Introduction of Manchurian National Flag
National flag is one of the most essential symbols of a nation. As a commonly seen image, the flag shows how this nation represents herself to the world with succinct colors, stripes, and emblems. The meanings of a national flag are usually about the founding principles of a nation, as well as her backgrounds.
The national flag of Manchuria was announced on March 1, 1932 (Datung/Daidou 1), which was the day when Manchukuo was founded.
The meanings of the Flag of Manchuria are deeply rooted in East Asian culture and traditions, the patriotic sentiment towards the Manchurian nation, as well as the dedication to a “Kingly Way Politics” (王道政治) for a blessed future of Manchuria.
The five colors used in the design of the Manchurian national flag all have deep meanings in the traditional Asian “Five Elements (五行)” culture. These five colors correspond to five main bearings on earth, five main elements in nature, and five main moralities in human society. Yellow represents the Center (中央), Earth (土), and the Kingly Benevolence (王者之仁德) that rules and unites the entire realm because the Center rules over the other four bearings (East, West, North, and South), as the Center leads to them and unites everywhere together. Thus, it symbolizes the spirits of integration, fraternity, harmony, and goodwill. Red represents the South (南方), Fire (火), and symbolizes honesty, sincerity and enthusiasm. Blue represents the East (東方), Wood (木), and symbolizes youth and holiness. White represents the West (西方), Metal (金) and symbolizes purity, innocence and righteousness. Black represents the North (北方), Water (水), and symbolizes determination, perseverance and endurance. When the Five Bearings on earth stand with each other; the Five Elements in nature nourish and reinforce each other; and the Five Moralities in society are combined with each other, people will live in harmony and the nation will prosper. And among the Five Elements, Earth plays an especially important role. Without Earth, there is no ground for Fire, Wood, Metal, and Water to exist. Manchurians believe that this is not only the fundamental law of nature, but also the basic rule of our community and nation: without the Kingly Way Politics, there is no way to achieve the virtuous governance which is necessary for security and prosperity, and the moralities represented by the other four colors will be out of question. For this reason, when Manchukuo was founded, Manchurians chose these five colors and made them this way on the national flag. Especially, yellow was made the color of the ground which took ¾ space of the flag to emphasize the Kingly Way Politics as the founding principle of Manchukuo.
Also, this flag symbolizes “Sheji” (社稷 in Manchurian character, literal meaning: soil and grain), a concept that represents “land and people” in traditional Asian culture. From this perspective, five colors correspond to Five Soils (五土), each color of which represents the soil of that color. And Five Soils correspond to Five Grains (五穀). Combined, they represent the blessings from heaven on the nation, land, and people of Manchuria.
This flag shows the pure and devoted wishes of millions of Manchurians for a beautiful and fruitful future, a principled life that admires Heaven and respects ancestors (敬天法祖), and for the Manchurian nation to last forever and her “Kingly Way Politics” to light up the world.
The above are the meanings declared in the official statements and laws issued by the Government of Manchukuo when the nation was founded, nothing more and nothing less.
Since the Founding of Manchukuo, the Government of Manchuria had issued several official statements, explaining the meanings of the Manchurian national flag in details. His Excellency Cheng Hsiao-hsu（鄭孝胥）, the founding Prime Minister of Manchuria and the first President of the Concordia Association, personally wrote some of these documents. The above interpretations of the Manchurian national flag are based on the official explanations at that time from those documents.
Since the time when this Manchurian national flag was introduced to the world, there have been lot of misunderstandings of the meanings of this flag. A very common misunderstanding is that the five colors represent the five main ethnic groups of Manchukuo: yellow for Bannermen, red for Han, blue for Mongols, white for Japanese and black for Koreans, that five people live in harmony in one nation, under the Bannermen rule (that is rumored as the reason of yellow to be the color of the ground and take most space). This interpretation seems plausible and that is why many people have fallen for it. But we have to clearly say that this is a wrong way to understand the meanings of the Manchurian national flag. Indeed, Manchurians consist of many groups of people. However, all ethnic groups have equal status, both in laws and reality. Everyone, no matter their race or ethnicity, has equal rights, including equal opportunities in politics. The misinterpretation that this flag symbolizes that in Manchuria all people live under the rule of one ethnicity shows the lack of knowledge in not only the meanings of the Manchurian national flag, but also in Manchurian politics, history, culture and society.
It is actually understandable that many people interpret the Manchurian flag this wrong way, because it does some sort of look like the “Five-Color Flag” of Republic of China in its early era (1912~1928).
The five colors in this Chinese flag do represent the five main ethnicities in China at that time to show the spirit of “five(multi)-ethnic republicanism”: red for Hans, yellow for Bannermen, blue for Mongolians, white for Hui (Muslim), and black for Tibetans, one “group” corresponds to one color which they most commonly use. Since the Chinese five-color flag use colors to represent so-called “ethnicities”, many people think that the Manchurian flag which has the similar five colors on it must have similar meanings. But after reading the above explanation based on the official documents of Government of Manchukuo, who made the choice of the national flag design, one can clearly draw the conclusion that the parallel between the Manchurian flag and the Republic of China flag is completely wrong. In fact, we two countries use the similar colors in completely different ways.
The five colors on the Manchurian national flag represent the Founding Spirits of Manchukuo, the uniqueness and abundance of the Manchurian land, as well as the principles, beliefs and wishes of the Manchurian people. The Manchurian national flag has her own cultural and ideological meanings deeply rooted in the unique Manchurian society, the traditional East Asian culture, and most importantly, the Founding Spirits of Manchuria that seek for a constitutional monarchy of “Kingly Way Politics” and a true state of “Concordia” among all groups of people.
