SHENYANG is the capital of Liaoning Province, China, and unofficial capital of the northeast, both a railway junction and banking centre that's served as host to the Manchus, the Russians, the Japanese, the Nationalists and then the Communists. An hour's flight or nine-hour train ride from Beijing, the city likens itself to the capital. As any cabby will tell you: "We have the only other Imperial Palace in China". Shenyang does resemble the capital, but only in its wide, characterless avenues walled by Soviet-style matchbox buildings.

In fact, the most remarkable thing about Shenyang is that it isn't remarkable at all. All the ingredients for an interesting visit are here: a shopping district known for fashion; the world's most famous dumpling restaurant; China's other Forbidden City, constructed by Manchus before their take-over of the Ming dynasty in the seventeenth century; a stunning monument to Chairman Mao built during the frenzied height of the Cultural Revolution; tombs of two former emperors; architecture left over from Japan's occupation. The list goes on and on. And a list is what Shenyang feels like; a collection of curios out of context in their industrial surroundings.

Though well-known in China as an important power base for the more radical hardline factions in Chinese politics - Mao's nephew, Yuanxin, was deputy party secretary here until he was thrown in jail in 1976 - Shenyang's real heyday was in the early seventeenth century. The city (then known as Mukden) was declared first capital of the expanding Manchu empire by Nurhaci. He died in 1626, as work on his palace was just beginning, and was succeeded by his eighth son, Abahai, who consolidated and extended Manchu influence across northern China. When the Manchus, having defeated the resident Ming, moved to Beijing in 1644, and established the Qing dynasty, Shenyang became a secondary power centre of steadily declining importance. The city began to take on its modern, industrial role with the arrival of the Russians in the nineteenth century, who made it the centre of their rail-building programme. Years later, the puppets of the Japanese state also set up shop here, exploiting the resources of the surrounding region and building an industrial infrastructure whose profits and products were sent home to Japan. Unlike the province's secondary cities, Dalian and Dandong, however, little attempt has been made to showcase Shenyang's absorbing history, and the city offers little to detain you for more than a brief stop before heading onwards.