The Chinese Are Converting Their Cash to U.S. Dollars
- Households build up unprecedented foreign-currency holdings
- Suspicious trade data may signal disguised money flows
A bank teller counts yuan banknotes in a bank in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu province.
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Karen Chou, a 32-year-old bank worker in Beijing, had a New Year’s resolution: sell yuan, buy dollars.
“I’m not optimistic about China’s economy,” she said, after rushing to exchange some of her savings for U.S. currency as part of heightened demand at some Chinese bank branches in the first weeks of 2016.