ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 singles out China in the 1940s as its object because China’s experience differed from that of so many others during the period, for many reasons. China had split into many different currency areas during the first half of the 1940s, and several of them slid into hyperinflation. The end of the Pacific War helped pause the agony of inflation, but the outburst of civil war ultimately drove inflation to new heights. The path to stabilization in China mainland and Taiwan, separately steered by the Communists and the Nationalists, show how divergent it could be in a distinctive context.
