China threatened to dump US debt this week over the sale of $6.4 billion of American weapons to Taiwan. But, it looks like it’s already started. In December China dumped $34.2 billion in US treasuries making Japan the largest holder of US debt. (more)

To help convince Beijing of the need to act, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to fly to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this weekend, in part to ­discuss assurances the Gulf states could give China that its oil and gas needs would be met during the sanctions period. (more)

Even though the UN Security Council, including China, has previously called for Iran to stop enriching uranium and has issued three sets of sanctions, China's ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Yesui, told reporters today that "more time and patience" is needed to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. (more)

Here is a video report on news that China has executed a British citizen for "Drug Smuggling," despite pleas from the British Government and his family to spare his life. Akmal Shaikh was arrested and charged with possessing heroin in 2007. Shaikh's family said he was mentally ill, and appealed to the Chinese to not execute him. (more)

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In what a U.S. military official calls an “inadvertent encounter,” a Chinese submarine hit an underwater sonar array being towed by the USS John McCain on Thursday. The array was damaged, but the sub and the ship did not collide, the official said. A sonar array is a radar towed behind a ship that listens and locates underwater sounds. (more)

CHINA has privately voiced fears over the soaring US budget deficit and is increasingly looking to diversify from the dollar. "We heard across the board -- in private -- substantial, continuing and rising concern,'' Republican Congressman Mark Kirk said after a trip to China that included talks with government officials and central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan. (more)

How worried were Chinese officials about Nancy Pelosi’s trip to their country last week? Chinese officials in Washington quietly pressured the speaker’s office to curtail visits with dissidents, according to people familiar with the situation, to avoid a repeat of her 1991 trip, when Pelosi humiliated China’s leaders by brandishing a pro-democracy banner in Tiananmen Square. (more)

As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner heads to China, critics who hoped the Obama administration would bring change to U.S. policy toward that country are voicing disappointment. So far, the new administration’s economic policies on China do not differ from the Bush administration’s, according to domestic manufacturing groups and their supporters in Congress. (more)

The nice thing about owning your own business is that you get to call the shots. Want to take the day off? Take the day off. Want to reupholster the office in pink, candy-striped vinyl? Go right ahead and have at it. Along the same lines, I give you China — an ever-increasing stakeholder and now permanent board member at USA Inc. Over the past few years the Chinese have plowed over $2 trillion into USA Inc. And since joining the management team they have been a bold and aggressive partner in shaping th... (more)

BEIJING — China's central bank said Saturday that its foreign exchange reserves rose 16 percent year-on-year to $1.9537 trillion by the end of March. China's reserves, already the world's largest, increased by $7.7 billion in the first quarter _ $146.2 billion less than the same period last year, the People's Bank of China said in a notice on its Web site. That rise was substantially less than the fourth quarter increase of almost $45 billion, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency, showi... (more)