[edit]
See also: History of Yunnan
Early history[edit]
Kunming long profited from its position on the caravan route through to South Asia and Southeast Asia. Early townships on the southern edge of Lake Dian (outside the contemporary city perimeter) can be dated back to 279 BC, although they have been long lost to history. Early settlements in the area around Lake Dian date back to Neolithic times. The Dian Kingdom, whose original language likely belonged to the Tibeto-Burman languages, was also established near the area.
Dian was ruled by the Chinese Han dynasty under the reign of Emperor Wu of Han in 109 BC. The Han dynasty incorporated the territory of the Dian into their Yizhou Commandery, but left the ruler of Dian with the title.
The Han dynasty (205 BC–AD 220), seeking control over the Southern Silk Road running to Burma, Pakistan and India, brought small parts of Yunnan into China's orbit, but subsequent dynasties could do little to tame what was then a remote and wild borderland until the 13th century.[contradictory] During the Sui dynasty (581–618), two military expeditions were launched against the area, and it was renamed Kunzhou in Chinese sources.
Medieval China[edit]
Sutra Stone Pillar, Dali Kingdom period.
Founded in 765, Kunming was known to the ancient Chinese as Tuodong (拓東) city in the Kingdom of Nanzhao (737–902) during the 8th and 9th centuries. Tuodong later became part of the successor Kingdom of Dali (937–1253). The possession of Tuodong changed hands when the city came under the control of the Yuan dynasty during its invasion of the southwest in 1252–1253. During the tenure of provincial governor Ajall Shams al-Din Omar, a "Chinese Style" city named Zhongjing was founded where modern Kunming is today. Shams al-Din ordered the construction of a Buddhist temple, a Confucian temple, and two mosques in the city. The Confucian temple, doubling as a school, was the first of its kind in Yunnan, attracting students from minority groups across the province. Coupled with his promotion of Confucian ceremonies and customs, Shams al-Din has been largely credited with the sinicization of the region. The city grew as a trading center between the southwest and the rest of China. It is considered by scholars to have been the city of Yachi Fu (鸭池府) where people had used cowries as cash and ate their meat raw, as described by the 13th-century Venetian traveler Marco Polo. The area was first dubbed Kunming during the decline of the Yuan dynasty.
Ming and Qing Dynasties[edit]
Maps of "Yun-nan-fou" and "Ta-li-fou" from Du Halde's 1736 Description of China, based on reports from Jesuit missionaries
In the 14th century, Kunming was retaken from Mongolian officials when the Ming dynasty defeated the Yuan dynasty. The Ming later built a wall surrounding present-day Kunming. 300 years later, Ming turncoat Wu Sangui held the city as a Qing governor. During the beginning of Wu's rule, the entirety of Yunnan and Guizhou were ruled from Kunming by Wu. During the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, the seat of Wu's newly declared Zhou dynasty was moved to Hengzhou in Hunan.[citation needed] Later in 1678, when Wu died, his grandson Wu Shifan resisted Qing forces for two more months before committing suicide, reverting control of the city back into Qing hands. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was the seat of the superior prefecture of Yunnan.[citation needed]
In 1832, the beginnings of a real city were acknowledged within the city walls and there were significant structures within their confines. The founding of the city can therefore be said to have been a predominantly 19th century affair. It was also in this century that the city grew to become the major market and transport centre for the region. [citation needed] Many of the city's inhabitants were displaced as a result of the 1833 Kunming earthquake.[citation needed]
The rebel leader Du Wenxiu, the Muslim Han ruler of Dali, attacked and besieged the city several times between 1858 and 1868. A great part of the city's wealth did not survive the 1856 Panthay Rebellion, when most of the Buddhist sites in the capital were badly damaged, converted to mosques, or were razed. Decades later, Kunming began to be influenced by the West, especially from the French Empire. In the late 1800s, the French started to build the Kunming-Haiphong railway between Kunming and Haiphong in what was then French Indochina. In the 1890s, an uprising against working conditions on the Kunming–Haiphong rail line saw many laborers executed after France shipped in weapons to suppress the revolt. The meter-gauge rail line, only completed by around 1911, was designed by the French so that they could tap into Yunnan's mineral resources for their colonies in Indochina.
