China dumping U.S. securities

[HalfLotus]

"China may be preparing to sell some of U.S. securities for financial or geopolitical motivations, or a combination of the two, according to two different accounts.

Reuters reported Tuesday that senior Chinese military officials suggested that nation sell some U.S. bonds to punish the American government for its latest sale of weapons to Taiwan.
...
In the past year, Beijing has called for a substitute for the U.S. dollar as the world's main reserve currency and has upbraided Washington for its fiscal and regulatory management. And while Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asserted last weekend that the U.S. government would never lose its triple-A credit rating, last year Chinese students openly laughed at his assertion that U.S. securities were safe.
...
David Goldman, a former Wall Street research director who remains very plugged into market action and who is no stranger to readers of this column, reports the Chinese government has ordered its reserve managers to divest itself of U.S. securities riskier than Treasuries and agencies such as Fannie and Freddie. "This already has been communicated to American securities dealers, according market participants with direct knowledge of the events," he writes"

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB...954043605.html

Are our future overlords making their move?

[Dinner]

Naw, they won't dump them whole sale because, honestly, what else can they do with dollars? And if they dump the securities then the dollar goes lower cutting into their export business which the CCP badly needs to employ their large population. The Chinese know that large numbers of young unemployed people means domestic unrest and that's the last thing the CCP wants.

[Drake Tungsten]

And if they dump the securities then the dollar goes lower cutting into their export business

[Dinner]

Yes, Drake. If the US has a sudden budget crisis because no one will buy their debt then, yes, there will be a sudden devaluation of the dollar. That won't happen.

[Drake Tungsten]

Why don't you think through what a weakening of the US dollar would do to Chinese export competitiveness given that the renminbi is loosely pegged to the dollar?

[Elok]

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB...954043605.html

Are our future overlords making their move?

Impossible. The Illuminati haven't ordered it yet.

[HalfLotus]

Or maybe they did:

Secret summit of top bankers

Representatives from 24 central banks and monetary authorities including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank landed in Sydney to meet tomorrow at a secret location, the Herald Sun reports.

Organised by the Bank for International Settlements last year, the two-day talks are shrouded in secrecy with high-level security believed to have been invoked by law enforcement agencies.

Speculation that the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Dr Ben Bernanke, would make an appearance could not be confirmed last night.

The event will be dominated by Asian delegations and is expected to include governors of the Peoples Bank of China, the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of India.
...
The gathering also comes at an important time for the BIS as it initiates an overhaul of the global banking system...A key part of the two-day talkfest will be a special meeting of Asian central bankers.

I'm thinking 'domestic unrest' is among the least of the Chinese government's worries, especially when the international community has shown a willingness to ignore their atrocious human rights record while reaping the economic benefits of China's contribution to 'globalization'. In any event China's recent social unrest is largely aimed at local governments, not the CCP.

What the CCP really doesn't want is a Taiwan that is armed to the teeth with U.S. military weaponry, which is exactly what they're getting from U.S. policy - a policy, by the way, which feeds tremendous domestic populist support to a non-democratic gov't (China's), not unlike many of America's ham-handed foreign policies around the world.

The Dollar is gonna tank eventually, and with their monumentally retarded foreign policy, Washington may be helping to make it a reality sooner rather than later.

[Theben]

So in order to avoid having to kowtow to the Chinese later, we should do exactly what they want us to do now.

Insightful

[BeBMan]

...albeit sounding alarmist

[HalfLotus]

China’s hawks demand cold war on the US

MORE than half of Chinese people questioned in a poll believe China and America are heading for a new “cold war”.

The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights which have poisoned relations in the three months since President Barack Obama made a fruitless visit to Beijing.

According to diplomatic sources, a rancorous postmortem examination is under way inside the US government, led by officials who think the president was badly advised and was made to appear weak [???].

Could that have been Obama adviser, Asia lover, and Mr. Trilateral himself, Zbig at work?

“We should retaliate with an eye for an eye and sell arms to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela,” declared Liu Menxiong, a member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference.

He added: “We have nothing to be afraid of. The North Koreans have stood up to America and has anything happened to them? No. Iran stands up to America and does disaster befall it? No.”
...
“This time China must punish the US,” said Major-General Yang Yi, a naval officer. “We must make them hurt.” A major-general in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Luo Yuan, told a television audience that more missiles would be deployed against Taiwan. And a PLA strategist, Colonel Meng Xianging, said China would “qualitatively upgrade” its military over the next 10 years to force a showdown “when we’re strong enough for a hand-to-hand fight with the US”.

China's ready to throw down! And they continue dissing our homeboy:

During Obama’s visit, the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, claimed relations were “really at an all-time high in terms of the bilateral atmosphere ... a cruising altitude that is higher than any other time in recent memory”, according to an official transcript.

The ambassador must have been the only person at his embassy to think so, said a diplomat close to the talks.

“The truth was that the atmosphere was cold and intransigent when the president went to Beijing yet his China team went on pretending that everything was fine,” the diplomat said.

In reality, Chinese officials argued over every item of protocol, rigged a town hall meeting with a pre-selected audience, censored the only interview Obama gave to a Chinese newspaper and forbade the Americans to use their own helicopters to fly him to the Great Wall.

President Hu Jintao refused to give an inch on Obama’s plea to raise the value of the Chinese currency...

Then came Copenhagen, where Obama virtually had to force his way with his bodyguards into a conference room where the urbane Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, was trying to strike a deal behind his back.

The Americans were also livid at what they saw as deliberate Chinese attempts to humiliate the president by sending lower-level officials to deal with him.

So much for our stellar diplomat-in-chief.

[DaShi]

Well, it will at least give Obama and Congress the political will to take the tough stances necessary to respond to the trade imbalance with China. All of this will probably wreck global markets.

Seriously, I doubt China will do this, it is too soon.

[HalfLotus]

Obama is Beijing's biotch. China's talking about raising domestic wages to address imbalances, and continues to reject Washington requests to fiddle with the currency.

I'm excited about a new cold war with a serious country. All this fighting cavemen with boxcutters has been boring as hell.

[HalfLotus]

China is finally coming through on its Bond boycott promises.

Fed shenanigans covering for China's economic warfare?

[DaShi]

Obama is Beijing's biotch. China's talking about raising domestic wages to address imbalances, and continues to reject Washington requests to fiddle with the currency.

If Obama was China's biotch, then Sino-US relations would be much better. Bush was more of China's biotch than Obama could ever be claimed to be.

Also, rising domestic wages will probably be good for both China and the US.

[HalfLotus]

Yeah good for erstwhile U.S. workers who can afford the plane ticket.

And a biotch can't always please his master. We're trying though, starting with handing China another piece of the Iraq pie.