In a piece of news that certainly delights GATA, Wikileaks published a cable going back to 2009 in the year that European central banks halted their sales of gold. It said the following:
"The U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold. They intend to weaken gold's function as an international reserve currency. They don't want to see other countries turning to gold reserves instead of the U.S. dollar or euro. Therefore, suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar's role as the international reserve currency. China's increased gold reserves will thus act as a model and lead other countries toward reserving more gold. Large gold reserves are also beneficial in promoting the internationalization of the Renminbi [Yuan]."
...
The Chinese belief that the U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold cannot be refuted reasonably. The gold sales by the U.S. and then in the seventies the gold sales by the I.M.F. were direct attempts to squash the gold price in the pretence that gold would be sold out of the system.
In 1978 the Second Amendment of the IMF Articles was intended to delete gold from the international monetary system. The amendment followed the failure of previous attempts to establish a new international monetary system. In particular these included the failure of European countries to force the United States to either settle its deficit in gold, or else devalue the dollar against gold. This Second Amendment of the Articles barred members from fixing their exchange rates to gold and removed the obligation on members to conduct transactions in gold at the official gold price.
Not only did the United States refuse to keep gold in the system, it then led a crusade against gold (while being careful to keep a very large strategic stock of gold in its own reserve, sealed off from the outside world).
-kitco.com
