I'm not sure about the US consumption story any more
"With about 1.7 trillion of dollar-denominated assets (mainly Treasuries) in its foreign currency reserves, conventional wisdom goes something like this: If China were to diversify away from the dollar or merely allow the renminbi to float, much less dump its greenbacks wholesale, they would be shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. That's both as investors and because further dollar weakness would put a damper on their biggest export market. (A weaker dollar makes foreign goods more expensive for Americans, meaning Chinese imports would become less "cheap.")
This view is "slightly naive," according to Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money.
"The idea they don't have anywhere else to go or would shoot themselves in the foot if there were a steep decline in the dollar or appreciation of their currency reassures many people in Washington ‘we can relax'," he says. "An appreciation of the renminbi may reduce value of their international reserves but increases the value of every other asset the Chinese own," most notably the commodity assets they have been buying all over the world.
"People in Washington rather assume because the U.S. consumer was so dominant there really isn't a substitute," Ferguson says. But China's trade surplus stood at $12.9 billion in September, down about 56% from a year earlier, according to MarketWatch.com."
....China quietly has changed official government financial policy to position gold as a key asset in its foreign exchange reserves, reportedly doubling its gold reserves to a current 1,054 tons.
This has resulted in massive, but largely unannounced, gold buys undertaken on world gold exchanges by the Chinese central bank.
