100 Yuan People's Republic of China 100 Yuan 70th anniversary of Volunteers help resist US aggression 2020

Issued to mark the 70th anniversary of China's entry into the Korean War in October 1950 — framed in official Chinese historiography as the "War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea." The decision to intervene came after UN forces approached the Yalu River, prompting Mao Zedong to commit the People's Volunteer Army despite China's near-total exhaustion following decades of civil war and Japanese occupation. Roughly 180,000 troops crossed into Korea in the initial wave.

The "Volunteer" designation was deliberate — a legal fiction allowing Beijing to avoid formal declaration of war against the United States.