Thursday, 10 Mar 2011 11:58 AM

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China has likely begun a campaign to convert its dollars to gold that could end up with the nation cornering the gold market, says Richard Lehmann, editor of the Forbes/Lehmann Income Security Investor newsletter.

China is alarmed about potential weakness for the dollar, he says in an interview with Steve Forbes.

So “I’m concerned that basically China is probably already on a program to diversify the dollar into gold. I don’t think they want any other fiat currencies or want to minimize that amount.”

Gold bars

If China buys enough gold, at some point it can simply dictate the price, Lehmann says. And it has the means to do so, given that Chinese currency reserves total almost $3 trillion, and the world’s gold supply is now worth about $5 trillion, he says.

So China could “in one stroke, basically take control of the gold market and tie the dollar to gold so that effectively, if every six months the dollar deteriorates 5 percent, they can just upgrade the stated price at which they wanted to buy gold and thereby upgrade and up-value their gold reserves, but also keep the dollar in check.”

With plenty of other investors buying gold too, many experts expect it to continue rising. Richard Russell, author of the Dow Theory newsletter, says in a commentary obtained by King World News that the precious metal may reach $6,000 an ounce.

Spot gold was at $1,407.40 an ounce near midday Thursday.