William Engdhal: What China and Russia Plan With Their Gold


William Engdhal is the author of one of the most insightful accounts of American monetary history “The gods of money” and more recently “The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy”. Mr. Engdhal writes many topical articles and this week discussed his views on the broader picture behind Russia and China’s involvement in the purchase of gold together with their political and economic cooperation. 

Mr. Engdhal bluntly states that “we have a U.S. dollar supported by F16s and Abrams tanks” and concludes that China and Russia are working tirelessly at an alternative to this reality. To this end, he is convinced that the Chinese government through their sovereign wealth fund and central bank have perhaps three or four times the amount of gold they claim they have. The simple reason behind the obfuscation is that “they don’t want to wave a red flag at the bull of Washington”. In cooperation, Mr. Engdhal states that China and Russia are buying gold in huge quantities with the intention of very quietly building the basis of a Eurasian continent independent of NATO; one that is militarily defensible because as a land mass it is largely immune to U.S. naval projection. Furthermore, the foreign and domestic policies in Washington “have created a unity in the nations of Eurasia to defend against an enemy that is out to destroy them” and consequently China and Russia are creating military and infrastructure cooperation built upon a foundation of sound money.

In order to achieve these ends, Mr. Engdhal is convinced that the Chinese are building an alternative monetary system to the dollar. Having already built their infrastructure internally (roads, buildings, bridges etc.) they are transforming the economy by focusing on external transportation arms to link the entire Eurasian land space and bring infrastructure into agricultural areas, remote villages and mining areas that have never had access to a market before. Mr. Engdhal predicts that the markets that are going to be created across Eurasia are staggering with a potential to add trillions to the GDPs of those countries in participation. Mr. Engdhal indicates that his future view goes beyond simply cooperation between China and Russia and uses India as an example. India and China have been closer together than they have been in perhaps a century. Russia too has very good relations with the Modi government with defence sales and so forth and India is a member of the BRICS group. India is formally linked into the China Silk Road and along with Pakistan and Russia are together members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In conclusion, Mr. Engdhal states that “the world is changing and the main-stream-media in the West doesn’t have a clue”. The relentless acquisition of gold in the East is the prelude to significant global change and is ignored at great risk.