This Week In Vexillology #5

Pass the crab rangoons and the sweet n'sour sauce kids, because this week, we've got China. Two times the China because we're throwing Taiwan in here just for fun, so buckle up and get ready- because here we go:

The bigger China, is of course, the People's Republic of China:

Adopted October 1st, 1949 for national and civil usage, red plays a prominent role in the flag, as it represents (surprise, surprise) the communist revolution. But- it's also a traditional color of the Chinese people. The large star represents communism and the four smaller stars represent the four social classes of the Chinese people (peasants, workers, petty bourgeoisie and patriotic capitalists.)

Awkwardly hanging out just across the Taiwan Straits from it's larger counterpart we've got Taiwan or if you want to drop it's official name into discussions just to make things super awkward, the straight up Republic of China. After the end of the Civil War in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomingtang (KMT) fled across the straits and set up in Taiwan and amazingly enough, they're still there today. This flag was adopted on October 28th, 1928 for national usage and was the national flag of China from 1928 to 1949 when the KMT ruled China.

Overall the flag is said to represent 'a white sun in a blue sky over red land.' The upper left quadrant is taken from the old party flag of the KMT which was a blue flag with a white sun- each ray of the sun represents two hours of the day. The red recalls the Han Chinese, the dominant race in China.

The whole PRC versus ROC thing gets a little awkward* and contentious at times. There's a sizable pro-independance political party/movement on Taiwan and the PRC doesn't like that one little bit. One China after all! Though Taiwan can probably look askance at the notion of 'One China, Two Systems' given how dodgy some of Beijing's meddling in Hong Kong has been over the past few years. Interestingly enough, 22 countries and the Vatican still recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the only China. Occasionally, you'll see in the news that Beijing has managed to flip one country or another into recognizing them so there's an interesting diplomatic tussle that's been going on for awhile now.

They managed to fudge the Olympics (and most other international sporting events) though, giving Taiwan a separate flag and making them compete as Chinese Taipei (whatever that means):

Pretty basic here... blue, red and white are the national colors. The sun is taken from Taiwan's national flag and the rings show that it's an Olympic flag.

Until next time keep your flags flying- freak or otherwise!

*(It gets even more interesting from the point of view of US Foreign Policy. Our opening to China is one of the fascinatingly complex foreign policy moves of the past century. We didn't want to leave Taiwan out in the cold, but opening up to the PRC stuck it to the Soviets and shattered the myth of a monolithic Communist bloc so I believe our official stance is that if push came to shove, we'd give Taiwan the capability to defend itself- and probably send a fleet into the Taiwan Straits just to make sure and our only interest is a peaceful settlement to the Taiwan Question by the Chinese people themselves. There's more to it than that but just take a minute and parse how subtle that is... and check this book out if you want the full 4-1-1.)