China held 727.4 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds at the end of last year, just ahead of Japan, the holder of 626 billion dollars in bonds, according to US government data. In a rare expression of concern over Beijing's mega bond investments, Wen called on US economic planners to safeguard Chinese assets. "We have lent huge amounts of money to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets," Wen told reporters in Beijing. "To be honest, I am a little bit worried and I would like to ... call on the United States to honor its word and remain a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets." As the largest creditor to the United States, China is "extremely interested in developments in the US economy," he said. Analysts say a loss of confidence in US Treasury securities could cause a dramatic drop in the dollar and force Washington to pay higher interest rates. Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates, pointed out that any Chinese effort to sharply reduce US Treasury holdings would only hurt Beijing. "There is no incentive for the Chinese to dump their Treasuries," he said.

Most of China's foreign exchange reserves, which reached 1.95 trillion dollars by the end of 2008, is believed to be held in the greenback. Summers, reacting to the Chinese premier's concern at a forum at the Brookings Institution in Washington, cited the prolonged recession in the United States and said all resources available had to be utilized to stimulate economic growth. While the United States had to borrow at an "admirably high scale" now to make up for the loss of revenue due to the recession, "it does mean that your debts can't be rising relative to your incomes" when the economy begins to expand, he said. He assured that the Obama administration would move to "getting the budget deficit, getting national finances on a sustainable basis as the economy expands." Gibbs said US leaders could give "further reassurance" on foreign investments by demonstrating "their commitment to spending money wisely." They could also display a resolve "to stop borrowing more of it in the future by putting us on that path to fiscal sustainability through passage of the president's budget to cut the deficit in half."