Kunming was a communications center during this time and a junction of two major trading routes, one westward via Dali and Tengchong County into Myanmar, the other southward through Mengzi County to the Red River in Indochina. Eastward, a difficult mountain route led to Guiyang in Guizhou province and thence to Hunan province. To the northeast was a well-established trade trail to Yibin in Sichuan province on the Yangtze River. But these trails were all extremely difficult, passable only by mule trains or pack-carrying porters. [citation needed]
Old Kunming quarter, containing the narrow and curved Sister Buildings (姊妹楼) behind the Victory Monument on Guanghua Jie, located across the street to the north of the old Bird and Flower Market
Republic[edit]
The opening of the Kunming area began in earnest with the completion in 1906–1910 of the Kunming-Haiphong Railway to Haiphong in north Vietnam (part of French Indochina).
Kunming became a treaty port opening to foreign trade in 1908 and became a commercial center soon after. A university was set up in 1922. In the 1930s, the first highways connected to Kunming were built, linking Kunming with the rest of west China.[citation needed]
The local warlord General Tang Jiyao established the Wujiaba Aerodrome in 1922; an additional 23 airports would be established in Yunnan from 1922 to 1929.
Flag and emblem of Kunming City from 1922 until 1949 under the Republic of China government.
Second World War (1937–1945)[edit]
Further information: Battle of Yunnan-Burma Road
Kunming was transformed into a modern city as a result of war refugees of World War II fleeing from the north and eastern coastal regions of China to move to Kunming, bringing much commerce and industry into the southwest of China, including Kunming. They carried dismantled industrial plants with them, which were then re-erected beyond the range of Japanese bombers.[citation needed] In addition, a number of universities and institutes of higher education were evacuated there. The increased trade and expertise quickly established Kunming as an industrial and manufacturing base for the wartime government in Chongqing.[citation needed]
As the battles of Shanghai, Taiyuan and Nanjing were lost by the end of 1937, and with Wuhan falling into Japanese occupation by the end of 1938, many more of China's military forces and civilians retreated to cities outside the reach of the Japanese military ground forces a year prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe in 1939, including the relocation of the Chinese Air Force Academy from Jianqiao Airbase to Kunming's Wujiaba Airbase, where the airfield was vastly expanded, becoming the new training hub for the battered but regrouped Chinese Air Force in which Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault took command of cadet training duties in the summer of 1938. The Chinese Air Force command established the 41st Pursuit Squadron based in Kunming, also known as the French Volunteer Group squadron in June 1938, and with them they brought Dewoitine D.510 fighters, with the intention of securing the sale of the planes to the Chinese Air Force; the French participated in some combat engagements against Japanese raids, including dogfights against Mitsubishi A5M fighters with Chinese Hawk III fighters over Nanchang, but after several setbacks, including a fighter pilot KIA, the group was disbanded in October 1938.
Although Japan was focused on ending Chinese resistance at the Battle of Chongqing and Chengdu, Kunming was not out of the reach of Japanese air raids, facing attacks by IJAAF and IJNAF bombers. Chinese military assets and infrastructure were under regular attack, while the RoCAF 18th Fighter Squadron and units of the Air Force Academy at Wujiaba were tasked with aerial defense of Kunming. The city of Kunming was prepared as an alternate National Redoubt in case the temporary capital in Chongqing fell, with an elaborate system of caves to serve as offices, barracks and factories, but it was never utilised. Kunming was to have served again in this role during the ensuing Chinese Civil War, but the Nationalist garrison there switched sides and joined the Communists. Instead, Taiwan would become the last redoubt and home of the Republic of China government, a role it fulfills to this day.
When the city of Nanning fell to the Japanese during the Battle of South Guangxi, China's sea-access was cut off. However, the Chinese victory at the Battle of Kunlun Pass kept the Burma Road open. When the Japanese began occupying French Indochina in 1940, the Burma Road that linked Kunming and the outside-world with unoccupied China grew increasingly vital as much of the essential support and materials were imported through Burma. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the start of the Pacific War in December 1941, Kunming acted as an Allied military command center, which grouped the Chinese, American, British and French forces together for operations in Southeast Asia. Kunming became the northern and easternmost terminus of the vital war-supply line into China known as "The Hump", which stretched over the Himalayas from British bases in India to port-of-entry Kunming. The Office of Strategic Services' Service Unit Detachment 101 (predecessor to the 1st Special Forces Group) was also headquartered in Kunming. Its mission was to divert and disrupt Japanese combat operations in Burma.
