27.03.2015 - Yuan and Gold: Old Enemies Should Finally Become Friends
The Communist Party had good reason to avoid the use of gold when it set up China’s financial system, but having a reserve of the metal offers a range of benefits. We'll never know if there really were 200 chests of gold on the steamer Taiping, as depicted in John Woo's recent movie The Crossing, but we can verify that 1,317 cases of central bank records were sunk with the ship in 1949. These documents, including the Draft Agreement on Gold, were the only legal basis the government of the Republic of China had to move the former central bank's gold reserves to Taiwan so they could be used to "pre-pay military expenses." With the situation on the mainland growing dire at the end of 1948, Chiang Kai-shek began planning to move all treasury assets to Taiwan, including gold reserves intended to back "jinyuanquan," the paper money issued by the ROC government in 1948...............................................Full Article: Source
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