Economist admits US freezing of China's reserves
Currently, China owns U.S. government bonds worth $776 billion (data from the U.S. Ministry of Finance as of July 2024), ranking second among the largest holders of Washington's government debt. At the same time, China is gradually getting rid of the bonds of the United States - in July 2023, Beijing held securities worth $821 billion.
The maximum China invested in U.S. government bonds in 2013 - then the figure was $1.3 trillion. Now there are risks that the United States can freeze Chinese reserves, said on Monday, September 23, the director of the Institute of Socio-Economic Research of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Alexei Zubets.
"The US has frozen Russian reserves. They can do exactly the same with China. China had $1.3 trillion, and now it is less than $800 billion. This means that they are gradually selling off American bonds, fearing that they may be confiscated," the expert said in a conversation with "Abzats."
At the same time, China will not be able to get rid of all U.S. government bonds overnight, as it will lead to a fall in their prices.
"The Chinese don't want to lose money, so they don't have Taiwan in their plan for tomorrow. All the talk that China will attack Taiwan tomorrow is nonsense. It won't. They are getting rid of U.S. bonds, but so as not to incur losses," the economist concluded.
Earlier, on August 15, the US Treasury Department presented statistics for June, which showed that Russia reduced its portfolio of US government bonds to $44 million, RT reported.
According to the agency, the number of bonds decreased by $1 million. In May, Russia had $45 million worth of securities in its asset portfolio.
Russia's portfolio, according to the institution's statistics, consists of $42 million in long-term securities and $2 million in short-term securities. Compared to May, only the number of short-term bonds decreased.
It was reported that the largest holder of U.S. debt remains Japan, whose investments fell to $1.118 trillion from $1.128 trillion in May. Second place goes to China, which increased its portfolio to $780.2 billion ($768.3 billion in May). And the third place is still occupied by Great Britain, which also increases the number of investments, increased the volume of bonds on its balance sheet to $741.5 billion from $723.4 billion.
