The Last Year of American Hegemony
By JC Collins
One of the biggest questions which
we need to consider as the world moves closer to the full implementation of the
multilateral financial system is when will the RMB end its managed peg to the
USD? Now that the official request has been made to the International
Monetary Fund, for the yuan to be included into the SDR basket composition, it
is only a matter of time before the ending of the peg occurs.
There are a few time frames we are
working with. One is the May meeting of the IMF where the first formal
discussions around the new SDR composition will take place. The second is
in October, which is when the new composition will be confirmed. Finally,
the new basket will come into effect on January 1, 2016.
There are some key indicators and
trends which we can use to build a case for the time frame of this event(s).
The official IMF transcript of a
speech Christine Lagarde gave in China yesterday will offer us our first
clues. The excerpts below are from that speech, followed by my
interpretations.
“The implementation of
structural reforms as outlined in the 3rd Plenum Blueprint is underway. This
should lead to slower, safer,
and more sustainable growth–with a focus on innovation and
entrepreneurship–which will be good for China and its people – and good for the
world.”
The market and financial reforms
from China’s Third Plenum detailed
back in 2013 have been discussed across many platforms. The consensus is that
the financial reform component of the Plenum, which included the mechanism for
exchange rate adjustments, was a reference to the widening of the exchange rate
band with the USD that took place last year.
It is my contention that this
segment of the Plenum is referring to a larger move in the exchange rate
mechanism, as would be necessary for the RMB to be included in the SDR basket.
Having the yuan remain pegged to the dollar would be pointless in the SDR
framework, as it would not offer broader stability, which is the point of the
inclusion in the first place.
“I noted the impressive
efforts made by the Chinese government to reform in three key areas in
particular: cleaning up the house, by promoting good governance through
strengthening the legal framework and the anti-corruption campaign; cleaning up
the air, by curbing pollution and preserving the environment; and clearing the
path to even more engagement with the world, through China’s further
participation in the multilateral dialogue and through more international
investment and trade. I welcomed China’s various initiatives in this area,
including through the newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB).”
This statement was thoroughly
discussed in the previous post titledThe Coming Western Tribunals.
The references made in that post to historical sovereign bond debts and
environmental cleanup, as well as anti-corruption, is validated with this
statement from the IMF.
“I am very impressed by
the rapid internationalization of Renminbi (RMB) in recent years. The
authorities’ commitment to accelerate reforms, particularly in the financial
and external sectors, should further facilitate the international use of the
RMB. The authorities have also expressed interest in having the RMB included in
the SDR basket. We welcome and share this objective, and we will work closely
with the Chinese authorities in this regard.”
This statement confirms the
information which was provided last year in the post titled Renminbi is Already A Defacto
Reserve Currency.
“During our meetings, we also
discussed the delays in implementing the IMF’s 2010 quota and governance
reform. I share the authorities’ view that every effort should continue to be
undertaken to ensure that these reforms can be made effective as soon as
possible.”
This was previously reviewed in the
post Renminbi and the Alternative IMF
Reforms.
The trend of information which we
have been following for the last 15 months is now being validating almost daily
as the official announcements and events play out as expected.
It is rudimentary to suggest that
the country with the largest economy on Earth can not keep its currency pegged
to that of another. The price discovery which will take place in the
opening days of the pegs end will see appreciations of the RMB. Some of
the benefits of this upward valuation will be realized as foreign funds are
encouraged to enter China, there will be lower Chinese company operating costs,
in the form of cheaper imports, and the Chinese will be able to purchase
foreign assets cheaper.
The appreciation of the yuan will
also slow economic growth within China, which is also something mentioned above
by Lagarde in her speech. This was also reviewed in the post The Redback Revolution.
To determine the timing of this
event(s) we need to consider what other factors and systemic implementations
align with the months of May and October.
First, there is the China
International Payment System, or CIPS, which was originally scheduled to be
operational in 2014, but wasdelayed due to technical
difficulties. (This technical difficulty may have something to
do with the missing Malaysian plane last year, which had 20 employees from the computer
processor manufacture Freescale Semiconductor.
A spokesman for the company said the employees, who were traveling
to China, were very important employees of the company who worked on
processor technology. There is little additional information available,
but the timing of the planes disappearance with the original start date of
CIPS, is highly questionable. See post The Algorithmic Central Bankers for
additional information.)
