Title: How much debt does China have? No one knows exactly! — Quartz
Headings: How much debt does China have? No one knows exactly!
How much debt does China have? No one knows exactly!
Content: From our Obsession
Debt
By Matt Phillips
AsiaNovember 29, 2012This article is more than 2 years old. Everybody knows that the US is the world’s biggest borrower, owing a massive amount of money to China, which holds $1.15 trillion in bonds issued by Uncle Sam. With more than $16.2 trillion in debt — including the money the US owes to itself to pay for programs like Social Security — the US debt-to-GDP ratio is around 100%. ( Not counting so-called intragovernmental holdings of debt, the ratio is more like 68%, according to the Government Accountability Office.) China is in a much better spot. At least that’s what analysts at credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s said in a report this morning in which they affirmed their credit rating of the People’s Republic of China, largely due to expectations that continued economic growth will keep the country’s debt load quite low. They wrote: We project general government debt to increase by an average amount equal to 1.4% of GDP each year over 2012-2015. General government debt should continue to fall as a share of GDP, with the net general government debt declining to close to 13.4% of GDP by 2014. However, we believe China’s fiscal position to be somewhat weaker than these indicators suggest.