Chinese Peace Symbols: Pingan, Heping and Their Uses

Published by Anthony
on November 14, 2026

Choose between pingan and heping for different kinds of peace, and see how Chinese art expresses safety through vases and quail and public peace through doves.

Quick Answer: What Are Chinese Symbols for Peace?

Pingan (平安, píng’ān) means being safe and sound. Heping (和平, hépíng) means peace between people or groups and is the word used in phrases about world peace. A vase or quail can contribute to an older visual pun about safety, while a dove appears in twentieth-century art about public peace.^{[1][2][3][5][6]}

A personal wish: Use pingan to wish someone safety or to describe a safe arrival.^[1]
A shared condition: Use heping when the subject is peaceful relations or the absence of war.^[2]
A visual clue: A vase can supply the sound of the first part of pingan, and a quail can supply the second.^[3][5]

The subject and occasion help you choose between the two words.

Chinese peace symbols Pingan and Heping with a vase quail and doves

A New Year porcelain design and a twentieth-century peace painting may both involve a good wish. The porcelain can ask for safety for a recipient or household. A peace painting can speak to relations among peoples or countries.^[3][4][6]

When to Use Pingan or Heping

Pingan describes being out of danger. It can be used of someone returning home safely or of a ship reaching port. For a personal wish about a journey, the phrase 一路平安 (yī lù píng’ān) asks for safety along the way. A gift or greeting for a household can also use pingan to convey a wish that people remain safe and well.^[1][3]

Heping can describe an absence of conflict or war. The expression 世界和平 (shìjiè hépíng) means world peace. Both words can be translated with “peace.” Pingan suits a message about someone’s safety, while heping fits a discussion of peace between groups.^[1][2]

How a Vase Suggests Safety

The word for vase or bottle, 瓶 (píng), sounds like 平 (píng), the first character of pingan. A designer can therefore represent a wish with an object and leave the words unwritten. The other objects and decorations can make the intended wording more specific.^[3][4]

A crackled porcelain vase from the Qianlong reign, 1736–1795, illustrates a wish for safety year after year (岁岁平安, suìsuì píng’ān). The vase supplies the sound píng. The broken-looking pattern in the glaze evokes 碎 (suì), “to break,” which sounds like 岁 (suì), “year.” The network of lines is a characteristic of the glazed surface.^[3]

An export plate dated 1700–1725 pairs a vase with other motifs to express peace and good luck. Its design also includes chimes, which help extend the wording to a wish that things go as desired. Auspicious mushrooms and ruyi heads show another way an object or its outline can carry a wish.^[4]

Why Quail Can Complete the Wish

The first syllable in the Chinese name for quail, 鹌鹑 (ānchún), sounds like 安 (ān), the second part of pingan. The bird can be read with other images as part of a decorative rebus. A Qing box carved from nephrite uses the bird’s rounded body as the form of the vessel.^[5]

The quail motif can also appear in pairs. A pair may double the wish for peace or safety. The companion images and the place the birds occupy still matter. A pair represented on a gift object and two birds in a landscape need not carry exactly the same reading.^[5]

Doves and Public Peace in Modern Chinese Art

Qi Baishi’s Hundred Flowers and Doves of Peace marked the 1952 Asia-Pacific Peace Conference in Beijing. The doves belong to a twentieth-century setting in which images of the bird circulated through international peace meetings. The event and the work’s title give the birds a specific public meaning.^[6]

A porcelain vase can call up a Chinese syllable. The doves in Qi’s painting take their meaning from the title and conference as well as from the wider circulation of the image. This gives a reader a reason to check the period and intended audience when a work is described as a peace symbol.^[3][6]