World coins chat: China

China is a country in East Asia that spans from Siberia in the north to Vietnam in the south. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the country most referred to as China or Mainland China. There is also the Republic of China (ROC), which is situated on the island of Taiwan and mostly known for that name.

China is the most populous country in the world with 1.3 billion souls. It is home to one of the oldest civilizations, with history going back thousands of years. This topic will deal mostly with modern times though.

From 1644 until 1912 the Qing Dynasty ruled China. They originated from Manchuria, a northeastern province bordering Mongolia, Russia and Korea which has its own language very different from Mandarin Chinese. In the 19th century, European powers fought the Boxer Wars which limited Chinese power, despite being far more populous than Europe. The Industrial Revolution had made European powers more productive than China and this enabled them to expand their influence in Asia. In 1840 Hong Kong was lost to the British, and in 1898 Kiautschou was lost to the German Empire. Macau was already Portuguese and the French held the port of Kouang-Tchéou-Wan from 1898. Russia and Japan challenged China in the north in Tannu Tuva and Manchuria. All these humiliations caused the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 that ended Qing rule and established the Republic of China.

The Republic of China was never stable. Local warlords fought their own wars either with each other or with the republic. Furthermore, a communist rebellion established a clandestine Chinese Soviet Republic in the 1930's and the Japanese Empire invaded most of China from 1937 after already having annexed Manchuria in 1931. Times were already hard for the average Chinese, during WW2 and after it became straight hell. The Japanese occupiers and their collaborators, and the Chinese resistance as well killed many civilians in a scorched earth conflict. After Japanese defeat, a civil war caused continuing human tragedies for the Chinese people. In 1949 the People's Republic was established by Mao Zedong, whose Cultural Revolution policies caused the death of tens of millions of Chinese by orchestrated famines and execution of alleged political adversaries.

The late 70's marked the start of slow reform in China. Slowly life standards were improving, and private entrepreneurship was made possible again. In 1989 Chinese dissidents followed the wave of revolutions in the communist world, but their quest for democratisation was crushed at Tiananmen Square. China developed further into a tightly controlled market economy, and is now the second largest economy in the world as well as a major world power.

In the past decades, the life standard of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens have improved drastically. Still, the current leadership is dealing with income inequality, environmental issues and ways to keep the economy stable under a ballooning corporate and private debt. There are some pessimists who claim that the Chinese financial system will be under severe pressure soon which will cause a giant devaluation of China's currency. Yet, people who argued the same about Japan 25 years ago were only correct on the stock market, not the currency.

Currency
In the 19th century, China was on a silver standard based on the Tael unit of weight, which was around 37 grams. One Tael equalled 10 Mace, 100 Candareens or 1000 Cash. Because Spanish Dollars and Mexican Pesos were very commonly used in East Asia, China adopted the Yuan, which means 'round', in 1889 at a rate of 0.72 Tael or 7 Mace and 2 Candareens. The Yuan's subdivision was 10 Jiao, 100 Fen or 1000 Cash or Li. While in Chinese known as Yuan, in English the Yuan was known as Dollar. Comparably, the current Taiwan Dollar is known as Yuan locally.

China had not only centralised currency issuance, but various provinces issued their own coinage within the Yuan system and continued doing so after the Xinhai Revolution of 1911.

The Republic of China continued the Yuan. Its value was somewhat less than a US Dollar after silver was devalued versus gold in the late 19th century. In 1935, the Yuan was devalued to $0.2975. During the Japanese occupation several regimes were used in relation to the Military Yen. Money printing during and after the war severely eroded the value and caused hyperinflation. In 1948 the 'gold' Yuan replaced the old one at a rate of 3 million to 1, but a year later another 500 million to 1 revaluation was necessary. Only by 1955 inflation was tamed enough to launch the Renminbi (People's Money) at a rate of 50,000 to 1, and pegged at 2 RMB per USD. Communist currencies were never freely convertible, so it's hard to attach a market value for it. With the opening up of the Chinese economy in 1978, foreigners could work with foreign exchange certificates, for which a lively black market developed.

The Renminbi lost a lot of value in the 1990's, dropping to more than 8 RMB/$. The Chinese government preferred to keep its value low on the years afterwards to boost exports, something which was criticised by the USA. From 2008 the Renminbi was allowed to slowly appreciate, and it did so towards 6.15/$ in 2015. As the US Dollar had appreciated 25% against Euro and Yen, the Chinese intervened and devalued the Renminbi with 5% in August 2015. This led to speculation of problems in the Chinese financial system, but maybe it was just a reaction to the strong Dollar to bring the RMB more in line with other major trade partners' currencies.

Coins
Collecting Chinese coins is not easy. There are so many types of ancient cash coins and it's hard to identify them. Counterfeiting is a huge issue, even with the not so expensive coins. A lot of forgeries can be detected easily (wrong diameter, weight, or 'magnetic' silver), but others are much harder to distinguish from genuine coins. Besides the common parameters, study the rim and portrait details well when making a call on authenticity.

Low denomination coins of the Qing-era or Republican era are findable but not often in acceptable condition. Only the 1935 and onward series are somewhat common.

PRC circulation coinage is easy to find, except for the 1, 2, 5 Jiao and 1 Yuan issued between 1981 and 1986. Furthermore, there are more than enough commemorative coins. So many that I know nothing about them.

Chinese Empire:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/chine_empire-1.html

China Republic (1911-1949):
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/chine_republique-1.html

People's Republic of China:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/chine-1.html

And we can go further in history as Chinese coinage or equivalent currency (i.e. knife coinage) are as much ancient as Rome or Greece

Citeer: "chomp-master"​And we can go further in history as Chinese coinage or equivalent currency (i.e. knife coinage) are as much ancient as Rome or Greece

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Definitely! Would you like to write a topic on 'China - Ancient'? They used knives and spades for coins. And of course centuries of copper cash coins.

Sorry, no time for this.

Citeer: "chomp-master"​Sorry, no time for this.

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A matter of priorities

I've been collecting the chinese commems for a few years now through some contacts in shanghai and last year I finally went there. I would have loved to get some coins on my own; but when I did find a whole bunch of dealers, language was a huge barrier and negotiating on each coin was too painful a process that I gave up.

However, PRC Chinese commemoratives (not including special collector editions) are not that many actually - maybe under 90 - especially if you compare with Canada or India.

I thought I'd bump this, since I was on a reading spree through the old WCCs anyway, and I'm preparing a more in depth China- Empire and Republic WCC.