At the end of 2020, China's foreign debt, including U.S. dollar debt, stood at roughly $2.4 trillion. Corporate debt is $27 trillion, while the country's total public debt exceeds 300 percent of GDP.
Breaking Down Ownership of US Debt
China owns about $1.1 trillion in U.S. debt, or a bit more than the amount Japan owns.
As of December 2019, the nation with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio is Japan, with a ratio of 237%. In 1992, Japans's Nikkei (stock market) crashed.
If it called in its debt, U.S. interest rates and prices could rise, slowing U.S. economic growth. On the other hand, if China called in its debt, the demand for the dollar could plummet. This dollar collapse could disrupt international markets even more than the 2008 financial crisis.
For its part, China owned 191,000 acres worth $1.9 billion as of 2019. ... Indeed, there has been a tenfold expansion of Chinese ownership of farmland in the United States in less than a decade. Six states — Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota and Oklahoma — currently ban foreign ownership of farmland.
Foreign holders of United States treasury debt
Of the total 7.55 trillion held by foreign countries, Japan and Mainland China held the greatest portions. China held 1.05 trillion U.S. dollars in U.S. securities. Japan held 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars worth.
Brunei is one of the countries with the lowest debt. It has a debt to GDP ratio of 2.46 percent among a population of 439,000 people, which makes it the world's country with the lowest debt. Brunei is a very small country located in southeast Asia.
In 2018 , the Center for Global Development found that Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan and Tajikistan – countries among the poorest in their respective regions — will owe more than half all their foreign debt to China.
As of 2020, China's total government debt stands at approximately CN¥ 46 trillion (US$ 7.0 trillion), equivalent to about 45% of GDP. ... The three government-owned banks (China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank of China and Exim Bank of China) owe a further 29% of GDP.
At the end of 2020, China's foreign debt, including U.S. dollar debt, stood at roughly $2.4 trillion. Corporate debt is $27 trillion, while the country's total public debt exceeds 300 percent of GDP.
Their outstanding debt amounted to $8 trillion at the end of 2020, Goldman Sachs estimated, equivalent to around half of China's gross domestic product; last year they also replaced property developers as the biggest Chinese debt issuers offshore, with $31 billion of dollar bonds coming due in 2022.
Japan, with its population of 127,185,332, has the highest national debt in the world at 234.18% of its GDP, followed by Greece at 181.78%. Japan's national debt currently sits at ¥1,028 trillion ($9.087 trillion USD).
Foreign holdings
Including both private and public debt holders, the top three December 2020 national holders of American public debt are Japan ($1.2 trillion or 17.7%), China ($1.1 trillion or 15.2%), and the United Kingdom ($0.4 trillion or 6.2%).
Every country issues debt, however some nations lend more debt to other nations than they owe. See the charts below from financialranks (sourced from IMF) for the world's largest creditor and debtor nations. As you can see, China, for example, lends far more to other nations than it borrows.
Jerome Kerviel: The most indebted person in the world, owes $4.9 billion.
As per projections by IMF for 2021, United States is leading by $6,033 bn or 1.36 times on an exchange rate basis. The economy of China is Int. $3,982 billion or 1.18x of the US on purchasing power parity basis. According to estimates by World Bank, China's gdp was approx 11% of the US in 1960, but in 2019 it is 67%.
TOKYO/BEIJING -- China's net worth reached $120 trillion in 2020 to overtake the U.S.'s $89 trillion as a red-hot real estate market drove up property value, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute.
Repercussions. The repercussions for China of such an offloading would be worse. An excess supply of U.S. dollars would lead to a decline in USD rates, making RMB valuations higher. It would increase the cost of Chinese products, making them lose their competitive price advantage.
According to the Treasury Department, foreign governments hold about $7.7 trillion in U.S. debt, though no country holds more than 5% of the total. As of the end of November, the most recent data available, Japan was the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, with $1.3 trillion.
As at the end of September 2021, China recorded RMB 17.4877 trillion in outstanding external debt denominated in both domestic and foreign currencies(equivalent to USD 2696.5 billion, excluding those of Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR, and Taiwan Province of China, the same below).