Proclamation of the People's Republic of China
The proclamation of the People's Republic of China was made by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on October 1, 1949, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The government of a new state under the CCP, formally called the Central People's Government, was proclaimed by Mao at the ceremony, which marked the foundation of the People's Republic of China.
Native name
中华人民共和国开国大典
Founding Ceremony of the People's Republic of China
October 1, 1949
Previously, the CCP had proclaimed the establishment of the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) within the discontinuous territories of China they controlled, on November 7, 1931, in Ruijin, Jiangxi. The CSR had lasted seven years until it was abolished in 1937.
The new national anthem of China March of the Volunteers was played for the first time, and the new national flag of the People's Republic of China (the Five-starred Red Flag) was officially unveiled to the newly founded state and hoisted for the first time during the celebrations as a 21-gun salute fired in the distance. The first public military parade of the People's Liberation Army took place following the national flag raising with the playing of the PRC national anthem.
The Republic of China (ROC) had retreated to the island of Taiwan by December 1949.
Celebrations[edit]
The first National Day military parade took place right after the proclamation of the PRC. Commanded by Nie Rongzhen, the Commander of the Northern China Military Region and inspected by Zhu De, the Commander-in-Chief of the PLA, the parade involved around 16,000 PLA officers and personnel.[7] The parade, which was approved in June 1949, was the first large-scale and modern Chinese military parade, with the country having never done a public review of troops before under previous governments. Liu Bocheng proposed to parade directors Yang Chengwu and Tang Yanjie be organized in the Soviet format, having personally witnessed a military parade on Red Square in Moscow. The Northern Military Region Band (now the Central Military Band of the PLA) provided musical accompaniment which included the Military Anthem of the People's Liberation Army’.[5]
The Government of the Republic of China and the Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek through his letter on the 38th Republic of China National Day described the PRC as a "puppet regime of the Soviet Union".
