ML-Implode News - China Now Stockpiling Massive Amounts Of Silver, Swiftly Building Massive Regional Trade Infrastructure

Between August, 2015 and April, the latest data I have, silver inventories in China (on their exchange) have climbed more than sevenfold from 233 metric tonnes to a staggering 1700 tonnes. China is stockpiling silver specifically for use in their enormous solar buildout program, which is a massive, multi-year program that will require unimaginable amounts of physical silver.
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China's end game is to secure enough resources to secure a decent lifestyle for its nearly 1.5 billion citizens. China realizes this means that its Eastern trading partners must also develop. In a report authored by McKinsey Global Institute that was released this week, the consultant reports that over the most recent decade for which it has data, China has spent more on infrastructure than North America and Western Europe combined. Moreover, the remaining parts of the East led in large part by Chinese financing have spent three times more than China.

This piece makes the good point (as have a few scattered others in the last few years) that China's stockpiling of and encouragement of private citizen-buying of precious metals is quite compatible with China's extensive efforts to build out regional trade infrastructure (most notably, the "New Silk Road" and One Belt/One Road initiative). I.e., the plan seems to be (1) build up both private and public monetary wealth, (2) build out regional trade infrastructure, (3) when the regional trade infrastructure is mature, unleash the hoarded wealth to pivot to a consumer-dominant local economy, as buyer through the newly-created regional trade infrastructure. Put another way, the solution to the mystery of the "missing transition to a Chinese consumer-driven economy" may simply be that it is waiting upon the maturation of the regional trade infrastructure -- the plan is not, at all, to buy through the "old" (currently dominant) trade networks with the West.

Relevant:

China Now Stockpiling Massive Amounts Of Silver, Swiftly Building Massive Regional Trade Infrastructure