BEIJING (AFP) — China's iconic "Bird's Nest" National Stadium will replace communist hero Mao Zedong on a special currency note to be issued on Tuesday for the Beijing Olympics, the country's central bank said.
The People's Bank of China said in a weekend statement on its website that it would issue six million Olympic 10-yuan (1.5-dollar) notes.
On one side of the note is an image of the National Stadium, known as the "Bird's Nest" because of its interlocking mesh of steel, according to images of the currency posted on the website.
Above the stadium -- the main venue for next month's Games -- is the dancing-man emblem for the 2008 Olympics.
Both the picture of the Bird's Nest and the emblem are set against the backdrop of the Temple of Heaven, one of the country's best-known landmarks.
The images will replace a portrait of Mao, who founded communist China in 1949 and whose face adorns all modern Chinese bank notes. But older, smaller denomination notes are still in circulation without his image.
The last time Mao's image was removed from a Chinese currency was for the 2000 millennium celebrations. At that time, the central bank replaced Mao's portrait on a 100-yuan note with a dragon.
The other side of the Olympic note features the famous ancient Greek marble statue of a discus-thrower, Discobolus, portraits of athletes and the numerals "2008."
On normal notes an image of the famous Three Gorges waterway in southern China features on that side. The waterway has recently been controversially dammed.
Watermarks and other technologies are to be used in printing to prevent counterfeiting of the notes, the bank said.
The notes, predominantly a greenish-blue with a splash of red, are slightly larger than the ordinary 10-yuan notes, which are a more sombre grey and black.
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