Flag-raising Ceremony Observed on China’s National Celebration Day
An impressing flag-raising ceremony marked the celebration of the 60 anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Thursday morning in central Beijing.
Liu Qi, secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), announced the commencement of the anniversary celebration on Tian’anmen Square in the heart of the Chinese capital.
In the ceremony parade, 200 national flag guards dressed in olive green uniforms walked down the platform Monument to the People’s Heroes amid 60 gun salutes in the centre of Tian’anmen Square, parading northward on ared carpet toward the national flag post.
In the parade, the guards walked a total of 169 steps, a symbol of 169 years since 1840, a watershed in China’s history when it lost the Opium War with Britain, which finally resulted in the scramble of Western powers in China.
In the ceremony, President Hu Jintao, flanked by former president Jiang Zemin, top legislator Wu Bangguo, Premier Wen Jiabao and other leaders and invited guests, stood in the balcony of Tian’anmen Rostrum overlooking the packed square.
During the hoisting of flag, many sang in chorus with the 1,300-member military band playing the national anthem.
The 440,000-square-meter Tian’anmen Square is believed to be the largest city square in the world. Six decades ago, the founding ceremony of the PRC was held on the square and late Chairman Mao Zedong announced the birth of New China. Mao himself pressed the button to hoist the first national flag of the PRC.
