Central Bank of the Republic of China

Mainland China (1924-1949)

The CBC was originally proposed in 1923 by Sun Yat-sen's Army and Navy Marshal stronghold of the Republic of China and was established in Guangzhou a year later, serving the Nationalist government from 1925. Following the success of the Northern Expedition, the CBC relocated to Shanghai and its head T. V. Soong negotiated a division of labor with the Bank of China in 1928 that refocused the latter on foreign-exchange operations. It was subsequently one of China's "Big Four" national banks, along with the Bank of China, Bank of Communications, and Farmers Bank of China, all of which were major banks of issue.

In 1932, the CBC lost jurisdiction over Northeast China to the Central Bank of Manchou in Changchun. Its role in the rest of the country was reinforced in the mid-1930s when the Nationalist government gave it a monopoly over note issuance, as part of a broader monetary overhaul that included the abandonment of China's prior silver standard. That reform was initially successful, but the CBC - together with the Nationalist government - soon lost control over parts of North China to the Mengjiang Bank in Kalgan and the United Reserve Bank in Peiping, then over central-eastern China to the Huaxing Commercial Bank then the Central Reserve Bank in Shanghai and Nanjing. In 1937-1938 it relocated to Wuhan, then Chongqing together with the government. In late July 1942, it was granted a monopoly over currency issuance in the territorial area controlled by the Nationalist government.

In 1945, the CBC recovered its Shanghai head office and its nationwide role, but soon had to face the circumstances of the Chinese Civil War and moved together with the government back to Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Chengdu before completing the journey to Taiwan in late 1949. Its archives were lost in the wreckage of the Taiping, which added difficulty to the resumption of its operations in Taiwan.

Taiwan (since 1949)

While the CBC was the island's central bank from 1949, the Bank of Taiwan, a commercial bank founded in 1897 during Japanese colonial rule, kept issuing banknotes until the CBC assumed that role in 1961. On 8 November 1979, the newly revised Central Bank of China Act was promulgated. The Bank of Taiwan issued the New Taiwan dollar until 2000 when the Central Bank of China finally took over the task. In 2007 the English name of the Central Bank of China was renamed the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) along with a host of other renamings under the Chen Shui-bian administration of state-owned corporations with "China" in their name, such as the Chunghwa Post.