#头条创作挑战赛#
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[Preface]
Over the past decade or so, the debt ratio and size of countries around the world seem to be on an upward trend, and the total debt of several countries in the debt data released by each country has given everyone a lot of shock.
The United States itself is a big borrower, with a debt of more than 34 trillion yuan, while Japan, which seems to be inconspicuous, has also borrowed 8.6 trillion yuan.
The scale of China's debt has also risen to a certain extent in recent years, so how much is China's national debt? And where does the debt of the United States and Japan come from?
Japan does not dare to raise interest rates
Japan's recent fiscal pressures have not been ordinary, and the current economic market is now paying more attention to the yen than ever before, after all, the yen has been depreciating and rising sharply for some time.
It is also worth paying attention to how the yen's position in the international market will change, and whether it will be able to alleviate the phenomenon of Japan's economy moving forward at a low speed or even retreating.
In addition to the development of the yen, government bonds are also one of the concerns, according to the relevant data released by the Japanese Ministry of Finance, as of the end of last year, the total debt of the Japanese government also broke the original record.
According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Finance of Japan, the debt of the Japanese government has reached 1286.45 trillion yen, which is about 8.6 trillion US dollars at the exchange rate at the time of the release of the data.
This figure may be slightly less now, after all, 1286.45 trillion yen, at the current exchange rate, is a little more than 8.2 trillion US dollars.
However, whether it is 8.6 trillion US dollars or 8.2 trillion US dollars, 1,286.45 trillion yen is a history-making figure for Japan.
You must know that Japan's GDP for the whole year of 2023 is only 591.482 trillion yen, and the scale of this debt has exceeded twice the GDP.
Moreover, Japan's GDP ranking in the world has fallen from third to fourth place, and it has been overtaken by Germany.
The combination of these two phenomena is not good news for Japan, with a declining economy on one side and high debt on the other.
Among the developed countries, the situation in Japan is already very bad, and both mountains are weighing on Japan's head.
It stands to reason that Japan is already like this, and the big brother, the United States, will not sit idly by, and will have to lend a hand to help.
However, the United States has never been able to make profits sooner, and even if Japan's debts have weighed them down, the United States still does not relentless for the sake of its own interests.
Not long ago, the yen was hunted, which was the handiwork of the United States, and when the yen exchange rate plummeted, the dollar capital had no intention of letting go at all.
Although external forces have had some influence on Japan's economy, in the final analysis, they themselves are not angry, and the ratio of Japan's government debt to GDP has also been rising steadily in recent years.
A few decades ago, the debt was only 60 or 70 percent of GDP, then it was on par with GDP, and by this time it has not stopped the car, and has soared to more than twice the GDP now.
The high level of debt has also allowed Japan to maintain low or even negative interest rates for a long time, after all, rising interest rates means that their debt scale will increase, and these money will not be repaid.
Japan's debt is making history, while the total U.S. national debt is also high, surpassing the $34 trillion mark.
U.S. Treasuries remain high
The United States is striving for the first place in all fields in the world, even in terms of debt, according to the statistics of the US Treasury Department, the debt of the United States has exceeded 34 trillion.
The U.S. Treasury Department recently released fiscal data for the period up to the end of February this year, and the item of Chinese bonds has attracted the attention of many people.
The U.S. national debt has been growing over the years, but the U.S. doesn't seem to be in a hurry at all, as if it's not them who owe money.
Looking at the scale of Japan's $8.6 trillion debt and the United States' $34 trillion, although there is a difference of several times, after all, the country's own economic and fiscal scale is here, so it seems that the $34 trillion is not a lot.
But to take a simple example, we all know the importance of aircraft carriers, and we also know that in addition to technology, the most critical thing in the construction of aircraft carriers is funding.
From the design to the construction to the maintenance of each aircraft carrier, every step is astronomical, although the size and cost of each country's aircraft carrier battle group are different, but one thing is the same, the cost unit is 100 million US dollars.
In simple terms, the cost of China's aircraft carrier battle group is about $17 billion, while the cost of the U.S. aircraft carrier battle group is about $26 billion.
Even if it is calculated according to the $20 billion aircraft carrier group, the size of the US national debt can create 1,700 aircraft carrier battle groups.
This kind of scale is very amazing when you look at the whole world, and no one can do this kind of debt except the United States.
You must know that no matter how powerful and domineering the United States is, these are national debts, which will have to be repaid one day, and they cannot be relied on if they want to.
And judging from the current situation in the United States, they cannot afford to pay back the money, not only the United States, but also any country in the world.
It is also clear that the United States has been looking for ways to raise its debt ceiling, adjusting it more than 20 times since the beginning of the new century alone, and more than 100 times in total.
