China “Hates” the U.S. But Will They Keep Buying U.S. Treasury Bonds?

China and the United States of America certainly share an interesting relationship – much more so than, perhaps, most other countries. It seems to be a complex love-hate relationship, especially so when their huge economies are so intricately intertwined with each other’s. It’s made even more complicated by the fact that the governments of both countries sometimes act contrary to, and are even prepared to hush up, their respective citizenry’s animosities and protests towards the other’s country’s policies (whether it’s humanitarianism, protectionism, jingoism, murderous business practises, etc.). Fortunately, today we’re not going through all that! Today’s news follows hot on the heels of the recent snafu of U.S. Senator Tim Geithner calling China a “Currency Manipulator”.

Ever since President Nixon opened the doors to China back in the 1970′s, the relationship has certainly been interesting – and complicated. Of course, now China is a critical piece of the global economy and a huge funder of the U.S. trillion-dollar debt, which is even more important in light of the U.S.’s massive deficit spending.

Still the important question remains: will China still continue buying up U.S. Treasury Bonds?

The answer seems to be… Yes.

A senior Chinese banking regulator, Mr. Luo Ping, said that China will continue to buy US Treasury Bonds even though it knows the dollar will depreciate because such investments remain its “only option” in a perilous world, on Wednesday, 11th January 2009. China has used the dollars it accumulates selling manufactured goods to US consumers to accumulate the world’s largest holding of U.S. Treasury Bonds.

Ostensibly, China keeps buying US Treasuries, because in this very difficult environment, the US Treasury is the safest investment with the least amount of flees. It does not appear that Ping is betting on a turnaround in the US market, but rather, he is seeking a safe haven to hold China’s money.

However, the increasing US budget deficit and its potential impact on the dollar have raised questions about the future Chinese appetite for US debt.

Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said after a speech in New York that China would continue to buy Treasuries in spite of its misgivings about US finances.

Mr Luo, speaking at the Global Association of Risk Management’s 10th Annual Risk Management Convention, said: “Except for US Treasuries, what can you hold?” he asked. “Gold? You don’t hold Japanese government bonds or UK bonds. US Treasuries are the safe haven. For everyone, including China, it is the only option.”

Mr Luo, whose English tended toward the colloquial, added: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . . we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”

However, Mr Luo said Chinese officials would encourage its banks to finance domestic mergers and acquisitions rather than provide rescue finance to distressed financial companies in other countries: “There will be no bottom-fishing of financial institutions, particularly in the US, because there is a lot of uncertainty about the quality of the books.”

Mr Luo said China intends to maintain its separation of investment and commercial banking based on its observations of the US after repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that enforced a similar division of banking activities.

“To some extent, Glass-Steagall has fuelled the crisis,” Mr Luo said. “The separation of commercial and investment banking is likely to stay longer [in China] than before.” Like senior financial officials in other developing nations – such as Mohammad Al Jasser, vice-governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency – Mr Luo also spoke out against what he called America’s laissez-faire capitalism.

“Government ownership was viewed as something negative but the pendulum is swinging the other way. Perhaps banking is [no different from] public utilities where government participation is necessary,” he said.

“Deregulation in the US has gone a little bit too far. The market can’t be omnipotent.”

Also, Luo said China is not looking to make direct investment in any US financial institutions. “There will be no bottom-fishing of financial institutions, particularly in the US, because there is a lot of uncertainty about the quality of the books,” said Lou.

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U.S. Calls China a “Currency Manipulator”

Don’t you just love it when politicians put their foots in their mouths and say things, stupid things? Especially words spoken (or in this case written) that have huge repercussions for their countries? On the other hand, some people believe such snafus might even be planned and staged, for a more sinister purpose. In the following case, I’ll leave the decision up to you.

In a written response to questions from senators debating his confirmation, Mr Geithner accused China of “manipulating” its currency and promised that the Obama team would push “aggressively” for Beijing to change its policies. The sharp tone and use of the legally-loaded term “currency manipulation” ricocheted through financial markets as investors shuddered at the prospect of a Sino-American spat in the midst of a global slump.

