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If anyone had any doubts about the end of the American century, doubt no more! After the United States gets its first credit-rating downgrade in its history, China orders the Americans to get their house in order. Maybe America needs to go to rehab.
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SHANGHAI — China, the largest foreign holder of United States debt, said Saturday that Washington needed to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” just hours after the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt.
The harshly worded commentary, which was released by China’s official Xinhua news agency, was Beijing’s latest attempt to express its displeasure with Washington.
Though Beijing has few options other than to continue to purchase United States Treasury bonds, Chinese officials are clearly concerned that China’s substantial holdings of American debt, worth at least $1.1 trillion, is being devalued.
“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone,” read the commentary, which was published in Chinese newspapers.
Beijing, which did not release any other official statement on the downgrade, called on Washington to make substantial cuts to its “gigantic military expenditure” and its “bloated social welfare” programs.
The commentary serves as a sharp illustration of how America’s standing in the world is sliding and that China now views itself as ascendant.
-- David Barboza for The New York Tiimes
_ _ _
SHANGHAI — China, the largest foreign holder of United States debt, said Saturday that Washington needed to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” just hours after the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt.
The harshly worded commentary, which was released by China’s official Xinhua news agency, was Beijing’s latest attempt to express its displeasure with Washington.
Though Beijing has few options other than to continue to purchase United States Treasury bonds, Chinese officials are clearly concerned that China’s substantial holdings of American debt, worth at least $1.1 trillion, is being devalued.
“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone,” read the commentary, which was published in Chinese newspapers.
Beijing, which did not release any other official statement on the downgrade, called on Washington to make substantial cuts to its “gigantic military expenditure” and its “bloated social welfare” programs.
The commentary serves as a sharp illustration of how America’s standing in the world is sliding and that China now views itself as ascendant.
-- David Barboza for The New York Tiimes