It is now stated that the CIPS
system is ready to go, and is only going through final testing with 20 banking
institutions, 13 of which are Chinese, and the remainder as foreign subsidiary
banks. The new operational start date is in October, but it could
be fully operational at any time.
This October time frame corresponds
with the next fiscal crisis in America where the debt ceiling is reached and
the Treasury runs out of money to fund the government. This could create
an excellent pretext for the Chinese to end the peg. When a similar
situation happened in October of 2013, the Chinese were very outspoken on the
volatility in the USD.
It has been suggested that China
may announce its actual gold reserves this spring, either April or May.
This corresponds with the May time frame of the initial formal IMF discussion
on the SDR basket changes. Lets explore this some more.
Chris Hamilton wrote a piece last
week which was published on the SRSroccoReport site.
In it he discussed the increase in China gold reserves, where those reserves
came from, and how they were paid.
“Who would have this massive
amount of gold in inventory (and willingly sell it at significantly lower
prices) and why would the price of gold collapse on this clear imbalance in demand
over supply? Most sources of potential inventory are audited on a regular basis
and this draw-down would be quite noticeable. Of course, the greatest source of
gold holdings are collectively held by the Federal Reserve and the US Federal
government…and this is not openly audited.”
“Put it all
together…China, the largest buyer of US Treasury’s ceases buying Treasury’s…and
US Treasury yields collapse?!? The Chinese (and others) buy record amounts of
gold and create an imbalance of demand over available supply…and prices
collapse?!? These are clearly not the actions of a market attempting to
find a balance between price, supply, and demand.”
The transfer of massive amounts of
gold to China is something which has been well covered by many analysts, Chris
Hamilton being one of them, and Koos Jansen being another. Let’s explore
a very real possibility for the source of this gold transfer.
China has a sovereign debt which
hasn’t been honored, and will need to be before the RMB can be considered for
the SDR composition. This debt, estimated at more than $1 trillion today, was
issued in the first half of the 20th Century in the form of bonds, and was
supported by the vast amount of gold holdings which the Japanese took from the
country during its brutal invasion in the lead up to World War 2.
From the New English Review piece
titled Will China Pay the $1 Trillion it
Owes Americans:
“The Chinese government
doesn’t like to talk about it and the U.S. government doesn’t want to raise it.
But decades ago, Beijing defaulted on debt owed to Americans, as well as
investors and governments around the world. In one case, it was paid. In the
rest it was not. More than 20,000 American investors own this debt. The U.S.
government may also own Chinese war debt, unpaid since World War II.”
The one case in which the bonds
were honored was in the changeover of Hong Kong from British control to Chinese
control. British bond holders were paid out and the rest were
ignored. From this we can determine that China is using this sovereign
debt as a strategic tool in its bargaining with the existing international
framework.
With that being said, the increase
in gold holdings which Chris Hamilton has referenced above is reflective of the
gold which had been stolen from China by the Japanese, which the bonds had been
issued on, and is now returning back to China. This was obviously a
requirement before China would honor the bonds.
The closure of this bond deal, and
the announcement of the official Chinese gold holdings, will correspond with
the end of the RMB and USD peg. China, as previously stated, will likely
partially support the yuan with these official gold holdings.
If this indeed takes place in April
or May, it will correspond with the first formal SDR meeting at the IMF.
The October time frame aligns with
the operational start dates of both the BRICS Development Bank and the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank.
So far, we have most key indicators
pointing towards the October time frame, which corresponds with the final
review and decision on the SDR composition.
But before making any final
conclusions, we will need to take a closer look at the Chiang Mai Initiative
Multilateralization and how China’s trade partners will react to an end of the
RMB/USD peg.
The CMIM is an agreement between
ASEAN members to help provide assistance to countries experiencing balance of
payments and short term liquidity difficulties. The agreement came into
effect on July 17, 2014, around the same time the CIPS systems was to come
online.
Under CMIM, a member country can
draw up to 30% of its allocated quota amount under the agreement, without being
subject to IMF conditions. The remaining amount, 70%, is required to be
connected with an IMF program. The CMIM acts as a supplemental regional
safety net to the IMF. As such, the CMIM cannot function without the IMF.
The Chiang Mai Initiative is one
segment of the ASEAN Economic Community blueprint. For those who don’t
know, AEC is a game changer. It’s mandates are nothing less than:
- Harmonization in payment and settlement system
(CIPS)
- An Asian monetary union (with countries
maintaining their domestic currencies)
- Single market for financial products
- Uniform exchange rates between ASEAN members
All phases of integration are
scheduled to be completed and operational by Jan 1, 2016, the same date that
the new SDR composition, with the RMB, will take effect.
