China's US govt debt holdings hit 2010 high: Treasury

About the only thing holding the dollar above water is the fact that China keeps buying our debt. This has been going on longer than I expected being that we keep weakening the dollar, giving the Chinese less a return on their investment. How long will the Chinese continue to inflate their own currency in order to prop up ours? I've stopped guessing, but one thing is certain: it can't go on forever, and we're not going to stop spending.

China's holdings of US debt climbed to the highest level this year, the US Treasury said Tuesday even as Beijing stepped up attacks on the United States for its burgeoning debt.

The cash-rich Chinese government raised its US Treasury bond holdings to 900.2 billion dollars in April, its highest level since November 2009, while posting the second consecutive monthly rise, according to a report on international capital flows.

China remained far ahead as the top foreign debt holder, followed by Japan, which held 795.5 billion dollars in April, and third-placed Britain at 239.3 billion dollars, according to the figures.

The monthly gain in April and the previous month came after six straight months in which China appeared to reduce its Treasury holdings, or keep them flat.

While that triggered concerns Beijing was diversifying away from US bonds, some analysts said Beijing was secretly buying bonds via third countries to mask its importance as a creditor -- a role which had attracted considerable scrutiny.

Globally there has been an influx of investments in recent months into US Treasury bonds -- a channel used by the government to borrow from the public to finance its burgeoning deficit -- amid the mounting European debt crisis.

The crisis, which sent the euro to four-year lows, also deterred China and several other countries with massive foreign reserves from diversifying away from US bonds and other long-term US securities, analysts said.

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