On clandestine gold price manipulation by central bankers aimed at preserving the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, Engdahl states:

The COMEX gold futures market in New York and the Over-the-Counter (OTC) trades cleared through the London Bullion Market Association do set prices which are followed most widely in the world. They are also markets dominated by a handful of huge players, the six London Bullion Market Association gold clearing banks — the corrupt JP MorganChase bank; the scandal-ridden UBS bank of Zurich; The Bank of Nova Scotia — ScotiaMocatta, the world’s oldest bullion bank which began as banker to the British East India Company, the group that ran the China Opium Wars; the scandal-ridden Deutsche Bank; the scandal-ridden Barclays Bank of London; HSBC of London, the house bank of the Mexican drug cartels; and the scandal and fraud-ridden Societe Generale of Paris,” Engdahl narrated.

On how China, Russia and other emerging powers are fed up with the current gold market and are going their own way:

However, “[r]ather than scream and cry ‘fraud’ at the owners of the COMEX/CME or the London Bullion Market Association Big Six clearing banks, these countries are involved in the genial move to create an entirely different gold market, one that not JP MorganChase or HSBC or Deutsche Bank control, but one that China, Russia and others of a like mind control,” Engdahl stressed.

According to Engdahl, China’s new “Silk Road” economic development plan and the $16 billion gold investment fund launched in May, are all part of the plan to increase China’s gold holdings at the expense of the US dollar:

“As China has expressed it, the aim is to enable the Eurasian countries along the Silk Road to increase the gold backing of their currencies. That sounds very much like some clear-thinking and far-sighted governments are thinking of creating a stable group of gold backed currencies that would facilitate orderly trade free from Washington currency wars,” the economic researcher elaborated.

Engdahl names Russia, the world’s third largest gold producer, and South Africa, a major bullion miner and fellow BRICS member to China and Russia, as the two other countries most likely to benefit from the arrangement.

China shocked the gold market a month ago by revealing its official reserves for the first time since 2009. It put to an end to years of speculation and rumours of Beijing quietly buying massive amounts of bullion.

The People’s Bank of China said China’s gold reserves stood at 1,658 tonnes at the end of June, a rise of more than 600 tonnes over the six year period.

On Friday China’s central bank – which is battling credibility issues after its surprise devaluation of the renminbi turned out not to be a “once-off” – updated the figures again saying gold reserves increased 1.1% or 19 tonnes during the month of July to 1,677 tonnes.