Hu's your daddy?

It is less than completely reassuring to read that President George W. Bush is somehow involved with managing relations with China.

"Our relationship with China is complex," Bush said Wednesday.

Bush suggested China could help reduce trade imbalances and allow its currency to be more responsive to market influences.

"We still have got a huge trade deficit with China, which then causes us to want to work with them to adjust — to let their currency float," Bush said earlier. "We think that would be helpful in terms of adjusting trade balances."

Dan Price, a presidential international economic adviser, said "a whole range of economic issues, bilateral issues with China, are obviously on the table, and would naturally be subjects of discussion between the two presidents." Exchange rates are "a very important issue" to both countries, he said.

Analysts say China's yuan is undervalued, giving Chinese exporters an unfair advantage despite China's steps to revalue the currency by 2.1 percent in 2005 and then letting it appreciate a further 7.3 percent.

U.S.-Chinese tensions have also grown over the issue of defective products. Just Wednesday, Mattel Inc. announced a third major recall of Chinese-made toys in little more than a month because of excessive amounts of lead paint. The world's largest toy maker said the move affects about 800,000 toys.

China has denied reports that its military hacked into a computer system in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June. Bush largely sidestepped the question on Wednesday, but said, "We understand that we're vulnerable in some systems." The Financial Times, citing unidentified officials, said China was behind the attack that forced the Pentagon to temporarily take down the network. China has called the allegations "groundless."

Meanwhile, a growing number of analysts think that the Chinese are dumping U.S. debt.

A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its funds from the United States, leaving the dollar increasingly vulnerable.

Data released by the New York Federal Reserve shows that foreign central banks have cut their stash of US Treasuries by $48bn since late July, with falls of $32bn in the last two weeks alone.

"This comes as a big surprise and it is definitely worrying," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.

"We won't know if China is behind this until the Treasury releases its TIC data in November, but what it does show is that world central banks are in a hurry to get out of the US. They don't seem to be switching into other currencies, so it is possible they are moving into gold instead. Gold is now gaining momentum across all currencies and has broken through resistance at 500 euros," he said.

Somehow, it seems like U.S.-China relations peaked a couple years ago - back when we were more than happy to buy their inexpensive manufactured goods, looking past the defects, and they were happy to buy treasury bills.