Tim Geithner

Clearly this was not a slip of the tongue. It might, conceivably, even have been a bureaucratic snafu. The tough language came in a 102-page document answering numerous questions from senators — an odd place from which to lob a bombshell at Beijing. If so, it speaks poorly of a man who is already in trouble for failing to pay attention to his taxes. Most likely, therefore, Mr Geithner’s language suggests a change in Washington’s tactics towards China.

American policymakers have long pushed Beijing to accelerate the appreciation of the yuan, arguing that China’s exchange-rate policy played a big role in creating the global imbalances and that—both for the sake of China’s economy and the rest of the world—the currency needs to strengthen. However, Hank Paulson’s Treasury studiously avoided accusing Beijing of “currency manipulation”, a term that carries legal implications.

Every six months, the U.S. Treasury must publish a list of countries which it deems to be currency manipulators. Once a country appears on that list, formal negotiations to end the manipulation must begin. The Treasury under George Bush, particularly in recent years, preferred a softer behind-the-scenes approach and refused to brand China a manipulator. Although Mr Geithner did not commit himself to any specific action, the use of the m-word suggests Team Obama will take a tougher line.

Exactly what it means is uncertain. It is not even clear who will manage America’s economic strategy with China (there is some speculation, for instance, that Hillary Clinton wants the State Department to take the lead). But there is no doubt that Barack Obama’s economic team includes a number of people who are frustrated with the world’s failure to convince Beijing to strengthen the yuan. Mr Obama himself supported legislation in the Senate to get tougher on China. More important, his advisers see tough words now as a prophylactic—a warning that Beijing must not be tempted to prop up its staggering economy by weakening the yuan.

Domestic politics also plays a big role. China’s bilateral trade surplus with America has long been a lightning rod in Congress, and with unemployment up the protectionist pressure is sure to rise. The $800 billion stimulus package making its way through Congress already has dubious “Buy American” measures that demand government spending should be on American goods. By sounding tough up front, the logic goes, the Obama team will be better able to diffuse the more extreme protectionist sentiment.

Unfortunately, this strategy is dangerous on a number of counts. The basic economic analysis—that a stronger yuan, on a trade-weighted basis, is necessary to rebalance China’s economy away from exports—is surely right. But the world’s immediate problem is a dramatic shortfall in demand across the globe and that will not be righted by exchange-rate shifts. Currency movements switch demand between countries; they do not create it. In the short-term, therefore, the outlook for the world economy depends on whether governments’ stimulus packages are successful and, right now, team Obama would do better to focus on the scale, nature and speed of Beijing’s stimulus measures than rant about the currency. What’s more, the evidence for currency manipulation is weakening. Although China still runs a huge current-account surplus, it is no longer accumulating foreign-exchange reserves at a rapid clip, as capital is flowing out of the country.

Like all politicians, he qualified his statement with various good wishes toward the Chinese, but the damage was quickly done. Markets began to wonder if China would retaliate by scaling back its massive purchases of U.S. government debt, contributing to a 70-basis-point sell-off in 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds between Jan. 26 and Feb. 4.

More important, the political calculus could easily misfire. Domestically, Mr Geithner’s comments may simply fan congressional flames for tougher action on China. Lindsey Graham, a senator who first pushed for a 27.5% tariff against China in 2005, called the comments “music to my ears”. And Sino-American economic tensions are already rising as Chinese officials hotly dispute the idea that their savings surplus had anything to do with the current global mess. (An official at China’s central bank recently called the idea “ridiculous” and an example of “gangster logic”). Traditionally, Chinese officials do not respond well to public admonition and, given the scale of China’s economic woes, they are likely to be pricklier now.

The stakes are extremely high. Everyone knows that protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies exacerbated the Depression. With the global economy in its most dangerous circumstances since the 1930s, rising Sino-American tensions is the last thing anyone needs.

