...China - XXIV Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 Commemorative Notes

 中华人民共和国

(中華人民共和國)

(Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó)

(People's Republic of China)

中国人民银行 (中國人民銀行)

(Zhōngguó Rénmín Yínháng / People's Bank of China)
Currency : Renminbi 人民币 (CNY)

 

On the 03.12.2021, the central bank of China, the People’s Bank of China announced the release of two new commemorative banknotes to be issued on 21.12.2021, for the celebration of the XXIV 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic games. The games is held in Beijing, commencing on 04.02.2022 and will conclude on 20.02.2022.

 

Both the notes issued have the face value of 20 yuan. Details of the issues are as follows: -

 

Signature - Official square seal on reverse;

Quantity - 200 million sets;

Material - One paper and one polymer;

Format - Both in vertical format front and back;

Colour - Predominately blue with the Olympics logo in red;

Date - 2022 on both notes printed on reverse next to the official square seal;

Dimensions - 70mm x 145mm.

 

Of the 200 million notes, 40,000 sets were also released in a folder but these are not for sale to the public, but instead retained for their archive purposes. These folder sets will be displaying in public places like museums etc around the country. If you have bought them in a folder, then those folders are most likely 'home made' and not the official issues.

In the history of the modern Olympic games, China is the only host nation that have issued commemorative banknotes to celebrate both the Summer (2008) and Winter (2022) games, and both Hong Kong and Macau are the only two nations/territories that have issued the same but not as a host nation for the sports.

Twenty Yuan (Paper) 

Freestyle Skiing

Front - A person performing freestyle skiing, with the image of snowy mountain and the image of the Great Wall of China below. Underneath the the wall, micro prints of Beijing 2022 in English are added. This note is dedicated to the snow sports, which is usually related to an outdoors event where fresh or man made snows are required, like the Alpine/Cross country skiing, Giant slalom, Halfpipe etc.

Back - National Ski Jumping Center located in Zhangjiakou city (张家口市) in Hebei Province (河北省). This city is located about 200 km northeast of Beijing. The center is called Snow Ruyi (nicknamed) and the venue was built in 2020; and is also China's first international standard ski jumping site with the longest ski jump trail built in the world. Underneath is the image of a green snowflake and a section of the world famous Great Wall of China showing two beacons towers. The following Chinese texts are also printed, just underneath the name of the central bank: -

 

第24届冬季奧林匹克运动会纪念

(Commemoration of the 24th Winter Olympic Games)

 

National Ski Jumping Center located in Zhangjiakou city

Twenty Yuan (Polymer)

Figure Skating

Front - A woman and a man performing figure skating with the night sky in the background. Below is the image of a mountain covered with snow. Next to it is the musical notes printed in green colour. This note is dedicated to the ice sports, which is usually held indoor games in most cases, unless they are preforming this on a frozen river or lake like in some freezing countries.

 

Back - The National Aquatics Center or the Water Cubes in Beijing (北京) which hosted the curling and skating events. This venue was built for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic games and was used for the swimming and diving events. Underneath is the reflection of the mountain covered with snow with snowflakes. 

The National Aquatics Center or the Water Cubes in Beijing

Like the 2014 Sochi note, the designs for these two notes are unique in such a way that there are no main images in promoting an individual (death or alive), or any other images other that the sporting events it selves. You might say that the Great Wall of China should not be part of the designs, but in Zhangjiakou prefecture there are about 1476 kilometers of the Great wall sections and more than 1000+ beacon towers and is considered as part of the surrounding scene where the ski jumping events took place. The other obvious feature is the National Emblem of the People''s Republic of China, which is expected. Surprisingly, the National flag is not part of the designs on any of the two notes.

 

Footnote:

Whilst many postage stamps and coins were minted to celebrate the Olympic games both Winter and Summer events, this is the only third and fourth banknote issued to celebrate the Winter games and the 8th and 9th banknotes issued to commemorate an Olympics event. China is also the third host nation to issue an Olympic games banknotes, after Russia (Sochi 2014) and South Korea (PueongChang 2018), and the first to release two notes for this celebration. Here I have excluded the 2017 Fiji $7 note as this issue was related to winning the country first Olympics gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and not the entire event itself. The other two nations that have issued Olympics banknotes are Hong Kong Bank of China and Macau Bank of China.

 

With 40,000 folders will be issued against the population of say 1.40 billion people, the odd of getting one is 0.01% or one folder for very 35,000 people. Needless to say, less than 40,000 will be available to the public as some of these folders with be presented to high ranking officials or VIPs. Unfortunately, many of us are just a 'P', and are missing the 'VI' in front. 

 

Renminbi vs Yuan

You must be wondering why the Chinese currency is called Renminbi (人民币) and yet the word Yuan is printed on the banknotes. There is basically no difference between the two. The word Renminbi literately means 'people's currency', which was introduced after the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 by the current Chinese government. The word 'yuan' is the name of the unit of the renminbi in which the currency are dominated. It is normal to list the price of an item as 10 yuan but is incorrect to label it as 10 renminbi. The Korean and Japanese currencies of Won and Yen respectively, derived from the same Chinese word Yuan. The Yuan literally means 'Round' (圓), like those cash coins first issued 400 BC.