{"id":328473,"date":"2010-02-16T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-china-might-have-slashed-its-treasury-holdings-as-a-warning-to-the-us-2010-2"},"modified":"2010-02-16T12:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T17:01:00","slug":"stratfor-chinas-treasury-dumping-is-the-equivalent-of-a-nuclear-weapons-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/328473","title":{"rendered":"STRATFOR: China&#8217;s Treasury Dumping Is The Equivalent Of A Nuclear Weapons Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"float_right\" src=\"http:\/\/static.businessinsider.com\/image\/4ab7e6b5253ff00677797bb4\/obama-china-hu-jintao.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"obama china hu jintao\" \/><\/p>\n<p><div style=\"float: left; padding: 15px 15px 15px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\ntweetmeme_source = 'moneygame'; tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a latest comment, global intelligence firm <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stratfor.com\">STRATFOR<\/a> wonders whether today&#8217;s surprising disclosure that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/foreign-demand-for-government-bonds-suffers-worst-ever-drop-as-china-and-japan-jump-ship-2010-2\">China slashed its holdings of U.S. government debt<\/a> in December might be a signal from Beijing that Washington should be careful not to get too tough with the emerging super power.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">STRATFOR:<\/span> However, China, previously the leading holder of U.S. debt, shaved its holdings of short-term securities (T-bills) by $34.2 billion for a 4.3 percent drop in total holdings, putting it behind Japan as the largest holder of U.S. debt for the first time since September 2009.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">China has for more than a year been the leading buyer of U.S. Treasury debt &mdash; especially short-term debt, helping to keep interest rates low in a key export market. <strong>However, the Chinese have also threatened to slow purchases or reduce holdings as a warning to the United States.<\/strong> Sino-American relations have been souring in recent months, with trade and economic tensions rising and the United States pushing for sanctions on Iran that could threaten China&rsquo;s energy security. China was also displeased in December 2009 over the approach of a new U.S. arms deal with Taiwan, which has since been approved and sparked a controversy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">While China may reduce its holdings of U.S. debt in order to send a signal to Washington (though this is not necessarily the only reason it would do so),<strong> it has no intention of selling debt to the point that it wrecks the U.S. economic recovery, since doing so would destroy China&rsquo;s own economic and socio-political stability.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thus while it&#8217;s clearly not in China&#8217;s interest to exercise what we might call a &#8216;nuclear&#8217; treasury-selling option, in our view even a short term jolt could be perceived as a deterrent to keep the U.S. in check.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-china-might-have-slashed-its-treasury-holdings-as-a-warning-to-the-us-2010-2#comments\">Join the conversation about this story &#187;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>See Also:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/what-tightening-chinese-january-loan-growth-explodes-and-property-prices-accelerate-higher-2010-2\">What Tightening? Chinese Property Accelerates Higher As Money Supply Explodes<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/bonds-pay-investors-far-less-now-2009-12\">You&#8217;re Getting Paid Far Less To Hold Bonds Now<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/china-just-raised-its-reserve-requirements-once-again-2010-2\">China Just Raised Its Reserve Requirements Once Again<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMoneyGame\/~4\/l6Gyu3RAJ1g\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a latest comment, global intelligence firm STRATFOR wonders whether today&#8217;s surprising disclosure that China slashed its holdings of U.S. government debt in December might be a signal from Beijing that Washington should be careful not to get too tough with the emerging super power. STRATFOR: However, China, previously the leading holder of U.S. debt, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}