The Chinese ARE Dumping our Treasury Bonds

We warned about this in our Pentagon research back in late 2008 and early 2009 but there were plenty of skeptics. We emphasized the risk in the 2012 NY Times bestseller, Secret Weapon. In Chapter 9, we made a strong case that China could dump their Treasury bond holdings and work fervently to establish the Yuan as a reserve currency alternative to the American dollar. We pointed out how multiple Chinese sources were planning for this and labeled it “financial warfare.” We made it clear that this would prove deflationary for China but said “If China can tolerate such deflation and if it can transition effectively, it will be sitting in the shade.”

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While we knew then that the time had not yet arrived for China to make her move, we also knew it was just a matter of time. Starting in 2011, we began to address the risk of financial warfare in this Blog. Just look back at this February 2011 post where we argued that China had a long-term view and a five-year plan:

The Chinese Take a Long Term View; Evaluating Their 5YP

But China is our Friend…Right?

 

It was an interesting week last week. For one thing, Chinese company Alibaba debuted as the largest IPO in the history of the world. Larger than the Initial Public Offerings of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, and Microsoft combined. At the same time, there was a Senate report indicating that China hacked U.S. military contractors in a significant way at least twenty times in the past year. In America, we celebrated the success of Wall Street, earning $300 million or so in underwriter fees. In China, they celebrated finding a path to dethrone American technology dominance (from the official Chinese News Agency):

Replace dollar with super currency: economist

The World Bank’s former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system.

“The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises,” Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank. “The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency.”

China seeks world role for ‘people’s money’

AFP – With deals from London to Singapore, China is seeking a greater role for its yuan currency in global markets to challenge the hegemony of the almighty dollar.

The most attention-grabbing reform planned for Shanghai’s new free trade zone is free convertibility of the yuan — also known as the renminbi, or “people’s money” — an unprecedented change which would allow greater use of the currency.

Renminbi rising: China’s ‘de-Americanized world’ taking shape?

China’s leadership will soon usher in bold reforms to support a domestic consumption-driven economic model, and globalizing the renminbi as an alternative store of wealth to the US dollar is at the center of the strategy.

The scathing commentary published by China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency calling for a ‘de-Americanized world’ was undoubtedly music to the ears of many in the developing world. The article – published during the recent fiscal deadlock – accused Washington of abusing its superpower status by engaging in unwarranted military conflicts, engineering regime changes with impunity, and mishandling its status as the issuer of the world reserve currency by exporting risk abroad. Xinhua’s commentary also called for drastic reforms of the IMF and World Bank to reflect the growing muscle of the developing world, and most significantly, “the introduction of a new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant US dollar.”