Dalian, China. The settlement was occupied by the British in 1858, returned to the Chinese in the 1880s, and then occupied by Japan in 1895 during the first Sino-Japanese War. With the unconditional surrender of Japan at the end of the Second World War, Dalian, passed to the Soviet Union, who had liberated the city in advance of the end of hostilities and governed the city until 1950, when the city was presented to the Chinese Communist government without any compensation.