China Banned Gold & Silver As Money In 1983

While it remained legal to hold gold as an individual in PRC, you couldn't:
- Use gold/silver as money (unit of account/pricing)
- Trade gold/silver privately (you could only sell it to PBoC)
- Lend or pledge (use as collateral) gold/silver
- Act as a dealer of gold, unless authorized by PBoC

So effectively, as an individual in PRC, you could only sell your gold & silver through the PBoC system, but it was fully lawful to own those metals. Only if you violated the rules above, authorities could force you to liquidate your gold to PBoC at a discount over the spot price.

This is a big contrast with the gold ban in the United States via Executive Order 6102 in 1933, which required all persons to surrender/liquidate their gold coins, bullion and certificates to the state. Moreover, in 1933 the U.S. government credited you $20.67 per oz gold that you surrender. About a year later, the same government that forced people to liquidate their gold at $20.67, proceeded to raise the price of gold to $35 per oz (at that time the price of the gold was fixed by the government, not determined by market price action like today). So the U.S. government made an instant ≈70% profit on the public's gold.