How China Could Re-Dollarize The World
China issued a US dollar bond in Saudi Arabia, striking at the heart of the petrodollar. This was a negligible bond issue, $2 billion, but what’s interesting is the rate and the uptake. China was able to issue US denominated bonds at basically the same rate as the US, they’re almost as good as ‘gilt’. This is not de-dollarization, but re-dollarization, using USD to subvert the USA.
The Bond Issue
For reference, when Sri Lanka issued USD bonds in 2022 they traded at a roughly 9% premium (very high risk). When Alibaba issued USD bonds in 2017 they traded at 1.08% above the rate (medium risk). When China issued bonds last week, however, they traded at only 0.007–0.029% above the rate (3Y/5Y), and were oversubscribed by 19.9x. As one Chinese commentator put it (via Eric Yeung), “we replaced the Federal Reserve.” Not quite, but you can see a Novus ordo seclorum taking shape.
The Money Issue
In the film Scarface, once Scarface started making lots of money, he had another problem. What to do with it? This is the problem OPEC countries faced in the aftermath of the 1970s Oil Shock. After nationalizing their oil, they were suddenly making billions of dollars in oil revenue, and had no clue…
