It’s 1973, a dull Tuesday afternoon at St Thomas Aquinas Grammar School in the northern outskirts of Leeds, and Form 1R are having History. One 11-year old pupil is gazing out of the window over the school playing fields, daydreaming about anything except the interminable lists of dates and treaties being reeled off by the history master, Mr Bourne. Something about 1896 and the Treaty of Shimonoseki … blah … blah … and access to the ice-free naval ports of Port Arthur and Weihaiwei …. “WOODHEAD are you paying attention, boy?!” Obviously not.
Half a century later, Woodhead is paying attention as the Chinese announcement on the high speed train informs passengers that we are now arriving in Weihai (威海) North station.
I had been drawn to visit Weihai because in the intervening years I had served in the Royal Navy Reserve and read with interest the accounts of British sailors who were stationed in the Far East as part of the so-called ‘China Station’.
I was fascinated to learn that within living memory there have been sailors who served on HM ships that exercised the UK’s extra-territorial claim to sail up China’s rivers in the name of defending British interests in the country. The British film The Yangtse Incident tells the story of how one such ship, HMS Amethyst, was attacked and disabled by artillery fire from shore batteries of the PLA in Jiangsu province in 1949.
I was aware that Britain had naval bases in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as stationing ships in Shanghai, but knew little about the Royal Navy’s additional base in north China.
Known officially as Port Edward, Weihaiwei was something of a remote outpost that was leased by the British from China until 1930 as part of a strategic move to keep tabs on the German and Russian presences in nearby Qingdao and Port Arthur (Dalian, 大连), respectively.
The navy base at Weihaiwei was actually located on a small offshore island called Liugong and was used as a ‘summer training establishment’. It was a port that British ships visited for rest and recreation purposes, favoured because of its mild climate compared to the heat of Shanghai and Hong Kong.
After the Weihaiwei lease expired in 1930 the British navy maintained a token presence on Liugong Island under a temporary 10-year agreement with the Chinese government. The few remaining personnel departed in 1940 and the base was taken over by the Japanese military soon afterwards.
I was intrigued by these descriptions of a little corner of north China under the Union Jack, and since it was only two hours away from Qingdao I decided to pay a visit to see what remained of Weihaiwei. I’m sure Mr Bourne would have approved.
On the way to Weihai the train passed through the port city of Yantai (烟台). I had considered stopping there too because of its status as one of the first winemaking places in China. But the city looked a bit too industrial, and I had not been impressed with previous tastings of the local ChangYu wine brand - so I gave it a miss.
Weihai was one of those ‘small’ towns in China that have a sprawling hinterland. After disembarking at the new North Station I faced a 16 kilometre ride into the centre through a drab 'new town' landscape. Once I arrived on the seafront, however, it was like Surfer’s Paradise. The seafront was lined with new high rise apartment blocks and a promenade had been landscaped with artificial trees and featured cafes, viewing platforms and changing rooms featuring marine motifs. The Costa Del Shandong.
After spending a bit over my budget on the hotel in Qingdao, I opted to try the cheap youth hostel advertised in Weihai. Being off season, I found I was the only resident in the empty building tucked down a side street two blocks from the beach, next door to a Spar supermarket. And like all too many youth hostels it had an over-officious manager, who reeled off a list of rules and regulations that I must abide by or risk losing my 100 yuan deposit.
He made it clear that my e-bike was not allowed in the hostel, and I had to leave it outside on the street among the other electric scooters.
My woeful preparation and lack of background research for this trip became apparent when I went for a walk around Weihai and learned that it was just across the water from the Korean peninsula. The large ferry docked at a jetty was the daily service from Incheon, only 380 kilometres away over the Yellow Sea. I also noticed that most of the shops and restaurants on the main street were bilingual in Korean and Chinese characters - and many of them were offering Korean products and speciality dishes.
The hostel receptionist later explained to me that Weihai was the closest point to Korea in China, and the city was a regular feature on tourist itineraries for South Koreans who came over to sample the markets and buy up cheap products. She pointed me in the direction of nearby Hanlefang (韩乐坊) where I would find the Korean Night market. It was a revelation - I arrived just as it got dark and the market was a bustling mass of people in an outdoor plaza illuminated by neon signs advertising all kinds of dishes. I opted for bulgogi and rice - which I noticed when translated into Chinese was simply ‘barbecue beef’.
The next morning was a brisk clear April day and I had a pleasant ride on my bike along the beachfront. Weihai was a holiday town and the beach was dotted with sea-themed sculptures, and sunbeds. The local authorities had installed a wooden deck walkway along which were gift shops and restaurants, but few were open this early in the season. They had also put a rustic thatched roofed house on the waterfront as a tourist information centre.
There were quite a few locals fishing from the promenade - some using weighted nets that they flung into the clear waters. I’d been expecting the sea here to be the same mucky brown that I’d seen when visiting the coast in Xiamen, but the water seemed clean. Further on was a small harbour full of leisure craft and some powerboats being used for fishing. A woman from one of these called me over, inviting me to buy some of her fresh catch of prawns, lobster, flatfish, squid and crabs being displayed in plastic bowls on the dockside.
After a couple of kilometres I had arrived in the centre of Weihai, and it looked like Miami. The seafront was dominated by a shiny new community of high rise condos, which could only be reached by a bridge closed off by a barrier and security guards. On the landward side was a prominent viewing platform centred around a fancy bit of modern art sculpture. There was also a swish ’cafe and bistro’, in which I got a latte and planned my excursion across to the former naval base at Liugong Island (刘公岛). My map app showed me there was a ferry service across to the island which ran every 30 minutes. It even offered me the option to buy tickets online, but I thought I would try in person, in case there were any restrictions on foreigners visiting a military facility.
