Stumbled on this following a Drudge link
Contrary to the scare-mongering of Drudge, China is not dumping the US dollar like crazy. In the last year, China has increased their holdings by $250 billion.
About $4.4 trillion of that $14.4 trillion “US National Debt” is owed to foreigners. About $5 trillion is owed to Social Security and other trust funds. The rest is owned by U.S. individuals or banks.
Year to year change:
China: +249.7 billion
Japan: +124.6 billion
U.K.: +46.2 billion
OPEC: -1.1 billion
Brazil: +28 billion
The NY Times has an interesting video feature on their front page how China is starting to drown in its own pollution. A plan to send water from South China to North China (similar to what we did in California, but the opposition direction) is falling apart because the the water in the south is too polluted to use. They’re having to build sewage treatment plants to treat the water when they are taking it out of the river…. even so the industrial pollutants are problematic – so North China is looking a desalinization plants as an alternative.