China’s central bank bought gold for a 23rd consecutive month in September, its largest monthly purchase in nearly three years, pressing on with a campaign to cut its dependence on the dollar and shield its reserves from financial and geopolitical risk, analysts told Al Jazeera.
The People’s Bank of China added about 23 tonnes, bringing its reported holdings to roughly 2,410 tonnes, according to the World Gold Council, the biggest one-month purchase since October 2023. Gold made up 8.5 percent of China’s official reserves at the end of September, up from 5.5 percent at the end of 2024. By one measure the true total may be larger: Chinese customs data show more than 1,000 tonnes of gold imported in eight months this year, far more than the central bank reports buying.
Chinese households are buying too. Purchases of gold bars and coins ran 28.4 percent higher in the first half of 2026 than in the same period last year, according to the China Gold Association, and the buying has continued even as prices fell about 8.5 percent over the past month. The council attributed the decline partly to a stronger dollar and higher returns on US government debt, which, unlike gold, pays interest.
The motives differ. For Beijing, said Thu Lan Nguyen, head of commodity research at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, the goal is to reduce exposure to US Treasuries and to decisions taken in Washington. “China’s gold purchases are part of a broader effort to make its reserves more resilient,” she said. The freezing of roughly $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine showed how quickly money held abroad can become unreachable.
“Gold held domestically has a crucial advantage in this respect: it does not represent a claim on another country and is therefore much less exposed to sanctions or asset freezes,” Ms. Nguyen said. “I would interpret it primarily as risk management.” The concern for China is that a future confrontation with Washington could put some of its overseas assets under similar restrictions.
America’s debt adds to the unease. It passed $40 trillion for the first time this year, and in February the Congressional Budget Office projected that federal debt held by the public would climb from 101 percent of the size of the US economy in 2026 to 120 percent in 2036. Much of that debt is held by China. Gold is the steadier thing to hold.
Ordinary savers have their own reasons. With the stock market weak and property weighed down by heavy borrowing and overbuilding, gold offers somewhere to put savings. “Strong demand for gold can partly reflect a search for alternative stores of value,” Ms. Nguyen said.
None of this spells the end of the dollar, she cautioned. “I would be cautious about describing this as a major shift away from the dollar,” she said. “The dollar remains by far the dominant global reserve currency.” A gradual move could still matter: if central banks steer more of each new reserve into gold, they buy less US debt than they otherwise would. But the effect, Ms. Nguyen said, is “likely to be a slow diversification process rather than a sudden abandonment of the dollar,” with limited consequences for the US economy unless the trend broadens and accelerates. Central banks also need ready foreign currency for international payments, and the dollar stays at the center of those transactions.
China is not alone in the trade. Poland’s central bank bought 31 tonnes in the first quarter of 2026 and eight more in July. India’s stock has barely moved, at about 880.5 tonnes, after purchases of about four tonnes last year against 73 tonnes in 2024. And for all its buying, China’s holdings of about 2,300 tonnes at the end of 2025 amounted to less than a third of the American stockpile of roughly 8,133 tonnes.