To my knowledge the only country to accept gold in payment in...

To my knowledge the only country to accept gold in payment in its international trade dealings is Iran and that mainly because due to international sanctions it can not trade in dollars or euros.

In conformity with a recent agreement, Brazil and China will allow for $30 billion in currency swaps utilizing the real and the renminbi, the most common way to bypass the need for payments in dollars.

The Chinese don't need to buy shares in a gold explorer in Australia in order to convert dollars into gold.If China thinks that they need gold then they can buy it from the IMF, other central bankers and the spot gold market.

Some interesting stuff here about the renmimbi in the link provided below. Note the final comment: "If international trade in the renminbi is largely driven by financial arbitrage, as the extraordinary use of letters of credit implies, then Beijing’s plan to internationalise the renminbi is not exactly going according to plan."

In short, it is not the Chinese that see a great potential in HAW for GOLD, but some HT posters with probably some ulterior motive that I leave to the others here to guess what that may be.

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/05/29/renminbis-mysterious-rise-trade-finance-or-interest-rate-arbitrage/#axzz25XWhlrB1