What is the significance of China repatriating all of its gold reserves from the US to China, and its selling US treasuries to buy more gold (August 2023)?

2023年8月，中国将黄金储备从美国转回中国，并出售美国国债购买更多黄金，有何用意？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Jamie Wang

To be able to create a new international settlement currency, China needs to establish its credit first.

Essentially, credit of a currency is its liquidity. It means that by holding such currency, you would be able to exchange it with something else at anytime, such as other currencies or tangible goods. Gold happens to be the most recognized goods with value since the begin of human civilization.

要想打造新的国际结算货币，中国首先必须建立起自己的信用体系。

货币的信用本质上在于货币的流动性。这意味着持有这种货币后，你可以随时用这种货币和其他东西进行交换，比如其他货币或其他有形商品。黄金恰好是自人类文明开始以来最受公认的有价值的商品。

As a matter of fact, during the early stage, USD used to have a fixed exchange ratio to gold, and it’s called “gold standard”. Anyone with USD in hands would be able to exchange it with the US government for gold. It’s a promise to the market that the USD has the equivlence of actual value.

事实上，在早期，美元对黄金的汇率是固定的，被称为“金本位”。任何持有美元的人都可以用美元与美国政府交换黄金。这是美国政府向市场承诺，美元是具有实际价值的等价物。

It’s similar to a bank. When banks receive deposite from the depositors, they would have to invest the money, to be able to cover the interest they promised and their own profit. However, they cannot invest all of the deposite money, since they need to prepare for withdrawings. If depositors found out that they cannot withdraw their deposites, they’d start panicking and causing a run on banks. Depositors could be trustingly leaving their money to the bank only when they know that they can have it back at anytime.

这就好比银行。当银行从储户那里收到存款时，他们必须把这笔钱投资出去，支付他们承诺的利息和自己的利润。但他们不能把所有的存款都用于投资，必须为储户取款做一些准备。如果储户发现他们无法提取存款，就会开始恐慌，发生挤兑。储户只有在知道自己可以随时取回存款时，才敢放心地把钱交给银行。

China already tried its own version of gold standard in oil trade. The CNY which the oil sellers got from deals settled with CNY can be exchanged to gold with chinese. Eventhough most of the sellers don’t have the needs, since they could use the CNY to purchase goods from China. After all, most of the countries import from China anyways. Using CNY or USD doesn’t really make a difference.

中国已经在石油贸易中进行了人民币金本位制的尝试。石油卖家通过人民币结算获得的人民币可以向中国 政府申请兑换成黄金。尽管大多数卖家没有这种需求，因为他们可以使用人民币从中国购买商品。毕竟，大多数国家都从中国进口商品。使用人民币或美元并没有真正的区别。

Under the current tension, China cannot rule out the possibility that the US would confiscate China’s gold reserve someday in the future. White House would claim that it’s for national security and to sanction China. Huawei has been sanctioned for over 1500 days, and we still don’t see any concrete evidence.

Although the US treasury is still one of the safest investment in the world, the risk of default is rising, especially for China and other countries which the US hates.

The FED has announced the 11th rate hike.

在目前的紧张局势下，中国不能排除美国在未来某一天没收中国黄金储备的可能性。白宫会声称美国这么做事为了国家安全，是为了制裁中国。华为已经被制裁了1500多天，我们仍然没有看到美国拿出什么具体证据。

尽管美国国债仍然是世界上最安全的投资之一，但违约风险正在上升，特别是对中国和其他美国讨厌的国家来说。

美联储刚刚宣布了第11次加息。

the rate here means Inter Bank Offered Rate, which directly effecting the cost to finance.

When a rate hike comes, the cost to finance raises too.

There would be needs to sell the treasury which was purchased during low interest period.

Selling the treasury causes the market to lose faith, which causing it to devalue.

Devaluing of treasury causes treasury yield to rise.

When the US government wants to release new batch of treasury, the coupon rate would have to be raised to attract investors.

Higher coupon rate means paying more to the investors at the maturity dates, which is part of the US government budget.

With already severe government deficit, the US government may have to repay the treasury fully relying on releasing new treasury in the future.

