- Weihaiwei
- A port city and Chinese naval base in Shantung province. It was briefly seized by the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895 and leased by Britain in 1898. Regarded as a purely “cartographic consolation” by Lord Salisbury for the acquisition of Kiaochow and Port Arthur by Germany and Russia, Weihaiwei was ruled by only a handful of British officials, preserving traditional Chinese institutions long after modernizing reforms had swept them away in China herself. The port was nonetheless useful for monitoring the activity of both Germany and Russia in the region. In 1902, Britain then looked to Japan for help in shielding Manchuria and Korea from Russian encroachment. Weihaiwei was handed back to China in 1930.See also <
>; < >; < >. FURTHER READING:Langer, William L. The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890-1902. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.NIELS P. PETERSSON
Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1914. 2014.