geographic feature. The Shandong Peninsula juts out from the northern part of China's east coast, surrounded by the Bo Hai and the Yellow Sea to the north, east, and south. It is thought that as recently as 5500 BC, much of the peninsula was deltaic marshes with the peninsular highlands forming a series of islands off the mainland. The tremendous siltation over the centuries of the Huang He (Yellow River) formed the lowland areas of the peninsula and connected the islands to the mainland. The coastline of the peninsula is mostly steep and rocky, but there are a number of fine harbors on both the north and south sides. Qingdao, on the southern shore, has long been an important port, but there are a number of other harbors such as Yantai and Weihai on the north side that are growing in importance. Yantai, for example, has become a center for the growing electronics industry. The area around Qingdao is also a major center for the production of machinery for transportation, textiles, and other light industries. Containership facilities linking the region with the world are found in Qingdao, Yantai, and Weihai. In 1990, the peninsula's main port of Qingdao was China's fifth largest port in terms of total tonnage. The Shandong Peninsula has some of the warmest temperatures in northern China due to the mitigating effect of the bodies of water that surround it. Long famous for apples, grapes, Chinese pears (sometimes called apple pears), and tea, the region is at the forefront of efforts to modernize China's traditional forms of horticulture and agriculture. China's most famous brand of beer, Qingdao, is produced here, a legacy of the Germans who occupied the peninsula for a brief period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not surprisingly, the peninsula is home to a major fishery producing herring, croakers, prawns, and other ocean fish. The tidal flats are managed to produce mollusks, crab, and other shellfish. These same flats have been used since early dynastic times to evaporate salt from seawater. The Shandong Peninsula has had a significant role in the long tapestry of China's history. The great philosopher Confucius was born in a town just west of the peninsula but still in Shandong Province. During the Three Kingdoms Period (220–280 AD), the western portion of the peninsula was a major granary under the control of the kingdom of Wei. Germany acquired the peninsula in 1898 for use as a port and naval base. After the Allies in World War I took over the German settlement centered on the port of Qingdao, it was transferred to Japan as the result of secret agreements between Japan and the other Allied nations. This transfer of control in the aftermath of the Versailles Peace Conference that ended the war led to public outrage in China. Chinese students and intellectuals had believed that United States President Woodrow Wilson's stand on self-determination would result in the return of the peninsula to China after the war. They were outraged at the deception, which came about as Wilson sought international support for his visionary League of Nations. Massive street demonstrations throughout the early spring of 1919 culminated in the historic May Fourth Movement, which eventually brought about some limited Western-style reforms to Chinese government and society. The peninsula was eventually returned to China with the defeat of Japan in World War II. Despite having some areas of very rich and productive alluvial soils, until the late 20th century the province of Shandong was always associated with rural poverty. The rapid growth of the population in the early part of the 20th century, coupled with some very severe floods and droughts, led to extreme hardship for the people of the peninsula. The population densities are some of the highest in China, and the arable land base has been insufficient for centuries. Because of this, many people from Shandong have migrated to other provinces. Migrations from Shandong to Manchuria occurred in the mid-1800s as the Manchu rulers of China sought to reduce Russian incursions into territories along the Amur River with resettled Han Chinese, many of whom were from Shandong. Another major migration occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, when large numbers of people from the province were resettled by China's communist government to Manchuria. In the last two decades of the 20th century the people of Shandong Province—in particular those from the peninsula—took advantage of their coastal location to expand to a great extent the light manufacturing sector of the economy. Improved transportation and concentrated investment in the port cities made the economy of the Shandong Peninsula one of the fastest growing in all of China. These shifts to manufacturing, international trade, and transportation also aided the agricultural sector as the number of people depending for survival solely on crop production declined. The proximity of the peninsula to South Korea and Japan was also quite important as many joint ventures between firms in Shandong and these nations held out the promise of continued economic growth in the future. |