Some Chinese see United States Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as a repentant debtor humbly visiting his bank manager; influential Americans see the visit as the start of a beautiful friendship, perhaps even a tipping point in global finance - the overture to the establishment of a Group of Two economic giants that will make a better job directing the global economy than the current G7 or the ambitiously unwieldy G20.
There is a compelling logic in the idea of economic partnership between the US and China, now the third-biggest economy. The fact that China, in defiance of hitherto-accepted norms of international economics of a developing country, is the biggest creditor to the US adds certain piquancy.
Coincidentally, Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations calculates that China's foreign assets may be almost US$2.5 trillion or US$500 billion more than usual estimates. Besides formal reserves of US$1.946 trillion, there is US$252 billion in portfolio debt, held mainly by the state banks, plus another US$186 billion 'in a mysterious line item that corresponds with the banks' dollar reserve requirements and the [People's Bank of China's] other foreign assets'. China Investment Corp also holds up to US$100 billion.
Within the portfolio, China has increased its holdings of US treasuries, the safest and most liquid of US securities which allow China to switch easily to other assets when the moment is ripe. Indeed, China is pursuing a twin-track policy of buying treasuries for flexibility and commodities for security.
China seems to have woken up to the thought, variously attributed to John Maynard Keynes and John Paul Getty, that if you owe your bank $100, that's a problem for you, but if you owe your bank $1 million, that's a problem for the bank.
A slightly confused article on Sunday by Xinhua - because in the English version it switched without distinction between 'bonds' and 'equities' - cited a poll of '23 famous Chinese economists', of whom 17 said the country's US holdings 'pose great risks to China's economy'. But the critics did not advocate selling out.