By the time it happened, it will be like “lend me more money so that I can repay the money you lent to me”.

这里的利率指的是银行间同业拆借利率，它会直接影响融资成本。

当政府宣布加息时，融资成本也会上升。

所以必须出售在低利率时期购买的国债。

抛售国债会导致市场失去信心，从而导致其贬值。

国债贬值导致国债收益率上升。

当美国政府计划发行新一批国债时，就必须提高票面利率来吸引投资者。

更高的票面利率意味着在国债到期日必须向投资者支付更多金额，而这些资金也是美国政府预算的一部分。

由于美国政府赤字已经非常严重，未来美国政府可能不得不完全依靠发行新的国债来偿还旧的国债。

届时美国就会沦为“再借我点钱，这样我就可以偿还你借给我的钱了”。

US government is owning more money every year, and soon the mandatory anual interest will reach 1 trillion.

But the income will not rise at the same pace as the spending.

It’s like someone living on credit cards. You know this cannot last forever.

The due date of treasury is usually several years later, so the current batches with high coupon interest will start to effect later.

China will maintain the scale of its US treasury in hands, and decide what to do based on how the US will do in a few years.

美国政府每年收入都在增加，很快强制年利率将达到1万亿美元。

但收入的增长速度和支出的增长速度并不相同。

这就像一个靠透支信用卡生活的人。你知道这无法无限期持续下去。

国债的到期日通常在几年后，因此当前高票面利率的批次开始生效的时间较晚。

中国会保持手中持有的美国国债规模，并根据美国几年后的行动来决定自己采取什么行动。

Felix Su

It signals that the gloves are about to come off. The US is screwed.

The timing of the announcement of the SMEE 28nm machine is too coincidental. It is likely that China’s SMEE had already built a 28nm machine earlier this year or late last year. But they were told not to announce it.

这是美国即将完蛋了的信号。

28纳米光刻机的发布时间实在是个巧合。中国的光刻机企业很可能已经在今年早些时候或去年底就造出了28纳米级光刻机。但他们隐而不发。

And then China waited for the inevitable ban on China to prevent China from importing steppers from ASML and Japan. China waited until the laws were passed in both countries banning the sale of steppers to China then announced that 28nm stepper made in China was going to go into full production.

China knew what the US was up to. And waited patiently and set a trap for the US. Then waited for the US to jump into the trap then detonated the trap.

中国坐等欧美为防止中国从阿斯麦和日本进口光刻机而对中国发布的禁令。中国一直等到禁止向中国销售光刻机的法律发布后，才宣布中国制造的28纳米光刻机将全面投产。

中国知道美国在做什么。耐心等待，为美国设下陷阱，等美国跳入陷阱后引爆陷阱。

US semiconductors is going to be in big trouble. US semiconductor companies have also been banned from sales to China. Yes, only high end chips. But that makes no difference. The US has already violated WTO rules which allows China to retaliate and ban any and all chips from entering China.

This includes South Korea and Japan. To the horror of these two countries law makers they realized China was waiting for them to kill their own chip companies. This is why the SK law maker suddenly came out and criticized the law. Notice she didn’t do it before China unveiled the 28nm stepper.

美国的半导体行业将遇到大麻烦。美国半导体公司也不得向中国销售产品。是的，只有高端芯片。但这没有什么区别。美国已经违反了世贸组织的规则，该规则允许中国进行报复，并禁止所有芯片进入中国。

这也包括了韩国和日本。令这两个国家的立法者震惊的是，他们终于意识到中国一直在等着他们绞杀自己的芯片公司。这就是韩国议员突然公开批评该法案的原因。请注意，在中国发布28纳米光刻机之前，她并未提出反对。

So to answer the question, China did all of this to allow the US, South Korea, and Japan to remove themselves from the Chinese market and the world market. Then dropped a bomb on them.

This indicates that China plans these things months if not a year or more ahead of time and then activate these plans once China is in the best position to obtain the greatest advantage.

So we will likely see more actions by China in the near future. China is ready to go to war. Economic, military, or both. And they wanted to remove their money from US hands.

