I thought that the deregulation of China's internal gold market a few years ago would already have been a game changer, but it turned out to have just a marginal impact on the price of gold.

Since China is making its intentions public before it actually starts buying gold to add to its reserves, I hope this will not become an official point of bilateral negotiation between the US and China.

On the other hand, I think that the balance of power between China and the US has shifted so much after the US inflicted credit crisis, that China is not going to be bullied any longer. China already knows that the value of its dollar reserves is not going to be protected by a "strong dollar policy" on behalf of the US, so there is little goodwill left. The US has purposedly shifted an important part of its accumulated debt burden to China, so China doesn't need US consent to make the best out of its dollar reserves, which obviously is by buying hard assets.

What I still cannot grasp is how on earth the Cartel is still capable of keeping the POG down with all the accumulated upward pressure that has been building up over the last year. I almost get the feeling we are missing a trick.