Even $3 Trillion Can’t Buy China Love or Good PR
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May 18 (Bloomberg) -- China’s $3.3 trillion of currencyreserves are a nice thing to have when you want to polish yourimage. Even if money can’t buy you love, it sure can buy lots ofpositive buzz.
The most-populous nation has been throwing tens of billionsof dollars at its prestige deficit for a decade, all part of aneffort to enhance China’s soft power, something of which theU.S., for all its crises, has a surplus. Why else would Chinesedissidents head to U.S. shores, or embassies, for shelter? Whydo so many wealthy Chinese, and government reserve managers, seethe dollar and the U.S. legal system as a haven?