There is a burgeoning economic cold war between China and the US during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is triggered by accusations of a coverup of the breakout of deadly virus with over 90,000 fatalities and massive negative economic impacts on employment and growth. Then there are accusations of theft of an estimated $6 trillion dollars of US Intellectual Property rights by the Xi-Ping Communist regime in Beijing. There are proposals for sanctions and possible suits for damages in proposed legislation introduced by US Senators Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham. They will likely come a cropper because of US courts granting sovereign immunity to China.
But there is a more practical solution; the swap of a century old gold backed bonds of the Republic of China that defaulted in 1938, valued at $1.6 trillion dollars, for a like amount of US debt held by China. The payoff could be billions of stimulus to the US economy at virtually no cost and a reduction in our national debt.
This proposal is the work of a determined horse breeder and cattle rancher from middle Tennessee Ms. Jonna Bianco, founder of the American Bondholders Foundation (ABF) in August 2001. It all started when she was approached by a US holder of these Republic of China bonds regarding a venture, she was interested in. When she approached the US Department of The Treasury, she was told that they were genuine sovereign debt, but that China rejected the obligation as a successor regime in 1949 to pay off the debt.
Over nearly two decades, working with the Bush, Obama and now Trump Administrations Ms. Bianco has built an inventory of these legacy bonds from 20,000 Americans in 46 states, testified several times before Congress that in turn passed resolutions supporting the debt swap proposal. She briefed President Trump who told her, “the US pays its obligations and so should China”.
Ms. Bianco is channeling the late UK Prime Minister Dame Margaret Thatcher, who forced the Chinese government in 1987 to buy these defaulted ROC bonds, as a quid pro quo for accessing the global financial market in the City of London- the Wall Street of the UK. We have taken to calling her, the American equivalent of “the Iron Lady’, Margaret Thatcher.
US citizens are not alone in this quest to make China pay for these legitimate debt obligations as the successor government. Ms. Bianco points out citizens of France, Belgium, Italy and even Israel hold these China legacy bonds. Some of these groups have official standing from their governments, who have filed objections to China’s rejection of these legacy bonds with the WTO. Now with President Trump backing the China US debt swap, justice might be at hand. It is in large measure due to the groundwork of this determined woman who founded the American Bondholders Foundation, Ms. Jonna Bianco.
Listen to this engrossing interview with Jonna Bianco of the ABF by Rod Reuven Bryant and Jerry Gordon of Israel News Talk Radio – Beyond the Matrix and share it widely.