10 New Dollars Taiwan's Retrocession

Issued to mark the 50th anniversary of Taiwan's Retrocession — the handover of Taiwan from Japanese colonial administration to the Republic of China on October 25, 1945 — this commemorative appeared at a moment of considerable political sensitivity. By 1995, cross-strait tensions were escalating sharply; Beijing conducted missile tests in the Taiwan Strait the following year in direct response to Taiwan's first direct presidential election. A coin celebrating the end of Japanese rule carried layered implications about sovereignty that neither side of the strait interpreted the same way.