Monitor | Conspiracy theories abound about China's gold purchases
Huge imports of gold have fuelled speculation about the mainland's intentions, including an alleged bid to launch a global monetary system
China's huge appetite for gold has inspired dozens of conspiracy theories. They are all nonsense.
Yes, it is true that China has been buying an awful lot of gold recently. According to figures from Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department, last year the mainland imported an impressive 1,497 tonnes of the yellow metal through the city.
Some of that gold came back again after being turned into jewellery, figurines of horses and the like. Even so, China's net imports of gold through Hong Kong last year were worth a thumping HK$409 billion. That's roughly 1,170 tonnes of bullion.
One reason these theories can gain traction is Beijing’s own reticence about its gold holdings
To put that into perspective, it's equivalent to 40 per cent of all the gold produced by all the mines in the world last year.
Of course, most of the gold purchased by Chinese importers didn't come straight from the world's mines.
Much of it came from exchange-traded funds, which last year sold down their holdings of the metal by some 896 tonnes after investors in developed markets lost faith in gold's ability to make further price gains.
But while the enthusiasm of Western investors for gold has dulled, over the last two and a half years China's demand for the stuff has exploded.
Last year China surpassed India as the world's largest gold importer. On top of that, in recent years China has emerged as the world's largest miner of the stuff. In 2013 the country's mines produced 428 tonnes of the metal, up from 392 tonnes in 2012. South Africa, long the world's biggest miner, produced less than half that amount.