China's holding of U.S. debt is fairly small, about 2.1% of the nation's debt. It provides insignificant leverage unless they were able to band together with other foreign debt holders, and none of the U.S.'s other major foreign debt holders are allied more closely to China than they are to the U.S. That China does not see this as leverage worth pursuing is that they have been reducing their U.S. Treasury bonds for over a decade now after reaching its peak ownership of U.S. debt way back in 2013. It has been an aggregate decline of over 40% without even adjusting for inflation.
On the significance of Chinese nationals fighting with Russia in Ukraine, it is obviously wise to ask ourselves if this is headed toward any kind of situation similar to China's injection of massive numbers of Chinese military units to fight for North Korea in the Korean War. When I think through it, it seems very unlikely. There has been no evidence of soldiers from China's military in Ukraine. I expect the number of Chinese nationals fighting with Russia are far less in number than the number of, say, U.S. nationals fighting with Ukraine. China has a very long history of distrust of Russia, and they continue to give every sign of being wary of Russia and interested in exploiting them for their own interests more than helping them. We often mistake them as having similar ideology as communist nations, but the style of communism in China, particularly in the Xi Jinping era, is much different than Russia's practice of communism. Further, China looks back at their involvement in the Korean War with a mixture of pros and cons, and I think they would not want to repeat it.
While these are critical/cautionary notes, I have only overall praise from my perspective for what you wrote, your research, and thoughtfulness. I'm very glad my daughter, your good friend Laina, recommended it to me.
China's holding of U.S. debt is fairly small, about 2.1% of the nation's debt. It provides insignificant leverage unless they were able to band together with other foreign debt holders, and none of the U.S.'s other major foreign debt holders are allied more closely to China than they are to the U.S. That China does not see this as leverage worth pursuing is that they have been reducing their U.S. Treasury bonds for over a decade now after reaching its peak ownership of U.S. debt way back in 2013. It has been an aggregate decline of over 40% without even adjusting for inflation.
On the significance of Chinese nationals fighting with Russia in Ukraine, it is obviously wise to ask ourselves if this is headed toward any kind of situation similar to China's injection of massive numbers of Chinese military units to fight for North Korea in the Korean War. When I think through it, it seems very unlikely. There has been no evidence of soldiers from China's military in Ukraine. I expect the number of Chinese nationals fighting with Russia are far less in number than the number of, say, U.S. nationals fighting with Ukraine. China has a very long history of distrust of Russia, and they continue to give every sign of being wary of Russia and interested in exploiting them for their own interests more than helping them. We often mistake them as having similar ideology as communist nations, but the style of communism in China, particularly in the Xi Jinping era, is much different than Russia's practice of communism. Further, China looks back at their involvement in the Korean War with a mixture of pros and cons, and I think they would not want to repeat it.
While these are critical/cautionary notes, I have only overall praise from my perspective for what you wrote, your research, and thoughtfulness. I'm very glad my daughter, your good friend Laina, recommended it to me.
This is an excellent post, well done!