所以，为了回答这个问题，中国所做的一切都是为了让美国、韩国和日本从中国市场和世界市场上撤出，然后向他们身上投掷炸弹。

这表明，中国早已提前数月（甚至提前一年或更长时间）来计划这些事情，并在中国到达占据最大优势的最佳位置时果断启动这些计划。

因此，我们可能会在不久的将来看到中国采取更多行动。中国准备开战了。不管是经济或是军事或是两者兼具。中国想从美国手中取回他们的钱。

The US has lost the aircraft market, the semi-conductor market, and the medical devices market. How many high tech markets does the US have left? And what happens when China retaliates in full for what the US has been doing for the last 10 years?

Yup, it’s going to get ugly for the US. China will end up with most of the market for everything from $1 widgets to aircraft to jet engines to semi-conductors.

美国已经丢掉了飞机市场、半导体市场和医疗设备市场。美国还有多少高科技市场？如果中国对美国过去10年的所作所为进行全面报复，会发生什么？

是的，对美国来说局面会很不堪。从1美元的小零件到飞机，从喷气发动机到半导体，中国最终绝对能占据大部分领域的市场。

Swee Chen

China is currently the second largest holder of US Treasuries )after Japan) with more than $800 billion held in reserves (down from over $1 trillion at the peak).

There are two primary reasons for its current actions in repatriating and accumulating gold and reducing its holdings of US Treasuries.

One is the protection of the value of its foreign investments, and the other is to move away from the USD as the primary trade settlement currency. Both reasons have common ground.

中国目前是美国国债的第二大持有者(仅次于日本)，持有超过8000亿美元的储备(低于峰值的1万亿美元)。

中国目前将黄金转回国内，并减持美国国债，主要有两个原因。

一个是保护其外国投资的价值，另一个是摆脱美元作为主要贸易结算货币的地位。这两个原因都有着共同之处。

The continual debasement of the USD by the US Treasury and Fed does not bode well for investors in the asset. For decades, it has been regarded as a near diskless asset because in theory, the US government will never default when it can simply print more currency to service its debt obligations. But this has come at the cost of continual lose of purchasing power so that in purchasing power terms, any investor today is guaranteed to end up with a nett loss unless interest rates rise so high that they can be composite for that loss. And interest rates that high will almost certainly cause an economic meltdown. So from the investment point of view, it is a risk that needs to be managed.

美国财政部和美联储主导的美元持续贬值对资产投资者来说实在不是一个好兆头。几十年来，从理论上讲，当美国政府可以简单地通过印刷更多货币来偿还债务时，美元国债永远不会违约。但这是以损害美元购买力作为代价的，因此，以购买力计算，今天的任何投资者最终肯定会遭受净损失，除非利率大幅上升、足以抵消这种损失。但不正常的高利率几乎肯定会导致经济崩溃。所以从投资的角度来看，这是一个需要管理的风险。

The other is the US’s continual bullying of the world (including China) using its powerful military that is almost totally funded by debt. So the rest of the world is lending to the US for the privilege of being bullied by it.

另一个原因是美国利用其几乎完全依赖债务资助的强大军事实力，长期欺负其他国家(包括中国在内)。所以，世界其他国家借钱给美国，换来的是被美国欺负的特权。

Neither of these are propositions that China need to support. US global dominance is based on two foundations, the USD hegemony and a powerful military. So one could fight the military, or one could undermine the currency. If you are going to do the latter, you don’t want to cut off your own nose to spite your face. The price of gold in USD is being suppressed at the moment, so it makes sense for China to sell down its Treasuries in an orderly manner (a big dump will trigger a crash that will diminish the value of Chinese holdings), and exchange that for gold, an without counter-party risks.

这两个原因都是中国无需支持的。美国的全球霸主地位基于两个基础：美元霸权和强大的军事力量。因此，要么和美国军方作战，要么削弱美元价值。如果你想削弱美元价值，你肯定不会想毁敌一千自损八百吧。以美元计价的黄金价格目前受到压制，因此中国有序抛售持有的美国国债并把钱换成黄金，是明智的选择(大规模抛售美债会引发美债崩盘，从而降低中国持有的美国国债的价值)。