Signs of the Gold Standard Emerging in China?

by Ralph Benko

As noted in last week’s column about the rising recognition by authorities in Germany about the virtues of gold, the gold standard is receiving impressive new recognition internationally. The GOP plank calling for a commission to study “possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar” — with an unmistakable nod to gold — is the most prominent element of the 2012 GOP platform still being heard to “reverberate around the world.” Meanwhile, it continues to gain impressive momentum in the United States.

CNN’s Kevin Voigt writes, in The China Post, “Currencies: Re-evaluating the ghost of gold:”

“One platform of the recent U.S. Republican National Convention that, ultimately, could reverberate around the world is a plan to study a possible return of the U.S. to the gold standard. While it was perceived as a move to appease the party’s extreme right wing, economists like Mundell think the world needs a limited return to the gold standard.”

This is by no means an isolated blip on the economic radar screen of China watchers.  As Christopher Potter, president of Northern Border Capital Management, so astutely observed in a column entitled China’s Preparing for the End Game — Are We Paying Attention, published in The Lehrman Institute’s TheGoldStandardNow.org — which Potter advises (and this columnist professionally edits):

• China is … increasing its monetary gold reserves at an alarming rate.  Five years ago China surpassed the US in gold production and five years from now it will own more gold than the US Federal government.
• China is preparing for a world beyond the inconvertible paper dollar, a world in which the renminbi, buttressed by gold, becomes the dominant reserve currency.
• The Chinese government has recently removed all restrictions on personal ownership of gold; legalized domestic gold exchange traded funds; is currently purchasing 100% of domestic gold mine production; has imported over 750 tons of gold (27% of global output) in the last 12 months; stated publicly its intention to add 1,000 tons per year to its central bank gold reserves; and is buying major stakes in foreign gold mining companies.  The scale of this initiative is extraordinary.
• Commenting on the recently announced acquisition of African Barrick Gold Ltd. by state-owned China National, CEO Sun Zhaoxue stated, “As gold is a currency in nature, no matter if it’s for state economic security or for the acceleration of renminbi internationalization, increasing the gold reserve should be one of the key strategies of China.”

This is not the first emergence of authoritative attention to the power of gold as the monetary unit by China in recent years.

Wikileaks provided a notable cable dated February 8, 2010 sent from the U.S. embassy in Beijing excerpting a story from Shanghai’s China BusinessNews that observed:  “If we use all of our foreign exchange reserves to buy U.S. Treasury bonds, then when someday the U.S. Federal Reserve suddenly announces that the original ten old U.S. dollars are now worth only one new U.S. dollar, and the new U.S. dollar is pegged to the gold – we will be dumbfounded.”  This implies a preposterous devaluation, which is not the direction toward which the key gold standard proponents are progressing.  Gold’s proponents have no interest in scalding creditors … or debtors. …

Continue reading at Forbes.com…

image: flickr.com/sirqitous

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