10 Yuan 40th Anniversary of China's Reform and Opening Up

China's Reform and Opening Up policy, launched by Deng Xiaoping at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in December 1978, fundamentally dismantled the Maoist command economy and introduced market mechanisms that transformed China into the world's second-largest economy within four decades. The 2018 commemorative marks precisely that forty-year interval. Circulation commemoratives of this type were distributed through the People's Bank's standard banking channels, meaning most examples entered the public's hands directly as change rather than through collectors — unusually democratic distribution for a commemorative issue.