1 Yuan Bank of China

Bank of China had been reorganized under Republican government control just a few years before this note was issued, following the 1916 crisis in which Yuan Shikai's government attempted to suspend convertibility — triggering a public panic that the Shanghai and Beijing branches famously defied by continuing to honor redemptions on their own authority. That act of institutional resistance gave the bank unusual credibility at a moment when most Chinese paper currency was regarded with deep suspicion.

The American Bank Note Company's involvement reflects a deliberate policy of sourcing security printing abroad to sidestep the limitations of domestic facilities and, more practically, to reassure a skeptical public through visibly foreign production standards.