In fact, Treasuries are a logical investment for a country with high foreign currency reserves. China currently holds almost 11.60% of U.S. foreign debt.
China and Japan are the largest foreign investors in American government debt. Together they own $2 trillion — more than a quarter — of the $7.6 trillion in US Treasury securities held by foreign countries.
Japan owns the most at $1.1 trillion, followed by China, with $859 billion, and the United Kingdom at $668 billion.
If China called in all of its U.S. holdings, the U.S. dollar would depreciate, whereas the yuan would appreciate, making Chinese goods more expensive.
For the past 20 years, Japan and China have been the top two foreign countries with US Treasuries. According to usafacts.org, as of January 2023, Japan owned $1.1 trillion in US Treasuries, making it the largest foreign holder of the national debt.
U.S. debt offers the safest heaven for Chinese forex reserves, which effectively means that China offers loans to the U.S. so that the U.S. can keep buying the goods China produces.
As recently as 2020, total debt in the United States relative to GDP exceeded China's. But as of mid-2022, China's relative debt burden stood 40 percent higher than America's.
An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China — including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia — found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of the tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel.
But other experts argue the risk of a hard landing is low. China has little overseas debt, and a high national savings rate. In addition, most of the debt is state owned – state-controlled banks loaned funds to state-controlled firms – giving the government the ability to manage the situation.
China owns roughly 384,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land, according to a 2021 report from the Department of Agriculture.
A major lender abroad, China is facing a debt bomb at home: trillions of dollars owed by local governments, their financial affiliates, and real estate developers.
Why Does Japan Buy U.S. Debt? Because Japan exports so many goods to the U.S. and other nations, the country frequently develops an account surplus in dollars - the currency the U.S. and other countries give Japan in exchange for their products.
Stocks, corporate debt and the value of the dollar would probably plummet. Volatility could be extreme, not just in the United States but across the world. In 2011, around when lawmakers struck a last-minute deal to avoid breaching the debt limit, the S&P 500 fell 17 percent in just over two weeks.
Foreign holders of United States treasury debt
Of the total 7.6 trillion held by foreign countries, Japan and Mainland China held the greatest portions, with China holding 868.9 billion U.S. dollars in U.S. securities.
Nearly every year, the government spends more than it collects in taxes and other revenue, resulting in a deficit. (The debt ceiling, set by Congress, caps how much the U.S. can borrow to pay for its remaining bills.) The national debt, now at a historic high, is the buildup of its deficits over time.
The value of U.S. Treasury securities held by residents of Russia amounted to 67 million U.S. dollars in January 2023, having declined by 89 percent from the previous month. Furthermore, in March 2020, the figure decreased sharply to 3.85 billion U.S. dollars, down from 12.6 billion U.S. dollars one month prior.
The United States has the world's highest national debt at $31.4 trillion. Global debt currently stands at $305 trillion, $45 trillion higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF) – a global association of the financial industry.
No, Bank of America isn't owned by China. BofA is an American multinational investment bank that has a partnership with China Construction Bank. In 2011 they decided to sell about half of their stake (about 13.1 billion) in the Chinese company.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in China
China's trade and investment reforms and incentives led to a surge in FDI beginning in the early 1990s. Such flows have been a major source of China's productivity gains and rapid economic and trade growth.
Of 24 African countries that spent more than 15% of government revenue servicing debt in 2021, six countries - Angola, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Zambia - sent over a third of debt payments to Chinese lenders. Other private creditors accounted for over a third of payments in 12 countries.
China's economy has grown to one of the largest and most powerful in the world over the past few decades. Driven by industrial production and manufacturing exports, China's GDP is actually now the largest in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) equivalence.
At the start of 2007, prior to the Global Financial Crisis, Australian Government gross debt was under $52 billion. Between 2007 and March 2020 total Australian Government Securities (AGS) on issue increased to $580 billion, and is $897 billion as of 5 May 2023.
The U.S. makes up 23.93% of the total global economy, says Investopedia. The World Bank Group lists China as the second richest country in the world as of 2021, possessing a GDP of $17.734 trillion along with a GDP per capita of $12,556.3. China makes up 18.45% of the total global economy.
When adding portfolio debts (including the $1 trillion of U.S. Treasury debt purchased by China's central bank) and trade credits (to buy goods and services), the Chinese government's aggregate claims to the rest of the world exceed $5 trillion in total.