The reddit user literally just completely made up the "to circumvent local government restriction" bit (and gets sent to the front page of r/all).
Whenever I see a post like this, I wonder if it was done by an individual or as part of a paid propaganda effort.
Link because I'm not a lib
Archive link in case it gets deleted
The sources literally linked by the OP:
Business Insider
The Guardian
What local government? What developers? What buyers? Where? How about literally any context?
It’s literally just a picture of gold with Chinese characters on it. Typical liberal journalistic standards.