China National Anthem — March of the Volunteers

"March of the Volunteers" is a defiant call to resistance. Written in the 1930s as Japan encroached on China, it urges those "who refuse to be slaves" to rise and, in its most famous image, to build a "new Great Wall" out of their own flesh and blood. It is a song of national emergency and collective will — millions marching as one against mortal danger — and that urgent, martial spirit is why it endured as the anthem of the People's Republic.

The anthem's history mirrors modern China's. During the Cultural Revolution its lyricist Tian Han was purged and imprisoned, and for years only the melody could be played; the original words were restored in 1982. Chosen deliberately for its message that the nation must never grow complacent even in triumph, "March of the Volunteers" remains one of the few anthems born from a film score to become a country's official song.

"March of the Volunteers" has music by Nie Er and lyrics by the dramatist Tian Han, composed in 1934–35 for the film "Children of Troubled Times". It was adopted as the provisional national anthem of the People's Republic of China in 1949, confirmed in 1982, and written into the constitution in 2004. A 2017 National Anthem Law governs its use.