China’s Nuclear Option to Sell US Treasurys, Report 19 May
There is a drumbeat pounding on a monetary issue, which is now rising into a crescendo. The issue is: China might sell its holdings of Treasury bonds—well over $1 trillion—and crash the Treasury bond market. Since the interest rate is inverse to the bond price, a crash of the price would be a skyrocket of the rate. The US government would face spiraling costs of servicing its debt, and quickly collapse into bankruptcy. America could follow the path taken by Venezuela or Zimbabwe.
How serious is this threat?
The Independent Institute wrote (replete with a graphic purportedly showing a “nuclear bomb”) about it:
What would happen if the Chinese government were to weaponize its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds by suddenly selling off all of them?
That’s an option that has been suggested by Hu Xijin, the editor of the government-controlled Global Times.
Dumping its U.S. national debt holdings is considered to be China’s “nuclear option” for retaliating against the U.S. government in the trade war…
The Financial Time headline says it all: “China dumps US Treasuries at fastest pace in two years”. The body of the article uses that word “weaponise” (British spelling).
Bloomberg warns that, “Trade Feud Has Treasury Investors Eyeing China’s Holdings at Fed”. At least their article does not reiterate “weaponized”.
CNBC adds a new element, that in killing America, China would be destroying itself too. The article uses the word “weapon”, as well as calling it the “nuclear option.”
Capital Outflows
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph is one of the few voices looking at the “accelerating pace of capital outflows from China”. He provides lots of good analysis that we would say is common sense, except it is presently uncommon (yes, yes, we know that common, here, refers to base logic not ubiquity).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
