Today, the anthem is seldom referred to as "Yiyonggjun Jinxingqu" (The March of the Volunteers). The terms the "Zhongguo Guoge" (Chinese National Song), or more formally the "Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guoge" (National Song of the People's Republic of China) are commonly used in China.
The March of the Volunteers is the national anthem of China. Written in 1935, it was adopted in 1949 as the national anthem by the new Chinese Communist government.
Tian Han, a Chinese poet and playwright wrote the words to the song. It's believed they come from the lyrics to a play he was writing in 1934. It was Nie Er, a famous musician of that time, who composed the supporting music, which was initially written as a musical march.
In 1935 "The March of the Volunteers" became the theme song for a popular anti-Japanese film and play; "Sons and Daughters of the Storm". The play told the story of how people left to fight the Japanese who invaded China in the 1930's. The song established itself as the voice of the Chinese people's resolve to oppose foreign aggression. It became the inspiration for many Chinese to resist the Japanese invasion.
After victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China (CPC) established a committee in the June of 1949. Its task was to choose a national anthem for the soon-to-be-founded People's Republic of China. From those earlier years of Japanese resistance, "The March of the Volunteers' was the song many associate with national pride and unity. It was for this reasons it became the immediate favourite as the official national anthem. It eventually won nearly every committee vote from the almost 7000 other entries.
The song was adopted as the provisional national anthem on September 27, 1949, just days before the PRC were officially founded on the 1 October, 1949. The new anthem was used for the first time at an international conference in Prague, Czechoslovakia that same year.
During the mid 1960's to mid 1970's, in the height of the political chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Tian Han was imprisoned, where he later died - some say murdered - at the age of 70. As a result of his detention his song was banned. It's during the period when "The March of the Volunteers" lost its political support that the popular Communist song
The East is Red became the unofficial anthem.
With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1978, an amended version of the "March of the Volunteers" was reintroduced as the anthem. The words to this revised version gave particular praise to the Communist Party and its leader, Mao Zedong. However, with the death of Moa and the sweeping political and economic changes of his predecessor, Deng Xiaoping, the original 1935 version of "The March of the Volunteers" was reinstated as the national anthem in 1982.
In 2004 the "March of the Volunteers" was entered into the constitution under Article 136 as the official national anthem of the People's Republic of China.
It's also the official anthem of Hong Kong and Macau since July 1st, 1997 and December 20th, 1999 respectively. Both these dates correspond to the hand over of these colonial territories by the United Kingdom and Portugal to China.
