Last modified: 2007-09-22 by phil nelson
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The China Merchants Group still exists. Nowadays it has its headquarters in Hong Kong, and it has a website (www.cmhk.com). Its history page (available only in Chinese) lists the important events throughout the company's 130-year history. Here I will quote only a few relevant ones.
In light of this information, I can say that while the yellow disc on red
flag was, strictly speaking, the house flag of CMSNC, it was the de facto
Chinese merchant ensign during the monarchy. Moreover,
the list does not mention the variant flags with one or two dragons inside the
disc - so my old assertion that these variants were fantasy flags still stands.
In any case, The yellow moon flag is no longer flown nowadays... but at least
they still remember it.
Miles Li, 7 December 2003
According to the COSCO website, 1949 saw the bulk of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. seized by Taiwan. Thereafter the fleet appeared in Lloyds as China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. based in Taipei.
As Miles says it appears that the yellow moon flag is no longer flown.
Neale Rosanoski, 9 August 2007
See also:
image contributed by Neale Rosanoski, 9 August 2007
The flag shown in Brown 1995 [lgr95] below is wrong in that the blue bands should be white. I fear the gremlins hit the Brown printing in this case and previous editions show it correctly. As is stated in the Brown notes, the livery above was used for most of vessels of the Government of the People's Republic of China with COSCO adopting its own flag, being the 2nd version shown by Jorge, in the early 1990s.
image by Jarig Bakker, 21 January 2006
Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels of Shipping Companies of the World
[lgr95]
Beijing - horizontal brightblue - red - brightblue
flag; in center 5-pointed star between two rows of three waves, all yellow.
Jarig Bakker, 21 January 2006
image by Jorge Candeias, 15 February 1999
image contributed by Neale Rosanoski, 9 August 2007
image contributed by Neale Rosanoski, 9 August 2007
I am told that COSCO (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
adds " SINGAPORE" in smaller white lettering to the group flag.
Neale Rosanoski, 9 August 2007
image by Eugene Ipavec, 3 September 2006
Recently at Boone Scripophily was a 1939 Chinese share for ‘Shanghai Inland River Steamer Transport Co. Ltd’ in the ‘Navigation’ section.
As noted:
10 Shares. brown, yellow, black. No 52. Fine vignettes of two of the company's river-steamers on the river. Also the company's flag, also seen on the steamers. Text all in Chinese. Two punch-holes near edge.
Jan Mertens, 2 September 2006
image by Eugene Ipavec, 23 March 2006
One of the gems offered in Boone Scripophily’s recent auction was a share of the Yangtze River Transport Co.
Comments: “50 Shares, 2500 yuan. blue, green, black, red. No 210. Issued during the period of Japanese occupation of Shanghai. Company flag. Text in Chinese.”
Year of issue was 1943. The house flag is shown at the top of the document
and is horizontally divided: the background being white, on the upper half are
placed four red stripes whereas the lower half contains a red saltire touching
the lower stripe.
Jan Mertens, 20 March 2006
The flag is a highly modified version of the Chinese ideogram 長 (Chá ng) from 長江 (Cháng Jiāng), the modern Chinese name of the Yangtze River. It was common for many flags in Japan and Japanese-controlled areas to adopt flags bearing highly modified ideograms. Examples include: