# The China Price

- Source: Foreign Affairs
- Published: 2026-10-20T04:00:00+00:00
- Category: World
- Original: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/china-price-zongyuan-zoe-liu
- Canonical: https://groundlevelnews.com/story/the-china-price-26bb42/

In 1971, as the international monetary system was on the brink of collapse, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally told a group of worried European finance ministers that the dollar was “our currency, but your problem.” The dollar had become that system’s official reserve currency in 1944, under the Bretton Woods agreement, making signatories subject to the whims of U.S. monetary policy. Even after

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