China and Saudi Arabia have continued to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to defend their currency pegs.

Judge as of January 2016. The claim is that both China and Saudi Arabia had continued to spend hundreds of billions of dollars defending their currency pegs. True: official reserve data (PBOC and SAMA) show each country drew down foreign exchange reserves by hundreds of billions of dollars (at least about $200B) in 2015 to early 2016, and the drawdown is credibly attributed at least in part to currency defence. Mostly true: China clearly meets this, and Saudi Arabia's drawdown was large (about $100B or more) but its attribution to defending the peg rather than fiscal deficit spending is debatable. Mixed: the claim holds for only one country, with the other's spending well below that scale or not peg-related. Mostly false: the reserve declines are real but mostly not due to peg defence, or are far below hundreds of billions for both countries. False: neither country spent large sums defending a peg. Note that China's yuan was a managed float rather than a strict peg; treat defence of the managed rate as within the claim.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 The People's Republic of China: 2016 Article IV Consultation International Monetary Fund · August 2016

   “Reserve assets fell to US$3.33 trillion by end-2015 and to US$3.19 by May 2016 (about 28.5 percent of 2015 GDP), from US$3.84 trillion at end-2014 (about 36.4 percent of 2014 GDP), due to net sales of reserve assets and valuation losses.”

2. E2 The People's Republic of China: 2016 Article IV Consultation International Monetary Fund · August 2016

   “in 2015, of which intervention accounted for about US$342 billion (3.1 percent of GDP).”

3. E3 Saudi Arabia Economic Report 2016.indd Bank Audi Group Research Department (per source credits on the report) · 21 June 2016

   “Official foreign assets under SAMA’s management have fallen from US$ 732 billion at year-end 2014 to US$ 616 billion at year-end 2015 and are declining further in 2016.”

4. E4 Saudi Arabia Economic Report 2016.indd Bank Audi Group Research Department (per source credits on the report) · 21 June 2016

   “The decrease in SAMA’s reserve assets is mainly explained by a lower growth in oil revenues and government spending.”

IMF staff report China's reserve assets fell from US$3.84 trillion at end-2014 to US$3.33 trillion at end-2015, with about US$342 billion attributed to intervention (E1, E2), so China clearly meets the claim. SAMA's official foreign assets fell from US$732 billion to US$616 billion during 2015, a drawdown of about $116 billion (E3). However, the same source attributes this mainly to lower growth in oil revenues and government spending, and does not mention defending the peg (E4). That matches the criteria's mostly-true case: China qualifies, while Saudi Arabia's drawdown was large but its link to defending the peg is debatable.