Reading the comments in this thread made me think that Super-imperialism by Michael Hudson should be a prerequisite reading for all leftists.

How are we ever going to defeat US imperialism when so many leftists get the fundamental mechanics of the global financial system so wrong?

No, China selling US treasury debt has zero relevance to the US economy, nor will it tank the US capacity as an imperialist or economic superpower.

Here’s what it is: the US treasury bonds are simply a global reserve drain, a vehicle to absorb all the surplus dollars the US had relentless spent in the world to get its “free lunch”.

The US government does not need to borrow from other countries to finance its debt. The US government spends, the Federal Reserve prints the money and the global exporters who have earned these dollars (after using their labor and resources to produce stuff and export the, to the Imperial Core) then store the surplus as treasury bonds because those are junk papers that they don’t know what to do with.

Previously:

China exports to US -> China earns dollars -> China spends some of the dollars to import stuff -> China then stores the rest of the surplus as US treasury bonds because those are junk papers and China has no use for them.

Now:

China exports to US -> China earns dollars -> China spends some of the dollars to import stiff -> Instead of buying treasuries, China now spends these dollars elsewhere (e.g., as infrastructure loans to Belt and Road countries) -> Other countries earn dollars from China -> Other countries import stuff in dollar -> Dollars now flow to the rest of the world and continue to remain dominant.

In essence, China is only helping the US to dollarize the world, in a roundabout way.

Remember, the dollar is a tool. An tool for imperialism. The US does not need to borrow dollars, it uses dollars that it printed itself to economically enslave and colonize the Global South.

It is a valve that it can tune to the interests of the US imperialists. So what if China stopped buying US debt (which functions as a drain for the surplus dollars in the world)? As long as China continues to spend those dollars elsewhere in the world, the US simply needs to tune the valve and control how much dollars that are circulating out there.

Seriously, these Chinese economists and policymakers need to read Super-imperialism. Selling treasury debt can mitigate against US sanctions like they did against Russia (which is probably what they are aiming for), but it does nothing to stop the dollar from wrecking the world.

The only meaningful way China can use its vast amount of dollar reserves to fight against the dollar is to use these dollars to pay the Global South dollar debt and help free them from debt bondage to US imperialism. Only then can we start talking about the demise of dollar hegemony. Anything else is not going to do much but to ensure the dominance of the dollar as an imperialist instrument of the US empire.