Title: China's secret? It owes Americans nearly $1 trillion - oregonlive.com
Headings: China's secret? It owes Americans nearly $1 trillion
China's secret? It owes Americans nearly $1 trillion
By Richard Parker
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Content: Neither seems the case in China, which may be why it has never submitted to international adjudication. China, for its part, has not exactly disavowed the debt; it simply has selectively refused to pay it. Beijing paid British investors a miserly $39 million upon the takeover of Hong Kong in 1987. France has tried to press the issue, even at the World Trade Organization. Further, in Taiwanese press accounts Chinese officials have indicated, in fact, that they might pay the United States -- as part of a negotiation over the final status of Taiwan. Technically, this calls into question China's stellar credit ratings and those of its government-owned enterprises. But specifically, the U.S. government has a legal obligation to its citizens. The 1933 Securities Act established both the Foreign Bondholders Protective Council, under State and Treasury, and the Corporation of Foreign Security Holders, under the SEC, to get foreign governments to address debts owed to private U.S. investors. Housed in a Virginia suburb, the council in 47 instances settled the debts of foreign governments, including communist ones, to U.S. citizens.