Author: Metrics Ventures
In the past year, the performance of gold has been particularly striking. More importantly, there has been a significant change in the demand structure: the willingness of central banks and sovereign entities to allocate resources has notably increased. This can no longer be simply explained as a hedge against inflation or short-term safe-haven trading. A more reasonable understanding is that gold is responding to a deeper change—a repricing of the credibility of sovereign currencies and the effectiveness of global governance.
This change has been repeatedly discussed at this year's Davos Forum. Whether in the formal agenda or private discussions, phrases like "the imbalance in global governance," "the old order is breaking down," and "we are entering a phase from which we cannot return" have almost become common parlance. On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney clearly articulated the pervasive sense of unease in his speech at Davos. He bluntly stated that the so-called "rules-based international order" is disintegrating, and humanity is moving from a once-useful narrative, albeit fictional, to a harsher reality: great power competition is no longer constrained, economic integration is being weaponized, and rules are becoming selectively applicable in the face of the strong.
Carney did not simply blame the problem on a single country but pointed to a more general change in circumstances. When tariffs, financial infrastructure, supply chains, and even security commitments can be used as bargaining chips, the multilateral institutions that medium-strength countries and open economies rely on—whether the WTO, the United Nations, or other rule frameworks—are losing their binding power. In this environment, continuing to pretend that rules are still functioning normally has become a form of self-deception. He borrowed Václav Havel's metaphor of "living in a lie" to remind countries: the real risk is not that the order is changing, but that people are still acting according to the language and assumptions of the old order.
More notably, Carney repeatedly emphasized that it is not an ideological confrontation but a shift in governance choices. When rules no longer automatically provide security, nations will turn to another rationale: enhancing strategic autonomy, diversifying dependencies, and building the capacity to "withstand pressure." In his view, this is a typical risk management logic rather than a betrayal of values. But it is precisely here that the foundation on which the old order relies begins to weaken—because once countries no longer believe that the system can continue to provide public goods, they will turn to purchase "insurance" for themselves.
If we abstract the discussions at Davos from specific countries, we find a deeper common direction: countries are not suddenly becoming more conservative, but are beginning to default to the premise that the existing global governance system can still coordinate fiscal, monetary, and international responsibilities in the long term. When this premise is no longer widely believed, national behavior will shift from "division of labor within the rules" to "preparing for uncertainty." And this shift will ultimately be reflected in the most fundamental areas: debt, finance, and currency.
It is here that the cracks in global governance begin to penetrate financial pricing. National debt is no longer just a tool for macroeconomic control but is being reexamined as a discount of governance capacity and political constraints; sovereign currencies are no longer just mediums of exchange but are required to simultaneously bear the functions of intertemporal commitments, international responsibilities, and crisis buffering. Once the market begins to doubt whether these roles can still be fulfilled simultaneously, the impact on currency credibility will no longer be an extreme scenario but a gradual yet irreversible process.
And all of this does not stem from a fiscal misstep by any one country but is embedded in the current international monetary system. The dollar-centric system dictates that the world must have a long-term deficit center to absorb external savings, and it also determines that surpluses and deficits are not coincidental but a role division solidified by the system. The dollar is both the sovereign currency of the United States and the basis for global reserves, pricing, and safe assets, which means that global demand for "risk-free dollar assets" will be further strengthened as uncertainty rises. To provide the world with such assets, the United States can only fulfill this role by continuously incurring external debt.
In an environment of financialization and free capital movement, this division of labor is continuously amplified. Surpluses are no longer primarily digested through adjustments in commodity prices or exchange rates but are transformed into long-term allocations of U.S. Treasuries and dollar financial assets; deficits are no longer immediately constrained but are delayed and absorbed through the financial system and central bank interventions. As long as the world still believes that dollar assets possess irreplaceable safety in times of crisis, this imbalance can exist for a long time and may even be seen as one of the sources of system stability.
However, when governance trust declines, rule constraints weaken, and financial instruments are frequently weaponized, this structural imbalance begins to be repriced. Surpluses and deficits are no longer just macro phenomena but become the risk exposures themselves. It is against this backdrop that Japan and China, both surplus countries, have gradually taken different paths.
Japan plays the most typical and "cooperative" role of a surplus country in this system. Under external pressure and rule constraints, Japan has chosen to absorb adjustment costs through currency appreciation, financial liberalization, and long-term easing policies, thereby maintaining the stability of the overall order. This strategy has reduced friction in the short term but has transformed structural adjustments into domestic low growth, high debt, and deep central bank intervention. The surplus has not disappeared but has been internalized as the cost of long-term stagnation, significantly limiting Japan's ability to internationalize its currency in the process.
