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History in Brief
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Qingdao was created from a small fishing village in 1891 by the imperial Qing government as a defensive naval base intended to guard the entrance to the Bohai Sea. However, an 1897 incident during the Boxer Rebellion (义和团事件) in which two German missionaries were killed in Shandong caused Germany to invade. The territory was then ceded to the Germans as part of a 99-year lease.
The Germans only occupied Qingdao for 17 years - the Japanese invaded at the start of the First World War. After the war the Allies awarded Germany’s original Qingdao concessions to Japan at the Treaty of Versailles instead of returning them to China. This action in turn incited the May 4th Movement of 1919, the defining moment of modern Chinese nationalism. The event is commemorated by a large red abstract sculpture at Qingdao’s Five Four Square (五四广场), the waterfront plaza next to the modern central business district. In 1922, the city reverted to Chinese rule, but once again became a colony of Japan in 1938. Qingdao was finally returned to China when the Second World War ended in 1945.
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