admittedly I am new to the geopolitical power plays, so please dont jump down my throat if I say something dumb. But I think you guys are missing a very key piece of the picture when you wonder why they keep financing us. ‘What the hell else are they gonna do with this money?’
China, Japan, Saudi Arabia have been gaming the system for years to make sure their export laden economies at turning at full steam. They invent very little, relying on their amazing if limited natural resources or pure cheap muscle to grow themselves. This brings in huge numbers of dollars, way more then their economies can absorb without runaway inflation and chaos. They have to put this stuff outa the country and where better than where it is coming from? They lend because they HAVE to lend. If they didnt, their curriencies would appreciate rapidly as wealth flowed into the country and didnt leave. This would eventually crush export laden economies as labor is always cheap somewhere, and oil has substitutes at the right prices. So for all the worry about their rising power, remember America can simply say “we wont buy from you anymore” and set up shop in Vietnam, or Kenya, or Mexico if it is close to home and get our oil from Canado and Norway. Their economies would CRASH, I dont care how many chinese their are, the home market just isnt mature enough to drive itself.
So if you wonder why this has gone on so long, I think it is because we have created a system where we have both a country that constantly is inventing massive amounts of wealth (internet anyone) but is debt laden, vain and stupid, AND a network of creditor countries unable to support themselves. We have to borrow, but they have to lend. Holding out on the USA gets them nothing but a crashed economy and rapidly appreciating curriencies, further crashing their economy.
