Alasdair Macleod: China Ends Retail Paper Gold & Opens the Floodgates (Mining Network)

Alasdair Macleod, economist and leading voice on sound money, returns to Mining Network to break down China’s rapidly accelerating gold strategy and what it means for Western paper markets, the dollar, and global monetary order.

Earlier this month Hong Kong launched its new gold central clearing and settlement system. This week several major Chinese banks (including ICBC) will end retail paper gold trading on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. At the same time, Beijing is easing long-standing restrictions on gold exports between the mainland and Hong Kong. Macleod argues these moves are not isolated — they form part of a deliberate, decades-long plan to secure the yuan against the eventual failure of the Western fiat system.



Both China and Russia hold a lot of gold. Alasdair warns that Western countries are up to their eyeballs in debt and are set for a big fall when Bond rates go up. He thinks that the wars in Ukraine and Iran will help push the West into a corner in terms of their economic positions. This would likely be due to a shortage of oil. The US cannot win against Iran, and Russia is winning in Ukraine where gas supplies to Europe are shut off. Western countries are going backwards economically as their levels of debt balloon.   

[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, July 25, 2026.]