#2 Mainland China
In a surprise to no one except those living under a rock for two decades, China, one of the largest foreign holders of US debt. holds a lot of U.S. government debt. The world’s most populous country held $1.049 trillion worth of Treasury bonds at the end of November, good for number two on the list. China would have been number one on the list as recently as September 2016, but capital outflows have caused the country’s holdings to go down.
