So what of this on-off romance now? The Chinese government wags its fingers at American fiscal profligacy not least because it has no wish to see its bond holdings devalued from a collapsing dollar. But unloading T-bills carries the risk of shoving the American economy off a cliff with severe collateral damage to exports.
The secret truth is the Chinese have not yet become accustomed to being the strong party in this relationship. The communist oligarchs who have made eyes at the American model for so long can hardly bear to see it as it is: lying in the dust, reduced to just another broken idol, no more attractive than the dim and dusty memory of Karl Marx. So perhaps, when they saw the swoon-inducing figure of the 44th president on Sunday, they fell head over heels all over again. Just don’t bet your bonds on it.
