A Big Loser, China Not Hoarding US Treasurys for 2 Years

choi

Timothy Beardson, Don't Count on China to Bail out the US; Beijing's net investment in US Treasurys over the past two years is essentially zero. Wall Street Journal, Feb 13, 2013.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 94011860389742.html

Quote:

(a) "China's holdings of $1.17 trillion in US Treasurys in November 2012—the most recent date for which we have a figure—are virtually unchanged from two years earlier, when they stood at $1.16 trillion. Beijing has purchased a lot of Treasurys over this period but many have been redeemed. Net new investment is essentially zero.

"The largest buyer of new US Treasurys during the past three years has been not China but the US Federal Reserve. In fiscal year 2011, for example, the Fed bought more than three-fourths of all new Treasury debt.

(b) "China's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities in November 2012 were barely more than those of Japan and represented just over 7% of total U.S. public debt. Moreover, the rate of interest that Beijing is getting on its on its Treasury holdings [0.33%, is so low tht] China incurs losses estimated to be $66 billion annually

(c) "Nor is Beijing's financial position as strong as is often suggested. Its ratio of tax revenue to total GDP is one of the lowest of any major country. The ratio of total government revenue to GDP in 2011 was an estimated 34% in the US, 52% in France and 23% in China. The Chinese state extracted a smaller share of the country's GDP than any other significant country. One reason for low government revenue is low business taxes [due to the low value-added nature of assembling products for exports].

My comment:
(a) The essay is based in part on on

Gagnon JE, Lardy NR and Borst N, The Internal Cost of China's Currency Policy. Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), Sept 30, 2011.
http://www.piie.com/blogs/china/?p=422
("It is currently costing the Chinese central bank about $240 billion per year to hold down the value of the Chinese currency relative to other currencies.  This cost is growing rapidly.  The cost would decrease significantly if China allowed its currency to float and began reducing its foreign reserves, although there would likely be a one-time capital loss at the time the currency begins to float. To put this cost in perspective, $240 billion is considerably larger than China’s trade surplus of $183 billion last year")
(b) Quotation (c) mentions "tax revenue" and "total government revenue." The latter includes the former--and other revenues, such as tariff.

choi

Joseph B White, Five New Technologies to Make Driving Easier. Wall Street Journal, Feb 13, 2013.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 85882474277840.html
(Spot Pedestrians in the Dark [with infrared sensors, by BMW this year]; Design Your Own Dashboard [The new Lexus IS F-Sport model, due out this June])