Forget nuclear weapons: China has a better way of bringing the U.S. to its knees

"Nucular" (as George W. Bush would say) weapons are so messy. They create lots of dead bodies and legions of injured; destroy the landscape; tear apart the infrastructure. In short, they really mess up a place.

So why bother when you can undermine your enemy's currency? Especially when that enemy has handed you the tools to do so on a silver platter!

Read on:

China Threatens "Nuclear Option" of Dollar Sales

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph UK

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.

Continued here.