The US Government finds itself entangled in the global financial crisis that it started and has, as financiers of it's spending, two of the largest Eastern governments, Japan and China. Perhaps the single largest owner of US Treasury bonds in the world is the Bank of Japan. The Chinese government investment in U.S. Treasury bonds officially shrank to $755.4 billion in December, down $34.2 billion from the previous month, and that technically allowed Japan to jump China as the owner of the world's largest holding of Treasury securities.In addition, China has foreign exchange reserves of $2.4 trillion US dollars which has accumulated after years of trade deficits. It also has almost $9 trillion of US dollars held on deposit in China's banks. I guess that makes it clear why we must be aware of China and it's $US strategy.