Abstract: A party flag is a symbol of a party, and a national flag a nation-state. They can be used to unit people and shape identity. They are also tools for a political party and a government to conduct their power and justify their rule. After the establishment of the Nanjing National Government, the KMT(Kuomintang) designed the national flag based on its party flag, and both of them were political symbols of the KMT. In the early period of the Nanjing National Government, the KMT elucidated the symbolic meaning of the flags to justify their rule, and utilized the state apparatus to promote these political symbols nationwide. Meanwhile, the KMT implemented physical discipline and ideological "brainwash" by means of hanging the flags, conducting the party-state ceremony of "bowing three times to the party and national flags" and promoting the significance and history of the flags. The KMT expected that people would recognize its ideology and regime by accepting these political symbols. However, under the political and social condition of that time, the KMT's efforts to construct political identity with these political symbols were not effective at all.

Key words: party flag, national flag, identity, before the Anti-Japanese War, Nanjing National Government