This song had its lyrics written first by the communist playwright Tian Han in 1934, then set to melody by Nie Er and arranged by Aaron Avshalomov for the communist-aligned film Children of Troubled Times (1935).

[7] It became a famous military song during the Second Sino-Japanese War beyond the communist faction, most notably the Nationalist general Dai Anlan designated it to be the anthem of the 200th Division, who fought in Burma.

[10] The film is a story about a Chinese intellectual who flees during the Shanghai Incident to a life of luxury in Qingdao, only to be driven to fight the Japanese occupation of Manchuria after learning of the death of his friend.

[10] During March[12] and April 1935,[10] in Japan, Nie Er set the words (with minor adjustments)[10] to music; in May, Diantong's sound director He Luting had the Russian composer Aaron Avshalomov arrange their orchestral accompaniment.

[13] The song was performed by Gu Menghe and Yuan Muzhi, along with a small and "hastily-assembled" chorus; He Luting consciously chose to use their first take, which preserved the Cantonese accent of several of the men.

[10] On 9 May, Gu and Yuan recorded it in more standard Mandarin for Pathé Orient's Shanghai branch[d] ahead of the movie's [clarification needed] release, so that it served as a form of advertising for the film.

[10][17] Although the movie [clarification needed] did not perform well enough to keep Diantong from closing, its theme song became wildly popular: musicologist Feng Zikai reported hearing it being sung by crowds in rural villages from Zhejiang to Hunan within months of its release[11] and, at a performance at a Shanghai sports stadium in June 1936, Liu's chorus of hundreds was joined by its audience of thousands.

[10] In exile in New York City in 1940, Liu Liangmo taught it to Paul Robeson, the college-educated polyglot folk-singing son of a runaway slave.

[10][g] Its 3-disc album included a booklet whose preface was written by Soong Ching-ling, widow of Sun Yat-sen,[23] and its initial proceeds were donated to the Chinese resistance.

[24][h] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and beginning of the Pacific War, the march was played locally in India, Singapore, and other locales in Southeast Asia;[13] the Robeson recording was played frequently on British, American, and Soviet radio;[13] and a cover version performed by the Army Air Force Orchestra[26] appears as the introductory music to Frank Capra's 1944 propaganda film The Battle of China and again during its coverage of the Chinese response to the Rape of Nanking.

Originally intended for Paris, French authorities refused so many visas for its delegates that a parallel conference was held in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

[13] In June, a committee was set up by the Chinese Communist Party to decide on an official national anthem for the soon-to-be declared People's Republic of China.

His view was supported by Mao Zedong and, on 27 September 1949, the song became the provisional national anthem, just days before the founding of the People's Republic.

[citation needed] The 1 February 1966 People's Daily article condemning Tian Han's 1961 allegorical Peking opera Xie Yaohuan as a "big poisonous weed"[30] was one of the opening salvos of the Cultural Revolution,[31] during which he was imprisoned and his words forbidden to be sung.

[13] The anthem was restored by the 5th National People's Congress on 5 March 1978,[33] but with rewritten lyrics including references to the Chinese Communist Party, communism, and Chairman Mao.

Article 7 of the law requires that the anthem be accurately performed pursuant to the sheet music in its Appendix 4 and prohibits the lyrics from being altered.

[39] Nonetheless, the Chinese National Anthem in Mandarin now forms a mandatory part of public secondary education in Hong Kong as well.

[41][42] The official policy was long ignored, but—following massive and unexpected public demonstrations in 2003 against proposed anti-subversion laws—the ruling was reiterated in 2004[43][44] and, by 2008, most schools were holding such ceremonies at least once or twice a year.

Viewed by many as propaganda,[47][48][49] even after a sharp increase in support in the preceding four years, by 2006, the majority of Hongkongers remained neither proud nor fond of the anthem.

[20] Nie's piece is a march, a Western form, opening with a bugle call and a motif (with which it also closes) based on an ascending fourth interval from D to G inspired by "The Internationale".

[53] Its rhythmic patterns of triplets, accented downbeats, and syncopation and use (with the exception of one note, F♯ in the first verse) of the G major pentatonic scale,[53] however, create an effect of becoming "progressively more Chinese in character" over the course of the tune.

[12] Howard Taubman, the New York Times music editor, initially panned the tune as telling us China's "fight is more momentous than her art" although, after US entrance into the war, he called its performance "delightful".