“American money is migrating into Chinese real estate. Phoenix, a real estate project in Beijing, reportedly sold more than 120 apartments to Chinese Americans from San Francisco and Los Angeles in two weeks. Since last year, two-thirds of those who applied for Chinese visas at the Los Angeles and New York consulates went to China to buy real estate, according to the Beijing-based Chinese-language newspaper, Economic Reference.”
∙ China: In Hidden Danger of Sub-prime Crisis [New America Media]
∙ What’s The Scoop On Foreign Investment In San Francisco? [SocketSite]
No. It’s not supposed to be the other way around. While China does have to hold on to dollar denominated assets of some type to balance its trade surplus with the U.S., but those dollar holdings need not be in the form of tangible U.S. assets (i.e real estate).
OTOH, persons who believe that the exchange rate of the Yuan is artificially depressed have a reason to acquire Yuan denominated assets of any kind; and tangible assets if they think the Chinese economy also has domestic inflationary price pressures.
Or it could be that China has a speculative bubble of its own right now.
http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/795070.html