China Buying Less U.S. Debt

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- China, which cut Treasury holdings by the most in five months in November, may scale back purchases of U.S. debt on concern the dollar will decline, said Liu Yuhui, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The Asian nation’s investors, the biggest foreign holders of U.S. government debt, trimmed holdings by $9.3 billion in November to $789.6 billion, a Treasury Department report showed yesterday. The decline came even as Chinese foreign-exchange reserves swelled $61 billion in the month.

“China may reduce purchases of U.S. Treasuries because there has been no sign the dollar’s long-term trend of weakness will change,” said Liu, director of the Center for Chinese Economic Evaluation in Beijing at CASS, a government-backed research body.