It’s a trope you’ll see everywhere from war movies to Tom and Jerry cartoons. But why is waving a white flag used as a symbol of capitulation or surrender? ​Well, given that historians in ancient Rome and ancient China were referring to a white flag being used in times of surrender some 2,000 years ago, this is by no means a modern convention. Across in China, a white flag had become a symbol of surrender during the early Han Dynasty too, which rose to power as far back as AD 25.mrPliskin/GettyImagesWhy White Became the StandardAlthough it seems likely that the Eastern and Western worlds adopted the use of a white flag entirely independently, the choice of white here is by no means a coincidence, and is instead based on two simple considerations: visibility and convenience. On the one hand, a bright plain white flag or piece of fabric would understandably stand out among the other more colorful flags, pennants, and banners typically carried by troops onto the battlefields of history.