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Why is China hiding 700 billion dollars?

Kevin Walmsley
Inside China Business, 13 November 2024

 

China runs large trade surpluses with the United States. Typically these funds would be returned to the US as capital investments, either through buys of fixed assets, securities, or lending.

China, however, is liquidating stakes in companies in the United States, and is selling off its portfolio of Treasury bonds.

These two trends are resulting in enormous imbalances in Balance of Payments, which much be re-balanced via China's central banking activities. China is clearly recycling giant capital pools from the United States for investment purposes inside China, and among China's top trading partners.

And because the US dollars are never returned to the capital markets, it is also clear that China and the BRICS countries are setting up their own trading and economic bloc, funded largely with US debt instruments.