5 Dollars Kiau Chau

Kiau Chau — the German-leased territory on China's Shandong Peninsula — was seized by Japan in November 1914 during one of the opening Pacific campaigns of World War I, ending Germany's presence there after barely sixteen years. Palau's commemorative program in the late 1990s drew heavily on forgotten colonial episodes, and this piece belongs to that series. The territory itself was not formally restored to Chinese sovereignty until the Washington Naval Treaty negotiations of 1922.