The Flying Tigers and P-40 Warhawk in Kunming Air Base, 1944
Kunming, the northern terminus of all three of the Burma Road, the Ledo Road, and "The Hump" supply-line, was increasingly targeted by the IJAAF. When the Burma Road was lost to the Japanese, the Hump became China's primary lifeline to the outside world. The 1st American Volunteer Group, known as the "Flying Tigers", was based in Kunming and tasked with defense of The Hump supply-line against Japanese aerial interceptions.
Industry became important in Kunming as the large state-owned Central Machine Works was transferred there from Hunan, while the manufacture of electrical products, copper, cement, steel, paper, and textiles expanded.
After World War II[edit]
Until 1952, Kunming was a walled city. The city government in 1952 ordered hundreds of young people to tear down the wall and use its bricks to make a new road running north–south. To show its appreciation for the young people that demolished the east wall, the city government named the new street, Qingnian Lu, after them. The existence of the walls still echoes today at place names like the district of Xiaoximen (小西门; 'Lesser West Gate') and Beimen Jie (北门街; 'North Gate Street'). There are also less obvious connections to the wall, such as Qingnian Lu (青年路; 'Youth Road'), in the location of Kunming's east wall.
After 1949, Kunming developed rapidly into an industrial metropolis with the construction of large iron and steel and chemical complexes, advancing simultaneously with other cities in Southwestern China. A Minorities' Institute was set up in the 1950s to promote mutual understanding and access to university education among Yunnan's multiethnic population. The city consolidated its position as a supply depot during the Vietnam War and subsequent border clashes with the Vietnamese. Until Mao Zedong's death, in much of the rest of the country Kunming was still generally thought as a remote frontier settlement.
Accordingly, the government utilized Kunming as a place where to exile people who had fallen politically out of favor, especially during the Cultural Revolution.
In 1957, Kunming's rail link to Haiphong and Hanoi was re-opened (after being cut during World War II). It was cut again in 1979 and re-opened again in 1996.[citation needed]
An old wooden house and a modern skyscraper in the background
Since the reform and opening up of the mid-1980s, Kunming has enjoyed increased tourism and foreign investment. Several Thai Chinese banks have offices in Kunming, for example, Kasikorn Bank and Krung Thai Bank. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand has visited Kunming many times to study Chinese culture and promote friendly relations. [citation needed]
In the 1980s and 1990s, the city center was rebuilt, with Swiss help, in its current 'modern' style to impress visitors attending the 1999 World Horticultural Exposition. It was primarily during 1997 and 1998 that much of the city's roads, bridges and high rises were built. Today the after-effects of the Expo are apparent in more than just the physical improvements to the city—it was the Expo that made the outside world take notice of Kunming, which was relatively unknown at the time.[dubious – discuss]
In July 2005, the second Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit was held in Kunming, with government leaders from China, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam participating.[citation needed] There, China agreed to lend its neighbors more than $1 billion for a series of projects. China promoted GMS cooperation as a first step toward building an eventual China-ASEAN Free Trade Area.[citation needed]
Bus bombings occurred on 21 July 2008 when explosions aboard two public buses in downtown Kunming killing 2 people.
Infrastructure improvements were underway to improve links between Kunming and Southeast Asia in time for the 2010 establishment of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. The FTA made Kunming a trade and financial center for Southeast Asia.[citation needed] In addition to physical improvements to enhance Kunming's trade with Southeast Asia, the central and provincial governments have made financial preparations to assist the city's emergence.
In July 2006, talks at the ASEAN Regional Forum, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma) agreed to construct a highway from Kunming to Chittagong through Mandalay for trade and development.
On 1 March 2014, 29 people were killed, and more than 130 were injured at Kunming Railway Station in a terrorist attack.