There’s even more bad news. Geithner’s utterance caused interest rates to jump, costing prospective American homeowners (and many that were seeking to refinance existing mortgages) around 10% more in interest charges. Making home loans more expensive is not a great way to get the housing market moving — nor is it a great way to instill confidence in debt markets. The sell-off quelled a major rally in Treasuries as investors who had been flocking to the safe haven of government paper amid the global recession questioned whether Treasuries had become too expensive. In the last four months of 2008, yields (which decline as prices rise) dropped from 4% to a low of 2.25%.

But the rally isn’t over. The fear that China will stop buying U.S. debt is unfounded. Beijing can’t buy anything else with its excess dollars. There are simply no alternative investments that are large enough or liquid enough. But more importantly, there are fundamental reasons why Treasury prices will move much higher (and yields lower) — and why the current opportunity to go long U.S. Treasuries should be grasped with both hands.

There are two aspects of the ongoing recession that may come as a surprise to some observers as events unfold. The first will be the failure of central banks to re-ignite credit growth in the ailing banking system. The second will be the failure of governments’ debt expansions to increase the cost of funding. In other words, the long end of the yield curve will continue to be depressed, just as it has been in Japan for the past 16 years. In the early 1990s observers in Japan argued that 10-year Japan government-bond yields of 3.5% could not persist for long. That was when the government debt-to-GDP ratio was around 50%. It now stands at 150% and 10-year yields are 1.36% (having gone as low as 60 basis points in the interim).

In our view, yields on U.S. 10-year Treasury notes will fall to between 1.5% and 2% by the end of 2009. This is because the banks are broken and their customers are keen to spend less. The monetary base, the money element that the Fed can control, is a fraction of credit outstanding in the U.S. system ($2 trillion versus $47 trillion). No matter how fast base money is pumped up, the reduction in credit outstanding will overwhelm it. During this phase we should expect credit contraction and its attendant deflationary effects on asset prices and consumer goods and services.

Yields are also bound to go lower because demand for U.S. government debt will easily match supply, even though Washington must sell hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds in coming months to fund stimulus measures and bank rescues. Consider the uncanny parallel between the composition of assets on bank balance sheets in 1929 and balance sheets at the start of this crisis. The ratio of loans to investments, which include Treasuries and other securities, was 2.6:1 in 1929 and 2.8:1 in 2008. During the early period of the Great Depression, banks restructured their balance sheets to reflect a much more conservative lending stance. They reduced loans — in absolute and relative terms — and increased investments in safe assets, mostly Treasuries.

Of course, there are major differences between today’s banking and monetary systems and those of the 1930s, but the one constant is human behavior. Personal balance sheets, corporate balance sheets and bank balance sheets will inexorably move into safer instruments given the wealth destruction that has occurred in riskier assets over the past year (and which will continue for the foreseeable future). If the banking sector alone were to move toward its more conservative 1935 ratios, then the increased demand for government paper from that source alone would be $700 billion.

It’s likely that shifts in household and corporate investment patterns will produce even greater demand — which is why U.S. 10-year notes remain attractive, not for their paltry yield but for their capital-gain potential. The next bull market will be concentrated in government paper — even as confidence in government itself erodes.

Investors wanting to buy gold or silver should go with the bullion coins: American Eagles, Maple Leafs, or Krugerrands. These coins move dollar for dollar with the world price of gold, and are easy to buy, sell, and trade or redeem. Additionally, tracking the value of these coins is easy. No “expert” has to look at them: they are widely recognized and accepted from money changers to coin dealers in all parts of the world today.

For a trusted and reliable source of U.S. Gold and Silver Eagle Coins that is the only sure way to protect your family’s finances from inflation and recession, we put our stamp of approval on the Silver Snowball Program promoted by Ed Freeman and Dr. Tom O’Brien. International shipping is also available to all investors for a flat rate of $6. Silver Snowball – The World’s Most Affordable Gold and Silver Program.