Five Races Under One Union

Five Races Under One Union
The center flag is the Five-Colored Flag of the Republic of China. Underneath the three flags is the message: Long live the union (共和萬歲)
Traditional Chinese	五族共和
Literal meaning	five races (ethnic groups) living together in mutual harmony
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin wǔzú gōnghé Wade–Giles wǔ-tsú kūng-hé Yale Romanization wǔdzú gūnghé IPA [ùtsǔ kʊ́ŋxɤ̌] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization ngh juhk guhng wòh IPA [ŋ̬̍ tsʊ̀k kʊ̀ŋ wɔ̏ː] Jyutping ng5 zuk6 gung6 wo4 Southern Min Hokkien POJ gō͘ cho̍k kiōng-hô

National Flag of the Republic of China

Name	Five-coloured flag (五色旗)
Use	Civil and state flag
Proportion	5:8
Adopted	January 10, 1912
Design	Five horizontal bands of red, yellow, blue, white and black.

Five Races Under One Union was one of the major principles upon which the Republic of China was founded in 1911 at the time of the Xinhai Revolution.

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" (above all Muslim in China) (white); and the Tibetans (black).

The term "Muslim" in this context (including the term 回, huí, in Chinese) primarily referred to the Muslim Turkic peoples in Western China, since the term "Muslim Territory" (回疆; "Huijiang") was an older name for Xinjiang during the Qing dynasty. The meaning of the term "Hui people" gradually shifted to its current sense—a group distinguished from the Han Chinese by little other than their Muslim faith and distant foreign ancestry during the period of roughly 1911–49 in the Republic of China.

During the Sui dynasty, there were historical records of a system of military banners using the colors red (fire), blue (wood), yellow (earth), white (metal), and black (water) representing the five elements. Tang dynasty inherited this system, and has arranged the colors in a united flag according to the above order of elements for military use. In liao and song period the Khitan people in Chinese Painting use the same with the five-color flag.In Mongol period also have "five colors four ethnics（五色四夷）"symbol multiracial under Yuan dynasty. In subsequent historical periods, this "flag of the five united elements" were altered and readapted for military or official uses. In the Qing dynasty painting which records the Banners victory over the Muslim Du Wenxiu rebellion in Yunnan, a Qing military flag with the five elements arranged in the order of yellow, white, black, green and red can be seen.