China Dumped U.S. Treasuries Long Before Taiwan Arms Deal
Stop worrying about a massive Treasury sell-off by China. They already did that, and you didn’t even notice.
Jul 31, 2020783.7K Shares13M Views
If last week’s call by Chinese military officialsto dump U.S. Treasury bonds over the recent agreement to sell arms to Taiwan seemed haphazardly designed to strike fear into the hearts of U.S. government officials and strangely timed, you were probably right. It turns out that, in fact, China dumped those bonds last December.
The Financial Times reportsthat China dumped $34.2 billion in Treasuries in the month of December alone, which was enough to make China only the second-largest holder of U.S. government debt for the first time since September 2008. Of course, the Treasury Department didn’t have those figures on hand when Chinese military officials got busy posturing to the media over Taiwan.
Given the burgeoning Greek crisis and its potential downstream effects on Euro-denominated government debt, most analysts don’t expect another huge sell-off of Treasuries by China. But the more they can threaten it to get their way on foreign policy issues — see also, China policy under the Bush Administration — the more they’ll keep trying it.
Paolo Reyna
Reviewer
Paolo Reyna is a writer and storyteller with a wide range of interests. He graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies.
Paolo enjoys writing about celebrity culture, gaming, visual arts, and events. He has a keen eye for trends in popular culture and an enthusiasm for exploring new ideas. Paolo's writing aims to inform and entertain while providing fresh perspectives on the topics that interest him most.
In his free time, he loves to travel, watch films, read books, and socialize with friends.
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