why are taiwanese and myramar (burma) flags so much alike? i’ve asked the burmese i know and get a shrug. taiwanese have no idea what i’m taking about. does a taiwan/chinese junta still rule there or has it been edged out by the natives? that burma is but a police state colony of a KMT master is the only reason i can surmise. any thoughts?
Pure chance. Many, many flags have red, white and blue, and have a rectangle in the upper left corner.
And by the way the country’s name is “Myanmar” although most of us who are opposed to the bastards currently in power still refer to it as Burma.
The current Burmese flag dates from the 1970s and there is no way they would choose a KMT flag. The Burmese fought a bitter war against the KMT in the 1950s. The KMT were trying to use Burma’s Shan States as a base from which to retake China. They had to be forcibly evicted; some went across the border to Northern Thailand but many were flown to Taiwan.
The Burmese government has long been xenophobic, and when the military came to power in 1962 they kicked out many of their Chinese and Indian citizens.
Long live Aung San Suu Kyi!!
There are a lot of flags that display a great lack ot originality. Look at all the tricolores. There’s no connection between them usually
Taiwan and Myanmar/Burma are not the only countries with similar flags. How about Australia and New Zealand? It is difficult to tell them apart from a distance.
Like Taiwan’s flag, Australia’s flag is a bit of an anachronism too. (i.e. the union jack in the corner is indicative of our nation’s former subservience to the British Crown). I do know there is some sort of movement in Australia to adopt a new flag. (e.g. this and this) Is there a similar movement in Taiwan? (I think there might have been a thread on this topic a while ago) Taiwan’s flag is quite ridiculous in that it is the flag of the ROC, which incorporates the flag of the KMT 
Australia and NZ do have similar flags, but that’s not a coincidence, there is a shared history there.
I’ve always found the flag of Luxembourg hard to tell apart from the Netherlands if the blue is too dark.
Nepal has a distintive flag, it’s not even rectangular.
While we’re on flags, may I mention the yellow in the German flag just to annoy rascal ? 
I just found this website about Taiwan flags.
And this article from the Taipei Times: The Taiwan flag debate from a new perspective
I thought it had something to do with the ROCs relationship with Burma during WWII and also something to do with the OPium trade which the KMT use to run together with the Burmese out of Myanmar. But I was just guessing…
www3.itu.int/missions/Myanmar/flag.htm
The State Flag is rectangular in shape and its background colour is red with a dark blue canton at the top left corner. A pinion and ears of paddy encircled with fourteen white stars of equal size have been superimposed on the dark blue field of the canton.
The center of the pinion coincides with the center of the blue canton. The pinion has fourteen cogs of equal size and within it are two ears of paddy consisting of 34 grains. At the top of each cog of the pinion is a star with five vertices.
Of the three colours of the flag, red signifies courage and decisiveness , white signifies purity and virtue and dark blue signifies peace and integrity.
[Note: The State Flag of the Union of Myanmar was adopted on the 3rd January 1974 in accordance with Article 190 of the Constitution of the Union of Myanmar]
My probings indicate that the designs of both the Republic of China and Myanmar/Burmese flags, and, less obviously, the American Stars and Stripes (see U.S. flag evolution and historic flags) are ultimately derived from the British Red Ensign, also known as the “Colonial Red Ensign,” flown on civil vessels under the British Empire.
[quote=“Anyflag.com”]
The best known of the British Maritime flags, or Ensigns, which were formed by placing the Union flag in the canton of another flag having a field of white, blue or red. This flag is also known as the Meteor flag, and was widely used on ships during the Colonial period. This was the first National flag of the United States.[/quote]
(Note: The flag shown above dates from a time when Ireland was not a part of the United Kingdom, which is why it does not include the red cross of Saint Patrick. Northern Ireland is still a part of the United Kingdom today, which is why the cross of Saint Patrick is still present on the Union Jack.)
The present-day Republic of China flag was adopted as China’s naval ensign in 1913, but was only adopted at the national flag in 1928, prior to which the R.O.C. national flag consisted of five horizontal stripes (see tmg110.tripod.com/china1.htm )
Republic of China national flag, 1928-present
[quote=“wix”]I just found this website about Taiwan flags.
And this article from the Taipei Times: The Taiwan flag debate from a new perspective[/quote]
The “Republic of Taiwan” flag was proposed nine years ago, and was hoisted by demonstrators at CKS airport, where it flew for a couple of days. However, the flag did not really catch on. Some people find particularly objectionable its perceived resemblance to the flag of the Japanese emperor, which proves in the minds of the flag’s critics that Taiwan independence supporters are the successors to those who collaborated with the Japanese occupation.
p.s. These “invalid sessions” are driving me up the f***ing wall.
(Yeah me too :x )
Interesting that you mention China and Myanmar (really Burma). The thugs in power in Yangon are strongly supported by the butchers in Beijing.
As for other similiar flags, Poland and Indonesia have inverse flags, both featuring red and white. Monaco and Indonesia have identical flags as far as I can see.
On a related note, I’m not sure it is more respectful to the country’s citizens to refer to their country as Burma. I know that many people make a point of calling it Burma rather than Myanmar, because the country was renamed Myanmar by the present government, which is nothing more than a bunch of military thugs who refused to turn over the reins to Aung San Suu Kye when she was elected president by 80 percent of the citizens in 1990, and in addition the government rapes, tortures and kills ethnic minorities and political opponents, uses slave labor, and is rapidly depleting the country’s natural resources to line the pockets of the generals (and some greedy foreign companies).
I can understand why one wouldn’t want to use the name that those thugs use. But Burma is a name that was created by the country’s foreign colonizers, the British. In renaming the country Myanmar, the generals were restoring a name that was used by the country’s own people before it was colonized, not a name selected by outsiders.
“In 1989, the military government decided that the country should have a new name that would symbolize the inclusion of all these minorities I have mentioned (and more) and that these minorities should be able to identify with the new name. In the past, the Burmese had used two names for their country, Bamah or Bamar (which the British changed to Burma and the Germans to Birma) and Myanmar or Myanma. The generals changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar, choosing the name of a former kingdom that had ruled most of the area that today comprises Myanmar.”
There’s no question that the present government is illigitimate and bad, but is it better to use the name Burma, that was chosen by intruders, or the name Myanmar that was used before the British took over and was only re-bestowed on the country by the thugs?
Yes. 
Yes. 8-)[/quote]
What other name is there to use? I know of no history of the use of the term Myanmar prior to British colonization. If I am in error, please correct me. I am familiar with terms like Pagan and Mandalay, but not Myanmar prior to 1989.
from what i’ve been able to dig up, the “former kingdom that ruled most of the area” that comprise present day burma was the burman kingdom of bagan, therefore the name burma. burman being an ethnic group.
in the explanation that the junta leaders provided, they decided to give burma a new name, and then claim to use an old name. which is it?
Burma still stands.
And that is the name Burmese once preferred. Back in the 1930s when the nationalist movement emerged they debated what name they should give the country. They didn’t want to alienate the many non-ethnic Burman peoples such as the Kachin, Karen, Mon and Chin. They noted that “myanma naingngan [the myanmar state] … meant only the part of the country where the Burmans lived. This was the name given by the Burmese kings to the country. But this is not correct usage. Bama naingngan is not the country where only the myanma people live. It is the country where different nationalities such as the Kachins, Karens, Kayahs, Chins, Pa-Os, Palaungs, Mons, Myanmars, Rahkines, Shans reside”
Burma is not some colonial name forced on a country. It is simply a corruption of bama. Burma is the correct name. Fifty years later the criminals in power decided the opposite was true.
The country is Burma.