I found the ferry terminal another kilometre along the seafront, in a massive new building and car park complex billed as the ‘Liugong Island Passenger Transport Centre’. In the ticketing office the price for the ferry across the island was listed as 160 yuan (US$22), but I noticed that there was also a concession price of 30 yuan for people aged 60 and above. I qualified! After showing my passport I got a ticket that allowed me through the barrier to the wharf - and they even allowed me to take my folded up bike with me.
The small ferry had only a few tourist passengers and was not dissimilar to the boats that run on the Sydney to Manly route. Standing outside the cabin at the stern under the flapping Chinese national flag, among bobbing and swooping seagulls, it took a leisurely 20 minutes to cross the few kilometres to the small island of low-lying hills.
As we docked at the wharf on Liugong Island there were signs in Chinese stating that this was a military restricted area, but no signs of the PLA Navy other than a small patrol vessel. The island still looked like the training establishment it had once been under the Royal Navy. There were a couple of distinctly British-looking barracks with white facades and mock-Tudor black beams, now topped with a red star and the ba-yi (八一, 8-1) symbol of the PLA. I wheeled my bike off the jetty and found myself surrounded by warehouse buildings that could have been from Chatham or Rosyth naval dockyards.
The only modern building was a brutalist concrete structure that was a museum commemorating the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, something I knew nothing about. I should have paid more attention to Mr Bourne in 1973 when he was explaining the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
The Chinese displays in the museum told of how the northern fleet of the Manchu Qing dynasty’s navy had been established on Liugong Island before it was defeated by the Japanese fleet at the Battle of the Yalu River.
The battle had been the culmination of Japanese expansion in the region, which saw them defeat the Chinese and occupy Korea then move into Manchuria and take over Port Arthur (Dalian, 大连). The Chinese navy had been outclassed by the well trained and modernised Japanese fleet: the Chinese ships were obsolete, poorly armed and maintained, and the crews lacked discipline and training in modern naval warfare.
The displays in the museum came with a not-so-subtle propaganda message that the western colonial powers had been responsible for China’s defeat. They implied that European countries had worked to keep China weak by preventing it from building up a modern navy, whereas the British had provided strong support to build up the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The museum made little mention of the subsequent British acquisition of Liugong Island and its development as a northern base for the Royal Navy’s China Squadron. But the rest of the island was like an open air museum for the British colonial naval base. A road along the southern coast of the island led from the site of the old British naval barracks and sailors’ canteen and featured the Fleet Commander’s Residence, a 1920s style detached house. Further along there was an elegant beachfront bungalow described as “The Johnston Villa”. This is presumably the summer residence of Weihaiwei’s British Commissioner, Sir Reginald Johnston.
Johnston was a notable senior diplomat and sinophile, and at one time the personal tutor to the last Emperor Pu Yi in the Peking (as portrayed by Peter O’Toole in The Last Emperor). When Pu Yi was expelled from the Forbidden City, Johnston returned to the Colonial Service and in this capacity served as the final British Commissioner at Weihaiwei until 1930.
The Commissioner’s residence was next to a golf course, which appeared to be still in use by the PLA Navy. A map of the island also showed tennis courts and swimming pools, all built by the British for when Liugong was a training and recreation facility. In more recent times the Chinese had added a sailing and windsurfing centre on the beach below the villa.
Back in the centre of the naval administration block there was still the old Masonic Hall and even the remains of the British-built church. However, much of the centre and western sections of the island were off limits and presumably still in use as military facilities for the Chinese navy. There was a decommissioned Chinese submarine alongside that was open to the public - but when I tried to go inside I was told that entry was not allowed for foreigners.
Having seen everything there was to see on this small island, I took my bike back to the ferry wharf to wait for the next boat back to Weihai. An older Chinese man sitting opposite me was eyeing my bike with interest and gave me the thumbs up. He told me he was an engineer and looked over my e-bike with a professional eye, asking some technical questions about its function and performance. When he learned that I was from the UK, he asked me if I had visited the museum about the Sino-Japanese War.
“That was when China was weak, but not any more,” he said. “Now we have a strong navy. We need one to resist America.”
He gestured out over the bay: “America is surrounding China. They have bases just over there in Korea, and (pointing further south) in Japan and in the Philippines, and they are still in Taiwan … America is trying to contain China from all directions,” he said.
I grew wary of which direction this conversation might be going, though the man wasn’t hostile, just giving me a little lecture.
“China is a peaceful country and always welcomes foreign guests with good intentions,” he went on. “A lot of Koreans come here for the seafood in Weihai. Have you tried it? It is very fresh, the best in China …”.
I was relieved when the ferry docked and I was able to leave, carrying my folded-up bike on board the boat to head back across the water.
There wasn’t much else to see in Weihai of what had once been Port Edward. It was hard to imagine this had once been a British leased territory with its own courts, postage stamps and even a Weihaiwei Regiment of Chinese soldiers serving under the British Crown. As if in rebuke and to assert its Chineseness, the seafront now had an array of statues of Chinese cultural and historical figures, most of whom I had never heard of. I turned my bike around and pedalled back to the youth hostel, to ready myself for the next day’s train trip to the mouth of the Yellow River.
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