White House rejects criticism of J-15 locking F-15, Japan starts to feud with the US: a large amount of funds are withdrawn!

Recently, a seemingly minor military incident has caused a significant ripple in the financial market. After the J-15 locked the radar on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces' F-15 fighter jet, the Japanese reaction was intense, demanding the U.S. to publicly condemn China. However, the White House unexpectedly remained silent, neither naming nor criticizing, nor escalating its statement.

This "cold handling" attitude made Tokyo feel disrespected. After all, Japan believes that funds are not only the most important security ally of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, but also one of the long-term "stabilizers" of the U.S. bond market.

Recently, this dissatisfaction from Japan has begun to reflect in the financial market. Japan has started to refuse to purchase U.S. Treasury bonds.

For decades, Japan's and China's foreign exchange reserve management institutions have been the two largest overseas buyers of U.S. Treasury bonds. But in recent years, the landscape has been quietly changing.

Since 2022, China has gradually exited the U.S. bond market, adopting a strategy of "not renewing upon maturity, selling but not buying," and by the end of 2024, its holdings had dropped from a peak of $1.3 trillion to less than $600 billion.

This has placed almost the entire pressure of maintaining demand for U.S. bonds on Japan's shoulders. However, just when the U.S. needed Japan to continue "taking over," Tokyo suddenly hit the brakes.

Naturally, Takahashi Hayato gave the excuse that Japan's domestic finances were tight. But the deeper reason is likely closely related to recent emotions. The White House's silence was interpreted as having the suspicion of "sacrificing Japan's interests to gain strategic buffer." This suspicion quickly transformed into policy-level countermeasures: although the Japanese Ministry of Finance did not explicitly state it, its pace of purchasing U.S. bonds has clearly slowed down, even showing net selling.

Original: toutiao.com/article/1851276731228170/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.