OCTOBER 11, 2024 — At the Hongyan Spirit Exhibition Hall in China, there is a special exhibit featuring a unique version of the Chinese national flag. Unlike the official design, this flag has one large star in the center, with four smaller stars positioned at each corner.
On October 7, 1949, seven days after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, communists revolutionaries such as Luo Guangbin, Wang Pu, and Chen Ran, who were imprisoned in Chongqing’s Baigongguan concentration camp by the Nationalist government, heard the news of the establishment of the new Beijing regime. Luo suggested that they make a five-star red flag in anticipation of Chongqing’s liberation.
According to People’s Daily, at the time, none of the imprisoned revolutionaries had ever seen the new flag of the People’s Republic of China. Although they knew that the flag featured five stars on a red background, they were unsure about the exact arrangement of those stars. As a result, this makeshift flag – their imagined version of the national flag – was born.
In a coverage of the exhibition by the Chinese military newsletter, Luo Guangbin’s daughter, Hu Bo, explained that they used a small carving knife made from an iron shard to carve five stars out of straw paper. They then used rice grains to stick the stars onto a red embroidered quilt cover.
Chongqing would be taken by the Communists forces a month later, but not before the retreating Nationalist forces performed a purge of communists in the city.
Image: From People’s Daily