International audit and financial
advisory company Deloitte has published a document titled The ABC of AEC – To 2015 and Beyond.
This document attempts to explain and direct the reader through the maze of AEC
integration, and why its important. The document opens with this:
Across Southeast Asia,
all the chatter around the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is focused on a
single date: 31 December 2015. But the reality is that not everyone understands
what that date means. What is it and why wait until then to do it? What will
the impact be? Will we wake up to a different world on 1 January 2016?
The obvious connection between the
CMIM, and it’s IMF structure and mechanics, with the AEC, and its operational
start date of Jan 1, 2015, along with the new SDR composition, is clear
evidence for the reality of the macro multilateral framework which we have
researched and presented here on this site.
The phased integration of AEC and
the relationship between the IMF and CMIM make the 2010 IMF Quota and
Governance Reforms all the more important. The AEC, and by default the
CMIM, cannot function without the fair representation of China and other
emerging economies on the Executive Board of the IMF. Not to mention that
the quota amounts from both the IMF and CMIM will have to align at the 30%/70%
ratio defined above.
But it doesn’t end there.
With the regional exchange rate
coordination, or uniform exchange rate between ASEAN members, we are likely to
see most countries peg their domestic currencies to the Chinese yuan, as it will
be the regional reserve currency which is in the SDR composition. This
will position the AEC to avoid the inherent challenges in a regional currency
like the euro, which it has publicly stated it does not want.
The uniform exchange rate structure
will ensure that no opposing, or dual exchange rates are used within the
monetary union. It is highly unlikely this means all currencies will be
at parity, but member countries could use the Shanghai Gold Exchange as a means
of supporting the uniform structure, with predetermined rates set for each
member country, based on similar weights as what will be used in the SDR
composition.
This is the mechanism by which we
are likely to see a revaluation of regional domestic currencies, such as the
Vietnamese dong. We have reviewed the probability and intent of the State
Bank of Vietnam to at some point end the dongs peg with the USD and peg to
their largest trading partner, which is China. This was discussed in the
post Dongs Revaluation is Imminent.
We can see now that the mechanism
which will be used for this revaluation is built within the structure and phase
integration of the AEC implementation, which in turn is determined by the
larger process of the RMB being given reserve status and included in the SDR
composition. And the SDR is the reserve unit of account used by the
IMF. The same IMF which supersedes the mandates and organizational flow
of the CMIM, Chiang Mai Initiative.
In the post Dong and the Pan-Asian FX
Trading Center we reviewed how the dong and yuan were already
directly convertible in a test market only. This fits within the parameters of
the AEC blueprint as well.
Returning the time frame for the
RMB to end the peg to the USD, we are still faced with the two possible dates
of May and Oct, with the final results being in full effect on January 1, 2016.
It could really happen at any time
in between May and Oct, but I will put forth one possibility which has begun to
settle well on me, considering the careful action of China at every step of
internationalizing the yuan.
It is possible that we could see
China announce their full gold holdings in April or May, in time for the first
formal meeting on the SDR, and perhaps even partially peg the RMB to gold,
while at the same time widening the USD peg instead of removing it. This
would allow the Chinese to feel their way through any possible market
adjustments or fluctuations in the price of gold, and volatility with the
dollar.
This would serve to apply more
depreciation pressure on the USD in the lead up months to the US budget crisis
and SDR confirmation meeting in October. At that time, China could fully
sever the peg with the USD and allow the yuan to float freely and realize the
price discovery appreciations which would have built up in the currency like a
stored kinetic energy.
The other ASEAN members would
follow and lead into the final implementation of the AEC blueprint by the end
of the year, which is meant to correspond with the new SDR on January 1, 2016.
And lets not forget that the AIIB
and BRICS Development Bank will also be fully operational at that time as well.
When faced with time frames
of either May or Oct for the depeg to occur, it is my contention that it will
happen piecemeal, with a widening of the peg range in May, followed by a full
ending of the peg in Oct. The official gold holdings and any partial
support this may offer to the yuan could happen on either time frame,
though I’m leaning towards sooner rather than later. What is
certain is that we are going to wake up on the morning of January 1, 2016
living in a different world than the one we are living in today. This
could very well be the last year of American hegemony. – JC
PS – I have a headache from writing
this post.
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