[PeterPrinciple]

Having not viewed this, the more important observation is what are they buying?

[EEGator]

Servicing their debt.

[Repeal The 17th]

Who/What is BWC News?

If China and Japan are selling U.S. debt, who is buying it?

[Nervous Tick]

You raise two good questions — I, too would like to know:

** Where did China and Japan spend or reinvest the proceeds?
** Who bought the half-trillion in US debt from China and Japan?

If “we” bought back our own debt, it should show up on the Fed’s balance sheet, I would guess.

[rb22982]

Having not viewed this, the more important observation is what are they buying?
In the case of Japan, they bought Yen back to defend their currency as it sank 30%+ against the dollar in 2022. Unlike the tone of this article, 2022 was an unbelievable year for the dollar with only 3-4 countries having their currencies stay flat or go up vs the dollar with >200 dropping on average 15% to the dollar. Foreign countries sold their winners (ie US assets) to help fund issues back home, not because they necessarily wanted to sell them because they think they are bad investments

Who bought the half-trillion in US debt from China and Japan?
Combination of retail investors (people like you and me, institutional investors (vanguard, blackrock, Fidelity, etc) and large banks like JP Morgan. Keep in mind this is a very small amount of $ that's out there. The US Treasury market is over $30T, the total US debt market is over $60T and the US Equity market is around $50T. $0.5T is a small fraction of the pie.