2013, (2013)
John Fitzgerald, Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia (2012)
Kate Bagnall, ‘Picnics and Politics’, Inside Story, 24-Jan-2014, www.insidestory.org.au
‘Griffin’s Chinese Nationalist Party Building in Lt Bourke’ (Building & Architecture), www.walkingmelbourne.com