Currency Wars

For a discussion of competitive devaluation, see Currency war.

For James G. Rickard's Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, see James_G._Rickards.

Currency Wars
Author(s)	Song Hong bing
Country	China, Taiwan
Language	Chinese, Korean
Subject(s)	financial history
Genre(s)	Economics
Publication date	2007
Media type	Hardcover, Paperback
ISBN	9789573263791

Currency Wars by Song Hong bing^[1], also known as The Currency War,^[2] is a bestselling book in China, reportedly selling over 200,000 copies^[3][4] and is reportedly being read by many senior level government and business leaders in China.^[5] Originally published in 2007 the book gained a resurgence in 2009 and is seen as a prominent exponent of a recently emerged genre labeled "economic nationalist" literature.^[5] Another bestselling book within this genre is Unhappy China, however, unlike this and other books within this genre, Currency Wars has been received more positively by the Chinese leadership as its recommendations are seen as less aggressive towards the US.^[5] The premise of this book is that Western countries are ultimately controlled by a group of private banks, which, according to the book, runs their central banks. This book uses the claim^{[citation needed]} that the Federal Reserve is a private body to support its role. The book's author correctly predicted a banking crisis in the US in 2008.^{[citation needed]} More than 1 million of this book were sold.^[6]

In July 2009 the book was followed by a second sequel, Currency Wars 2 : World of Gold Privilege, published by China Industry and Commerce Publishing House (ISBN-13: 978-9573265214) ^[7], which The Financial Times reported as being one of the most popular books in China by late 2009.^[8]. More than two million copies have been sold.^[9] In this book Mr Song predicted that by 2024, the world's single currency system will mature. He believes that if China can not be dominant in this system, it should not participate, but should be self-hill, have their own sphere of financial influence.^[10] This last topic is much more developed in the third sequel.

In May 2011, Currency Wars 3 : Financial High Frontier, a third sequel was published by Yuan-Liou Publishing (ISBN：9789573267843). It discuss more specifically the modern Chinese History (from Chiang Kai-shek to the depreciation in the long term trend of U.S. dollar) seen from a Currency War perspective. It pushes towards an isolationist financial policy.

Synopsis

According to the book, the western countries in general and the US in particular are controlled by a clique of international bankers, which use currency manipulation (hence the title) to gain wealth by first loaning money in USD to developing nations and then shorting their currency. The Japanese Lost decade, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the Latin American financial crisis and others are attributed to this cause. It also claims that the Rothschild Family has the wealth of 5 trillion dollars whereas Bill Gates only has 40 billion dollars.^[11]

Mr Song also makes the sensational claim that the famous U.S. central bank - the Federal Reserve, is not a department of state functions, but several private banks operated by the private sector, and that theses private banks are loyal to the ubiquitous Rothschild family.^[12][13][14]

On June 4, 1963 President Kennedy signed a virtually unknown^{[dubious – discuss]} Presidential decree, which, as an amendment to Executive Order 10289, delegated the authority to issue silver certificates (notes convertible to silver on demand) to the Secretary of the Treasury. The direct consequence was that the Federal Reserve lost its monopoly to control money.

The book looks back at history and argues that fiat currency itself is a conspiracy; it sees in the abolishing of representative currency and the installment of fiat currency a struggle between the "banking clique" and the governments of the western nations, ending in the victory of the former. It advises the Chinese government to keep a vigilant eye on China's currency and instate a representative currency. The book, published in 2007, also correctly described and warned^{[citation needed]} of the various forms of derivative speculation used by Wall Street which eventually became the causes of massive margin call sell offs and stock market crash in late 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Reception

The book has achieved bestseller status in China.^[8] The Financial Times described the book's thesis are far-fetched, and described it as only passably entertaining, though they acknowledged the book's huge popularity in China.^[15] Fred Hu, managing director of Goldman Sachs Group, said the currency wars were "non existent".^[16]. He uses in his review words as "a simple out of line, outrageous distortion ", "many errors, out of context, far-fetched, exaggerated, or simply speculate, uncertain", and conclusion to this book as "melted mixed the ultra-left trend of thought, far-right tendencies, populism, isolationism, anarchism".^[17]