China entered this system later, and its stage of development and internal constraints are significantly different from Japan. Faced with the expansion of surpluses and external pressures, China has not completely chosen to quickly clear through price and financial channels but has sought to retain policy autonomy as much as possible within the framework of exchange rate management, capital account controls, and industrial upgrading. This choice has kept China in a long-term controversy, being accused of "distorting rules" or "free-riding," but from a governance perspective, it resembles a strategic arrangement to buy time and space for internal transformation within the existing system, rather than simple institutional arbitrage.
More importantly, this path has not stopped at "maintaining surpluses" but has quietly changed the structure of demand for the renminbi. As China's position in global trade, manufacturing, and key supply chains has risen, the renminbi is no longer just a settlement tool but is increasingly seen by more economies as a realistic option to reduce external dependence and diversify currency risks. In the context of intensified geopolitical tensions and the weaponization of financial sanctions, the single reliance on the dollar system itself has begun to be viewed as a risk exposure, leading to a clear strategic motivation for demand for renminbi settlement, renminbi financing, and renminbi asset allocation.
Once the demand for the renminbi shifts from passive use to active allocation, its impact will no longer be limited to the trade level but will transmit to the financial level. More frequent and stable usage scenarios mean that the market needs a deeper and more liquid pool of renminbi assets to accommodate this demand. The increase in liquidity, in turn, will affect the pricing of assets, causing renminbi assets to gradually shift from "domestic policy pricing" to "pricing logic closer to international margins." This process does not rely on complete capital liberalization but is more driven by real demand, representing a gradual yet difficult-to-reverse change.
It is in this contrast that the notion of "the East rising and the West falling" has re-emerged as a topic worthy of serious discussion in recent years. It is no longer an emotional judgment about the rise and fall of a particular country but a reflection of the changing costs of roles within the system. As the self-repairing ability of the dollar system declines, the space for the deficit center to absorb imbalances through debt and financial expansion continues to shrink; meanwhile, the importance of surplus economies in industrial chains, security, and regional arrangements is rising. In this process, China, having not fully replicated the Japanese adjustment path, has retained industrial, policy, and monetary space, giving it greater strategic flexibility in the reconstruction of the system.
However, this change does not mean that a new single hegemonic currency is forming. A more realistic picture is that the monetary system is moving towards a multi-centered and coexisting structure. The centrality of the dollar may be weakened but will not disappear quickly; the position of the renminbi in trade settlement, regional finance, and liquidity provision will gradually rise, but it will not be predicated on complete free floating, relying more on trade networks, the depth of industrial chains, and policy credibility. Currency internationalization here is no longer a mere institutional label but a result that emerges from usage.
In this evolution of the system, the logic of reserve assets also changes. Gold returning to a core position is not because it can provide returns, but because it does not rely on any country's tax base, political stability, or international commitments, serving as a direct response to governance uncertainty. It offers countries a reserve option that is de-sovereignized and de-credited, particularly suitable for functioning in an environment with insufficient consensus and weakened rule constraints.
Bitcoin represents another level of de-sovereign asset. Although its performance has lagged behind gold and some traditional assets in the past year and a half, its core logic has not been disproven. As a digital, scarce asset that does not depend on any single governance system, it resembles a long-term option for future forms of currency. As the reconstruction of the monetary system gradually becomes apparent and liquidity is reallocated, its pricing logic is more likely to catch up in the later stages rather than lead in the early stages.
If we ultimately consolidate these clues, we find that the unnamed order migration truly changes not the short-term balance of power but the preconditions for asset establishment. When rules no longer automatically provide security, and when currency credibility itself becomes a risk that needs to be hedged, the core issue of asset allocation is no longer betting on who will win but how to maintain establishment in a world where uncertainty becomes the norm.
In this context, gold is a defensive response, while more directional choices are reflected in the renminbi and Bitcoin. The renminbi represents the real liquidity embedded in the new order, a bet on the monetary reconstruction driven by trade, industry, and real demand; Bitcoin represents the ultimate hedge against governance uncertainty, a long-term option detached from any single sovereign system. Choosing them is not an expression of stance but a result of asset allocation that strives for coherence in the context of the visible cracks in global governance.
History does not emerge through noisy events. It is often only when looking back at a certain moment that people realize that the order has quietly undergone a migration.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
