With the Obama administration and Republican congressional leaders locked in an impasse over the U.S. debt ceiling, U.S. diplomats are trying to convince China there is nothing serious to worry about: The debt ceiling will soon be raised, and America will not default on its foreign-held loans.
That is reassuring news for China, which by some estimates is holding hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds. But if the political gridlock in Washington has been the cause of some economic jitters in Beijing, it is generally understood that the U.S. default crisis is politically generated and will, one way or another, end soon with a debt ceiling increase.
"It's not that markets won't lend to the United States," said Daniel McDowell, a World Politics Review contributor and University of Virginia doctoral student specializing in international lending practices. "It's that domestic politics will not allow the United States to borrow."