Spot gold hovered around $1755 an ounce in early Asian trading on Friday. Influenced by the dovish remarks of Federal Reserve Chairman Colin Powell and the situation between China and the United States, gold prices rose sharply in New York overnight. As of press time, spot gold was at $1756.39 an ounce, up 0.05 per cent.
Spot gold closed at $1755.84 an ounce on Thursday, hitting an intraday high of $1758.76.
The US Commerce Department announced on Thursday that it had added seven Chinese entities to the so-called "entity list" and imposed export controls, saying they were suspected of "destabilizing military modernisation". It also said that its activities were "contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States".
According to the announcement of the US Department of Commerce, the seven entities involved include: national supercomputing Jinan Center, National supercomputing Shenzhen Center, National supercomputing Wuxi Center, National supercomputing Zhengzhou Center, Shanghai High performance Integrated Circuit Design Center, Shenzhen Xinwei Microelectronics Co., Ltd., Tianjin Feiteng Information Technology Co., Ltd.
The seven entities were blacklisted for "building supercomputers for the Chinese military, destabilizing military modernization efforts and / or weapons of mass destruction programs".
"Supercomputing power is critical to the development of many-perhaps almost all-modern weapons and national security systems, such as hypersonic weapons," U.S. Commerce Secretary Genna Raimundo wrote in a statement. "
"the Ministry of Commerce will make full use of its authority to prevent China from using US technology to support these destabilizing military modernization efforts," she added. "
In addition, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to meet on April 14 to discuss bipartisan legislation to improve the ability of the United States to resist China's growing global influence, Senate sources said on Thursday.
According to reports, the draft, called the Strategic Competition Act of 2021 ((Strategic Competition Act of 2021), calls for a series of diplomatic and strategic measures to confront China, reflecting the tough attitude of Democrats and Republicans in Congress on relations with China.
The bill aims to address economic competition with China, but also deals with humanitarian and democratic values, such as the treatment of minority Uighur Muslims, repression in Hong Kong and aggression in the South China Sea.
The statement stressed that it is necessary to "give priority to military investment necessary to achieve the political goals of the United States in the Indo-Pacific region." It called on government spending to do so and said Congress must ensure that the federal budget was "appropriately matched" with the strategic need to compete with China.
It called for a stronger partnership with Taiwan, calling the island "an important part of the US Indo-Pacific strategy" and said the ability of US officials to interact with Taiwanese officials should not be limited.
The bill also says the United States must encourage allies to do more to curb China's "aggressive and confident behavior." It calls on each federal department and agency to appoint a senior official to coordinate policies on strategic competition with China.
"the United States must ensure that all federal departments and agencies are organized to reflect the fact that strategic competition with China is a top priority of US foreign policy," the draft said.
Another provision would limit aid to countries with Chinese military facilities, saying China uses its so-called "Belt and Road Initiative" initiative to advance its security interests and facilitate more military entry.
Powell stressed that uneven distribution of vaccines poses a threat to economic recovery
Federal Reserve Chairman Colin Powell publicly commented on public health issues at the IMF spring video conference on Thursday, saying that uneven vaccination progress around the world will pose a threat to the global economic recovery.
Powell said in his speech that the current recovery (of the global economy) is still uneven and incomplete, and that only when the virus can be brought under control around the world can economic activity truly fully recover. The Fed chairman called on people to be vaccinated while sticking to social quarantine, warning that future recurrence of outbreaks could slow the pace of economic recovery, even if the impact was not as severe as it was at the beginning of the epidemic.
Georgiyeva, president of IMF, who attended the same seminar, gave a similar opinion, saying that vaccine policy is economic policy this year and next, and that it is even more important than traditional fiscal or monetary policy.
It is important to note that although a number of senior Fed officials have said that large-scale vaccination has brought brighter economic prospects, the Fed's position is that the US economy will continue to be under pressure, so the ultra-loose support policy will remain "for some time". At present, the official guidance of the Federal Reserve is that interest rates will not be raised until the end of 2023, but this position has been increasingly questioned as the economic outlook has rebounded significantly.
For Powell himself, his current term is about to end early next year, which means that the White House needs to decide within the next six months or so whether to continue to nominate Powell to run the Federal Reserve. Asked on Thursday, Powell responded that he was focusing on other major issues and had no room to spend time on it. Every day I think about how to make the best of the task at hand, and it's busy enough just to think about it.
