Design of the current Chinese flag

Design of the Chinese Flag

The recent death of the designer of the Chinese national flag prompted a friend of mine, Ying Wang Ph.D, to give me a text she found in a recent issue of a magazine. We made a rough summary from the Chinese text:

Old story about the National Flag by Zhi Bai

first printed in Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily) July 26, 1999 reprinted in Qingnian Wenzhai November, 1999

Zeng Liansong, the designer of the Chinese National Flag, has been sick for 20 years, and could not speak any more for the last year, but he wanted to live at least until the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Peoples Republic on October 1st 1999. The reporter has visited him several times in the last years and presents the story of the national flag.

Zeng Liansong lived in Shanghai in 1949, shortly after the liberation of the city by the Communist Party. In July 1949 he read in the newspaper Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily), that designs for the flag and the coat-of-arms were wanted. As he liked painting, he considered himself qualified for the job; he also asked a friend, if he would consider him qualified. The friend answered, that he should try it.

For the design he took into consideration well-known symbols of communism: red colour, stars, hammer and sickle. As a symbol for the sun, under which the Chinese people lives after the liberation by the Communist Party (for instance mentioned in the well-known song "The East is Red") he decided to use the golden star as main element of the flag. He took a large star to symbolize the leadership of the Communist Party, and four smaller stars for the four classes (as mentioned by Mao Zedong: workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, patriotic capitalists).

In the first design he arranged these five stars along the hoist like a tie, but his friend was not satisfied. So he designed a new variant, essentially the flag as it has been adopted; the only difference was, that he added a red hammer and sickle emblem in the center of the big star.

There were 3012 proposals, from which 38 (including the one by Zeng Liansong) were chosen for the eventual decision by a committee. Many of the proposals were rejected, because they were too similar to flags used by the Soviet Union or other Communist Parties. The three favoured designs contained a red field with the golden star in the canton, and one, two or three thin golden horizontal bars dividing the flag in a larger (2/3) upper part and a smaller (1/3) lower part. The bars were to represent the rivers Huanghe, Yangtse and Zhu Jiang providing the basis for Chinese culture and history. Two committee members especially voted against these designs. Mr. Tian Han preferred the design by Zeng Liansong, that was just the 32nd of 38. Mr. Zhang Zhizhong (Guomindang) was against the designs with the golden bars, as these seemed to represent a separation of the country. Chairman Mao Zedong asked him, what he would prefer; he also voted for the design by Zeng Liansong, but without the hammer and sickle. So on September 27th the design by Zeng Liansong (without hammer and sickle) was approved, and on October 1st hoisted for the first time on Tiananmen Square.

Second proposal by Zeng Liansong