中国所持美国国债超万亿

    美国财政部本周一修改了外国债权人持有的美国国债数字，指出到2010年年末，中国共持有1.16万亿美元的美国国债。

    这一数字比美国财政部2个星期前公布的官方数据高出了2680亿美元，中国现在是美国最大的债权人，这2680亿美元也差不多正好是中国比美国第二大债权人——日本多持有的美国国债的数额。

    此前就有些中国观察人士怀疑，中国持有的美国国债数额被报少了。这次数据修改也证实了他们的怀疑。

    有些观察人士，如美国传统基金会（Heritage Foundation）的研究员史剑道指出，在过去十年里，尽管中国握有巨额贸易顺差，并买入美元以限制人民币升值，但中国持有美国国债的数量依然保持不变，令人颇为费解。

    另一件令人感到惊讶的事情是，英国持有的美国国债数额出现了飙升。史剑道和其他专家表示，这种趋势是说不通的，除非是中国在通过英国账户购买美国国债。

    本周一的数据修改明显地指向了这种趋势。在修改后的数据中，中国持有的美国国债额增长了2680亿美元，同时英国的持有量也下降了相同的数额。

    即便如此，我们仍有理由相信，中国实际持有的美国国债数额还要比台面上的数字大得多。例如美联储主席本•伯南克上月在国会作证时就称，中国持有的美国国债大约在2万亿美元左右。看来美元是所有人的问题。

    译者：朴成奎

    China held $1.16 trillion of U.S. government bonds at the end of 2010, Treasury said Monday in its preliminary revision of data on foreign portfolio holdings.

    That's up $268 billion from the previous official tally covering the same dates, released two weeks ago, and puts China ahead of the No. 2 U.S. foreign lender, Japan, by about the same amount.

    The revision appears to confirm the suspicions of some China watchers that the biggest U.S. creditor's government-bond stake was being lowballed in the official data.

    Some observers such as Derek Scissors of the Heritage Foundation noted that China's Treasury holdings inexplicably held steady over the past year even as the Chinese ran a substantial trade surplus and bought dollars to limit the appreciation of their currency, the yuan.

    Also raising eyebrows was the sharp rise in Treasury holdings attributed to the United Kingdom. Scissors and others said those trends didn't make sense unless China was buying Treasuries through accounts in the U.K.

    Monday's revisions certainly seem to point in that direction. While China's holdings rose by $268 billion in the revised numbers, the U.K. holdings fell by the same amount.

    Even so, there are reasons to believe China's actual government bond take is much bigger. Fed chief Ben Bernanke this month put the number at $2 trillion or so in congressional testimony, for instance. Our dollar, everyone's problem.