Americans know that China has financed much of their nation\u2019s public and private debt. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and John McCain generally agreed on the peril of borrowing so heavily from this one foreign source. For instance, in their final debate, McCain warned about the \u201c$10 trillion debt we\u2019re giving to our kids, a half a trillion dollars we owe China,\u201d and Obama said, \u201cNothing is more important than us no longer borrowing $700billion or more from China and sending it to Saudi Arabia.\u201d Their numbers on the debt differed, and both were way low. One year ago, when I wrote about China\u2019s U.S. dollar holdings, the article was called \u201cThe $1.4 trillion Question.\u201d When Barack Obama takes office, the figure will be well over $2 trillion.<\/p>\n
During the late stages of this year\u2019s campaign, I had several chances to talk with the man who oversees many of China\u2019s American holdings. He is Gao Xiqing, president of the China Investment Corporation, which manages \u201conly\u201d about $200billion of the country\u2019s foreign assets but makes most of the high-visibility investments, like buying stakes in Blackstone and Morgan Stanley, as opposed to just holding Treasury notes. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James Fallows interviewed Gao Xiqing, president of the China Investment Corporation in the Atlantic Monthly: Americans know that China has financed much of their nation\u2019s public and private debt. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and John McCain generally agreed on the peril of borrowing so heavily from this one foreign source. For instance, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6205],"class_list":["post-29102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","tag-cic","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n
\u201cBe Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money\u201d<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n