The First Flag of China
In 1868 Anson Burlingame led a Chinese delegation to Washingtion. It was on this occasion he ordered a flag made that would become the first internationally used national flag of China.
In 1867 the American diplomat Anson Burlingame ordered the first international standard national flag of China. It would be wrong to say that Burlingame‘s flag was the first flag of the Chinese empire, because the Chinese Imperial government did have flags often ordained with a five clawed dragon in the middle symbolizing the emperor, but Burlingame’s flag was the first flag used when the Qing dynasty started to send ambassadors out in the world.
The delegation led by Burlingame adapted traditonal Imperial features like the five-clawed dragon to the flag they used. The flag itself has been lost, but according to the descriptions it was very close to the national flag that would later be used by the Qing.
It is obviously interesting how an American came to order a Chinese flag. Burlingame was in 1862 made the first U.S. special envoy to China a title that today would equal ambassador, and as Burlingame was a real Republican at heart detesting anything that had to do with imperialism, he managed to make the first fully equal treaty with China after the Opium Wars, this treaty is still today simply just known as the Burlingame Treaty.
The Chinese side was so impressed by the American envoy, that when Burlingame's stint in Beijing was over the Imperial government simply just reached out to Burlingame asking him to become their representative when the treaty ought to be renegotiated. It was due to this peculiar set of circumstances that the American head of mission suddenly turned tables and represented the Chinese, and when the Chinese delegation arrived in the U.S, he ordered the first Chinese national flag from a workshop in Boston.
In mid autumn 1949 Zeng Liansong submitted his proposal for the flag of the People's Republiic of China. The only thing that was omitted from the flag that initially became the flag still in use today was the hammer and sickle in the larger star.
Later when the Qing dynasty collapsed the first flag of the Republic was the 5 coloured flag of the Northern army. In this flag the red colour represents Han-Chinese, the yellow Manchus, the blue mongols, white muslims and black Tibetans.
The first flag of the People’s Republic in use today was designed by Zeng Liansong in 1950. The biggest star in this flag is meant to symbolize the Chinese Communist party and the four smaller stars around it the classes of society: scholars, peasants, workers and merchants.