2y ago

China is in default on a trillion dollars in debt to US bondholders. Will the US force repayment?

The United States pays interest on approximately $850 billion in debt held by the People’s Republic of China. China, however, is currently in default on its sovereign debt held by American bondholders.

19 comments

Given that the source of this opinion piece is The Heritage Foundation I'm skeptical.
- Who are they?
  
  They are a very influential, very conservative American think tank. They advocate for things like anti-communism, neoconservativism, the Christian right, smaller government, bigger military, traditional family values, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, white supremecist ideas, voting restrictions - generally all the most destructive policies of the last 50 years.
The Republic of China still exists, we just know it as Taiwan. Key bit to be leaving out here, especially considering our history with the two and their weird relationship with each other.
The Heritage Foundation is an iffy source of information on China.
They have a real hate-boner for anything communist.
The title is mainly clickbait. The bonds they're talking about were sold in 1938 by the US backed Republic of China, which at the time was fighting a civil war with the Peoples Republic of China (Maoists). The RoC lost, and retreated to Taiwan. The PRoC then assumed control of the country, and decided that it wasn't interested in paying the debts of the government it had just vanquished.
However, under international law, when the PRoC took over China, they also assumed responsibility for paying those bond holders. Nobody has gotten them to pay up except the UK when the transfer of Hong Kong was up for consideration.
So basically, this is a 70 year old debt that was taken out against China's former government, and the current government really has no urgency to address it.
As @mazelado pointed out, this is an opinion piece by the Heritage Foundation, so the motivations in writing it are suspect, especially as it's specifically pushing the Biden administration to fight this very old fight. You would have thought that if had really been a pressing matter, Trump would have handled it when he started the US / China tradewar right before COVID, as it was clear Don didn't have any qualms pushing potentially destructive diplomatic policies that were unpopular to the Chinese.
if you owe your bank manager a modest debt you are in his power; if you owe a huge debt, he is in yours.
- I bet china will change addresses without updating their forms.
What a dumb article. Britain was broke in the 80s and needed the money and pressed the issue. China was weak at the time and wanted Hong Kong back peacefully. Under those circumstances it made since to pay the debt. Today China has the second largest economy in the world and zero incentive to pay back America, and no one expects them too.
There is no such magic thing as calling in a debt. If China is in default and no one cares, the debt practically does not exist. Americans complaining about it won't affect China's interest rates or anything else.
- No if you have Biden there.... Helping them out all the way

19 comments