50 Fen

The Federal Reserve Bank of China was a Japanese-sponsored institution established in 1938 to manage currency in the Japanese-occupied territories of northern China. Its notes were instruments of wartime economic control — designed to displace Chinese Nationalist and existing regional currencies and extract resources from occupied populations through monetary policy.

By 1944, with the Pacific war deteriorating for Japan, inflationary pressure on the occupied zone was severe. Small-denomination issues like this 50 Fen saw heavy circulation as prices climbed and higher-value notes grew scarce for everyday transactions. The printer — the North China Political Affairs Commission's own financial bureau — reflects Japan's effort to consolidate all fiscal machinery of the occupation under a single administrative structure rather than relying on commercial printers.