According to Zhang Jiayi, we could think that the "currency wars" series of books goal in promoting the conspiracy theory is precisely to meet the angry psychology of youth.^[18]
Professor Chen Zhiwu (University of Yale) and Professor Zhang Xin (University of Toledo/Ohio) also reviewed badly the first book.^[19]

See also

• Petrodollar warfare
• The Money Masters (film)

References

1. ^ http://book.sina.com.cn/news/c/2009-07-25/1448258591.shtml
2. ^ Wong, Edward (2008-06-17). "Booming, China Faults U.S. Policy on the Economy". The New York Times: p. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/world/asia/17china.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2009-03-29. "“This time, the Chinese side is trying to change its attitude to be more active, to be more aggressive, to balance the two sides,” said Song Hong bing, author of “The Currency War,” a best-selling if conspiratorial book on the American economy." 
3. ^ McGregor, Richard (2007-09-27). "Chinese buy into currency war plot". The Australian. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,22487560-36375,00.html?from=public_rss. Retrieved 2009-03-29. 
4. ^ McGregor, Richard (2007-09-25). "Chinese buy into conspiracy theory". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/70f2a23c-6b83-11dc-863b-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F70f2a23c-6b83-11dc-863b-0000779fd2ac.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DCurrency_wars%26rcid%3D288293260%26redirect%3Dno&nclick_check=1. Retrieved 2009-03-29. 
5. ^ ^{a b c} Ng, Grace Ng (6 April 2009). "Chinese flip new page in push to be superpower". The Straits Times (Singapore). http://www.straitstimes.com/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=d5c9cc1017770210VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=f511758920e39010VgnVCM1000000a35010aRCRD. Retrieved 8 April 2009. 
6. ^ http://thebookcheckout.com/insidethebook/inside_the_book.php?site_id=3&pdf_id=2771&id=2796
7. ^ Jin Zhu (2009-08-20). "Pulling the strings of the world economy". Beijing Today. http://www.beijingtoday.com.cn/book/pulling-the-strings-of-the-world-economy. 
8. ^ ^{a b} Geoff Dyer in Beijing (2009-09-24). "The dragon stirs". The Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/671a76ec-a950-11de-9b7f-00144feabdc0.html. Retrieved 2010-10-06. 
9. ^ http://thebookcheckout.com/insidethebook/inside_the_book.php?site_id=3&pdf_id=2771&id=2796
10. ^ http://book.sina.com.cn/news/c/2009-07-29/1641258770.shtml
11. ^ Sang-Keun, Kim (2009-10-15). "Currency Wars by Song Hongbing". http://sangecon.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/currency-wars-by-song-hongbing/. Retrieved 2009-11-05. ""First of all, the book reveals that the Rothschild family is the richest family with $5 trillion dollars whereas Bill Gates “only” have $ 40 billion dollars. The Rothschild family’s wealth is 100times the Bill Gate’s wealth."" 
12. ^ http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2801867,00.html
13. ^ http://www.ylib.com/hotsale/Money_War/index.htm
14. ^ http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Miscellaneous-Information.aspx discuss the "Executive Order 11110"
15. ^ Geoff Dyer in Beijing (2007-09-28). "Believe it or not". The Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c0e62134-6df3-11dc-b8ab-0000779fd2ac.html. Retrieved 2010-10-06. 
16. ^ http://news.ifeng.com/opinion/point/200712/1204_2449_335888.shtml
17. ^ http://money.163.com/07/1221/07/407HUH1O00252BUU.html
18. ^ Zhang Jiayi. "Book Review: Who is against Mr Song ?". sina.com.cn. http://book.sina.com.cn/news/c/2009-08-04/0958258925.shtml. 
19. ^ http://www.voanews.com/chinese/news/a-21-w2007-10-04-voa2-63073247.html

External links

• Official blog of 'Currency War' (Chinese)
• Chinese buy into conspiracy theory
• Review of Currency Wars
• Review of Currency War 2
• Mr Song's interview about "Currency War 2" on Sina channel (Chinese)
• Detailed Table of Contents of Currency War (Chinese)
• Detailed Table of Contents of Currency War 3 (Chinese)