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Big gold fraud busted in China! Gold market spooked by massive counterfeiting scandal


Over the past decade, China has emerged as the world's biggest counterfeiter of various, mostly industrial metals used to secure bank loans, infamously called "ghost collateral", and often several banks would have claims to the same (fake) asset. In a recent development, which would spark a brief wave of outrage among physical gold holders, China's Wuhan-based Kingold Jewelry Inc has been accused of depositing fake gold bars as collateral to obtain loan worth 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) from 14 Chinese financial institutions, mostly trust companies (also known as shadow banks), over the past five years, as per a report in Zero Hedge.

Considered to be one of the biggest gold counterfeiting scandals in recent history, the scam not only involves China, but it emerges from Wuhan city, the capital of Hubei Province, that has become synonymous for all that is scandalous about the country.

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https://www.businesstoday.in/current/world/biggest-gold-fraud-busted-in-china-83-tons-of-fake-gold-bars-used-as-loan-collateral/story/408497.html

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Normally I'd be sceptical of q story from the Fox stable of news, but the following looks like a real story.

 

China wields coronavirus to nationalize American-owned carmaker

Police and private security forces raided the headquarters on June 29

read at https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/china-coronavirus-nationalize-america-owned-car-company

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Is China heading into the ‘treason trap’?

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-treason-trap

Victoria University of Wellington's Arthur Pomeroy looks to ancient Greece and Rome to better understand modern China and if it is heading into the ‘Treason Trap’ of imperial Rome

The world of ancient Greece and Rome is regularly referenced when considering modern events. Julius Caesar, Nero and the Fall of the Roman Empire are perhaps the most common examples of historical characters and events that are (often misleadingly) cited.

In modern China, too, lessons are frequently drawn from the past, not only from Chinese but also from western history. The most obvious case is the ‘Thucydides Trap’, referring to the Greek historian Thucydides’ analysis of the cause of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens.

In his opinion, one great power (Sparta) was so alarmed by the rise of a rival (Athens under Pericles) that conflict was inevitable. A clear parallel is drawn to the relations between the superpower of the United States and the rising influence of China under President Xi Jinping.

Less well known, because it is mainly used in internal discussion, is the ‘Tacitus Trap’. This is a warning based on the fate of the emperor Galba, who had not stamped down on criminal activity by his subordinates early in his reign.

The Roman historian Tacitus writes: “Once the emperor had fallen into disrepute, all his actions, whether good or bad, created hostility.” As a result, Galba was assassinated and the Roman empire was consumed by civil war in the notorious ‘Year of the Four Emperors’.

This is a strong warning to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) not to lose popular support by ignoring corruption.

Following the extension of China’s national security law to Hong Kong, it is worth considering whether other lessons from Tacitus might be worth applying.

Rome had a treason law and under the Republic this was generally not controversial. Treason was assisting enemies against Rome or the actions of generals against the state as a whole and was a capital crime. So, when Caesar left his province in northern Italy and crossed the boundary of the Rubicon River with his troops, he was committing a treasonous act that resulted in civil war.

Under the Empire, when the state was directly linked to the emperor, matters became much less clear. Any attack on the head of state was treason and might be punished as such.

Under the second emperor, Tiberius, charges of treason multiplied. Taking a coin with the emperor’s image on it to a toilet or selling an emperor’s statue along with one’s property could bring about a charge of treasonous conduct.

Because the ‘diminution of state power’ was hard to define, it became a popular way to attack rivals, often by attaching the charge of treason to other, less serious offences. High-ranked Romans would be judged by their peers in the Senate, a court presided over by the emperor. Senators needed to judge carefully what outcome they believed the emperor desired. A wrong vote could destroy one’s career or worse.

During Tiberius’ reign, the Roman upper classes tore themselves apart. When he died, the popular judgement was “To the Tiber with Tiberius” – the deceased emperor’s body should be tossed into the river flowing through Rome like an enemy of the nation.

Given the CCP’s belief that the legal system is intended to support the government, rather than vice versa, as in western democratic states, and the increasing use of the security law in association with other charges, it must be asked whether China is heading into the ‘Treason Trap’ of imperial Rome.

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and for those who've the perspicacity and reading skills to have made it this far, it probably would not stress your brain,  to paraphrase the above words,  substituting 'merica for Chyeeena...

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China crushes mass protest by bank depositors demanding their life savings back

Chinese authorities on Sunday violently dispersed a peaceful protest by hundreds of depositors, who sought in vain to demand their life savings back from banks that have run into a deepening cash crisis.

Since April, four rural banks in China's central Henan province have frozen millions of dollars worth of deposits, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of customers in an economy already battered by draconian Covid lockdowns...

Many said they were shocked by the sudden burst of violence by the security forces...

(No, you can't have your money back, here, have some violence)

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/10/china/china-henan-bank-depositors-protest-mic-intl-hnk/index.html

Much like the question "What happens when the electricity is gone?"

"What happens when the banks wont give you, your money, back?"

I reckon society teeters on a knife edge. (China version in this instance)

 

related: keen observers will note that the people in Sri Lanka, have removed their government.

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