Five Races Under One Union

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The center flag is the Five-Colored Flag of the Republic of China. Underneath the flags is the message: "Long live the union" (共和萬歲)

Five races under one union (traditional Chinese: 五族共和; pinyin: wǔzú gōnghé, literally "five races or five ethnic groups together in harmony") was one of the major principles upon which the Republic of China was originally founded. This principle emphasized the harmony of the five major ethnic groups in China as represented by the colored stripes of the Five-Colored Flag of the Republic: the Han (red), the Manchus (yellow), the Mongols (blue), the Hui (white), and the Tibetans (black).

The term Hui in this context primarily referred to the group now known as Uyghur, since the term "Hui Territory" (回疆) meant Chinese Turkistan during the Qing Dynasty. The meaning of the term "Hui people" gradually shifted to its current sense—groups distinguished from the Han Chinese by little other than their Muslim faith—during the period of roughly 1911–49 in the Republic of China.

The concept of "five ethnic groups under one union" collapsed when the control of the ROC government was wrested from the Beijing-based Beiyang government by the Nanjing-based Kuomintang (KMT) government after the Northern Expedition.

A variation of this flag was adopted by Yuan Shikai's empire and the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (Flag of Manchukuo). In Manchukuo, similar slogan (五族協和) was used, but the five races are changed into Japanese (red), Han Chinese (blue), Mongols (white), Korean (black) and Manchus (yellow).

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Military insignia based on the flag	Air force roundel	National flag 1912-1928	National flag of Empire of China 1916
National flag of Empire of China 1916	National flag of Manchukuo 1932-1945