Take one look at actual quantities of delivered physical gold from trades based at the COMEX and the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) in the first chart below:
The SGE is delivering more than 9x the COMEX on average in 2013 (chart in metric tons).
One source of all the beautiful gold is via imports from Hong Kong (HK).
At this point China has acquired more than their total take in 2011 (430.61 metric tons (mt)), sitting at 630.6mt imported through May alone.
Based on annual gold mined in China and their imports (from Hong Kong alone), over 7,000mt of gold now sit in China--much of which is likely adding to the 1,054mt of official gold (that implicitly backs the yuan).
Recall the People's Bank of China (PBoC) reminded the world of this 1,054mt total on March 13 in newspaper Xinhua, incredibly, an announcement of "increasing the reserves will elevate gold prices, which will force people to pay more for gold consumption and investment."
If you don't prefer Xinhua, also picked up on the same quote from the central banker that we feel supports the Chinese "" policy of encouraging and supporting (you can buy gold over the counter at banks) their citizens saving in gold terms, while using yuan for spending.
So who is already functionally irrelevant, and who's influence is to exert further control as time passes?
