The AP is reporting that China has trimmed its holdings of U.S. Treasury’s by $5.8 billion in January. I’m sure members of the doom and gloom economic faction will point to this as solid evidence that the U.S. is losing its ability to fund spending and is inching ever closer to default.   

In my opinion, this line of thinking is completely unrealistic.   

China still holds $889 billion in T-bills. It’s clearly not “dumping” American debt. And as I discussed last week, there is evidence that China is moving to more direct investments in the U.S.  

China’s state-run investment company, the China Investment Corporation (CIC), is already involved in a buyout offer for shopping mall owner General Growth Properties (NYSE:GGP) through Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE:BAM). 

For the past year, the fate of commercial real estate in the U.S. has been a popular talking point for economic bears. Something like $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans comes due in the next 3 years.   

Given that a good portion of these properties are underwater, and the fact that banks are still reluctant to lend, the concern that many of these loans won’t get refinancing seems valid.   

Already, we have seen companies simply walk away from properties that are losing money, turning the keys over to the banks that hold the mortgages. Maguire Properties (NYSE:MPG) has done it. And we’ve seen BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and Tishman Speyer Properties abandon Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Tower when the value fell from $5.4 billion to $2 billion.   

For shareholders, these moves make sense because it’s better than throwing good money after bad. For Maguire, it was a matter of life or death for the company.  

Still, it’s a concern because someone has to step up and buy the impaired real estate from the banks. Otherwise, bank balance sheets are saddled with even more toxic assets, capital bases fall, lending dries up and the whole financial crisis gets repeated again.  

Interestingly, it may be the Chinese who help the U.S. out of this commercial real estate problem.