China’s US Treasury holdings have dropped to 2009 levels after its central bank sold more than $8 billion in the month of April.

According to a new update from the Treasury Department, China held $757.2 billion worth of Treasuries at the end of April 2025 – down from $765.4 billion in March and $784.3 in February.

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China now holds significantly fewer T-bills than the UK’s $807.7 billion, and sits in third place on the list of the biggest major foreign holders of Treasuries after over 17 years of being in second place.

China’s big offloading of Treasuries appears to be part of a broader reconfiguration of the country’s financial strategy.

Macro analyst Adam Kobeissi reports that China’s Treasury-dumping spree has coincided with an extremely aggressive accumulation of gold that has only accelerated since 2022.

“China is diversifying its currency reserves out of the US Dollar:

The share of US Treasury Holdings in total Chinese FX reserves has declined by ~15 percentage points since 2016, to ~22, near the lowest in at least 15 years.

Over the same period, gold’s share has risen ~5 percentage points, to a record 6.8.

This trend accelerated in 2022, and since then, gold’s share of Chinese reserves has doubled.

Over this time, China has acquired ~200 tonnes of gold.

Gold is more desired than ever.”

ImageSource: The Kobeissi Letter/X

Since 2022, the US dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the USD against a weighted basked of other major foreign currencies, is down over 15 since 2022, creating skepticism about the greenback’s future as a world reserve asset.

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Last week, “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb said that the dollar had already been effectively been replaced by gold as the world’s reserve currency.

Says Taleb,

“You can see the accumulation of gold in the reserves and the behavior of gold over the past 12 months. And it didn’t start with Trump’s policies. Of course, it started with Biden when he froze the accounts of people connected to Putin, and of course, thinking that it would be limited there, but people not connected to Putin decided to stay away from the euro and the dollar.

And gold is effectively now the reserve currency. Transactions take place in dollars and euros, usually dollars, and at the same rate, however, they get converted back into gold. And we can see that from the accumulation of reserves.”

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