There have been several notable increases in the U.S. national debt model, one of which was the financial crisis, when the total U.S. national debt was $10.6 trillion in 2008.
The next time was the new crown epidemic, when the size of the U.S. national debt reached 27.7 trillion U.S. dollars, and the international belief that 30 trillion U.S. dollars was the upper limit, and now the scale of the U.S. national debt has exceeded 34 trillion U.S. dollars.
The ever-expanding size of the national debt is not a good thing for a country, if it is a big country, it is fine, but if it is a small country, the continuous debt means a decline in credit, which will have a serious impact on trade and the economy.
The United States, on the other hand, relies on its "big family and big business" and has high and new technology, so it is not too anxious about the expansion of the scale of its national debt.
In recent years, although the total amount of US debt has been increasing, the two major US creditors, China and Japan, have been reducing their holdings of US debt.
The total amount is increasing, but the debt in the hands of foreign bond owners is decreasing, and from the difference in between, someone must take over, and these takeovers are basically domestic investors in the United States.
By the end of February, the share of foreign investors in the total holdings of U.S. Treasuries had fallen to 23.1 percent, compared with 33 to 34 percent at this time a decade ago, and a drop of less than 10 percent in just a decade.
In fact, there are different opinions on the reasons for the growth of the US national debt, and the US media itself says that politicians of both parties in the US government have developed the habit of borrowing money in recent years, whether it is war, tax cuts, or other things.
Moreover, the scale of the U.S. debt continues to expand, and it is inseparable from the Federal Reserve, which continues to raise interest rates and shrink its balance sheet in order to reduce inflation, which indirectly leads to the high debt of the U.S. government.
There is also an almost internationally recognized reason, that is, the military expenditure of the United States is too large, and over the years, whether it is spent on the United States or so-called aid, their military expenditure has increased year by year.
Judging from the current total amount of US national debt and the number of taxpayers, each taxpayer must pay at least $200,000 or 300,000 in order for the United States to repay the money.
In the long run, a country that borrows more than $34 trillion has a very big risk for future health care and social security, and if these benefits disappear, it is the people who will suffer.
This is one of the reasons why the American public's trust in the federal government is declining, with only 16% of the population choosing to trust the government in most cases.
Originally, the world's top three economies were the United States, China and Japan, but now Japan has been overtaken by Germany to become the fourth.
China's foreign debt
As the world's second-largest economy, China's GDP is certainly not in doubt, but there is a clear gap between China and the United States and Japan in terms of national debt.
The global economic system is like a big wave of sand, and only real gold can shine after the waves, and it is clear that China is this gold.
As of the end of 2023, China's external debt totaled about $2.45 trillion, and the structure remains basically stable.
In other countries, due to the influence of the Federal Reserve and other factors, the external debt is basically rising, and even though the proportion of foreign debt in the United States is declining, the total debt amount has remained high compared to other countries.
However, China's external debt as of 2023 has decreased by 5.2 billion US dollars compared with the end of 2022, and the relevant person in charge of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange also said that it is expected that the scale of our debt will continue to remain stable.
From the perspective of the mainland's bond market, in 2023, all kinds of bonds issued by the mainland have also been steadily advanced, and the investor institutions are also very diversified.
In 2023, the bond market issued a total of 71.0 trillion yuan of various types of bonds, a year-on-year increase of 14.8%. Among them, 61.4 trillion yuan of bonds were issued in the interbank bond market and 9.6 trillion yuan were issued in the exchange market.
In 2023, 11.0 trillion yuan of government bonds will be issued, 9.3 trillion yuan of local government bonds will be issued, 10.2 trillion yuan of financial bonds will be issued, 14.0 trillion yuan of corporate credit bonds1 will be issued, 348.52 billion yuan of credit asset-backed securities will be issued, and 25.8 trillion yuan will be issued of interbank certificates of deposit.
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Our country has always attached great importance to the control of debts, and will not unscrupulously borrow money and owe debts, which is not only the sense of responsibility that we have inherited for thousands of years, but also the responsibility of a big country.
Although China's debt situation is relatively good in the world, we should not take it lightly, and we are still facing challenges in the global market, and in this context, it is very necessary for Wenhu's economic stability and sustainable development.
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Resources
On May 13, 2024, Oriental Fortune Network published a report titled "A Big Drop of 500 Billion! U.S. debt is not fragrant? ".
On January 5, 2024, the Popular Daily reported on "Why the U.S. Treasury Bonds Have Become a Difficult "Big Mac" with the First Excess of $34 Trillion".
A report by the People's Bank of China on January 29, 2024, "Financial Market Operations in 2023".
On March 29, 2024, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported that Wang Chunying, Deputy Director General and Spokesperson of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, answered questions from reporters on China's external debt data at the end of 2023