Last modified: 2006-07-29 by phil nelson
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National flag, Civil ensign and war jack
image by Mark Sensen, 26 June 1996
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In the 30ies and 40ies great parts of China were occupied by the Japanese.
During this time several "puppet states" have been established. Manchuria or Manzhouguo
(this is the "official" transcription of Chinese used in the PRC, in English it
is often written Manchukuo), located in northeast
China. It existed between 1932 and 1945. Officially it was an empire under the
last Chinese emperor Puyi who used here the name Kangde.
Harald Müller, 11 December 1995
The flag: a yellow field (symbolizing unification), with four horizontal stripes
in the upper right corner: red (bravery), blue (justice), white
(purity) and black (determination).
Bruce Tindall, 9 December 1995
It's interesting that the Manchukuo flag is the Chinese republican one with
the yellow taken out and turned into the field. All the references I've seen gave
red as being for the Han Chinese. The usual interpretation from the Smith book
quoted gives yellow as representing the Manchurians, which would explain its promotion
in the Manchukuo flag.
Roy Stilling, 9 December 1995
The state ensign is the same except that instead of a canton the stripes cover
the top 1/3(+/-) of the flag.
Nathan Augustine, 05 December 1995
There are plenty flag related interesting things on that period to read in a book called Chinese Civil Wars 1911-1949 edited by Osprey in the collection Men at Arms, number 306.
Well, I don't know about that book by Osprey, but I have a book called
Flags of All Nations [smt47]by Smith & Taylor, 1947. This book shows the flag of
Manchukuo in color. The flag's field is a mustard-color
yellow. The text description calls the field yellow. I would call it mustard color
(European mustard, not American, which is real yellow).
Philippe Bondurand, 06 December 1997
I've seen another Mandchukuo flag. It was a plain yellow flag with a gold "orchid"
flower (in French "orchidée") in its center. Maybe it was the imperial flag of
Emperor Kangte?
Jerome, 06 December 1997
The flower is Chinese spring orchid which is not actually available in Manchukou
but Emperor's favorite flower then.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 28 January 2005
The flag of Manchoukuo postal system. The postal insignia appears to have been
adopted around 15 September 1935 and used until 1945. The insignia represents
the Chinese word yu, using however, 2 of the 40 ideographs. In the insignia,
the first character of the yu was turned 90 degrees and the second character
was made symmetrical so that both the obverse and reverse were identical.
Phil Nelson, 26 January 2000