Reflections | The history of the Chinese national flag, from the 19th century Yellow Dragon to 1949’s red design with its 5 stars, and what these symbolise
- Chinese emperors flew banners, but there was no national flag until 1862. It featured a blue Chinese dragon chasing a fiery red disc on a yellow background
- The Chinese republic first had a flag of 5 horizontal stripes, then in 1928 the ‘Blue Sky, White Sun, and the Vast Red Earth’. In 1949 came the 5-star Red Flag
You see it in films and television, and I’ve seen it for myself in my recent trip to the United States – the American zeal for flying the national flag.
Besides its expected appearance at public buildings, the Stars and Stripes also adorns private homes, places of worship, businesses and shops, even homeless tent encampments.
In the 19th century, the Chinese called the US flag huaqi, “the fancy flag”, in reference to its star-spangled exuberance. This obsolete, early nickname lives on in the Chinese word for American ginseng (huaqi shen), and the Chinese name for Citibank (Huaqi Yinhang). The Vietnamese still refer to America, the country, as Hoa Kỳ, the Vietnamese pronunciation of huaqi.
While Chinese emperors used banners and other ritual objects to draw attention to their status, imperial China never had an official state flag until the 19th century.
Naval skirmishes with Western ships, purportedly due to Chinese vessels not displaying any flags, and the conspicuous absence of a Chinese flag at international diplomatic events prompted the government of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) to create China’s first modern state flag in 1862.
