President Obama’s projected US$800 billion economic stimulus plan may be vulnerable to a more cautious China, unwilling to buy as much short-term U.S. Treasuries:
China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers.
The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.