Now in some other cases, yes the Asians had some appreciating currencies until recently. But more recently, they have not. So maybe they will eventually have a gain on their foreign exchange reserves because they are mostly in US dollars and the local currencies have had a tendency to weaken. If my view about the slowdown in China is correct, they could weaken much more.
If you look at Japan, they entered a money printing exercise a couple of months ago at the end of last year and they weakened the yen. So the Koreans scratched their heads and said if the Japanese do it we should also do it. If the Chinese economy slows down meaningfully, the Chinese will say ok let’s depreciate our currency also. So everybody is in a mode of protectionism, not necessarily through import quotas and import duties, but through currency manipulation
Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.