A key vector of economic warfare is the "Debt Weapon," a strategy centered on China's massive holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. For over a decade, China has been one of the largest foreign holders of U.S. debt. Its holdings peaked at over $1.3 trillion in November 2013 and, despite a gradual reduction, remained at a formidable level of approximately $756 billion as of June 2025 [1, 2]. This vast portfolio represents a potent source of potential leverage. The theorized tactic is not a single, catastrophic "dump" of bonds, which would harm China as well by devaluing its remaining assets, but a more insidious "Gradual Bleed." This would involve a series of significant, unpredictable, and sustained sales designed to create chronic instability and uncertainty in the U.S. bond market.
The strategic intent of such a campaign would be to spike U.S. interest rates, which would increase the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government, businesses, and consumers, thereby slowing the economy. The systemic impact would be to erode global confidence in the U.S. dollar as the world's primary risk-free asset, potentially triggering a flight of capital and precipitating a recession [3]. A critical component of this strategy would be a coordinated information campaign, where each sale is framed by state media not as an act of economic warfare, but as a prudent financial decision. Chinese state-controlled media outlets like the Global Times and academic journals affiliated with the People's Bank of China have published numerous articles since the late 2010s arguing that "de-dollarization" is a natural trend and that reducing holdings of U.S. debt is a necessary step to "diversify state assets" away from a risky and "weaponized" U.S. financial system, thereby amplifying the psychological impact and encouraging other nations to follow suit [4].
While many mainstream Western economists argue that such a strategy would inflict significant self-harm on China, and that the U.S. Federal Reserve could counteract such sales through quantitative easing, the Minimisation Plan framework posits that the primary goal is not economic gain, but the achievement of a strategic objective—the destabilization of the U.S.—for which a degree of economic self-harm is an acceptable cost [15]. This strategic calculus has been made explicit during periods of high tension. During the U.S.-China trade war in 2018-2019, prominent Chinese academics and state media editors, including Hu Xijin of the Global Times, publicly floated the idea of selling U.S. debt as a "retaliatory measure," demonstrating a clear willingness to threaten the weaponization of their holdings under specific circumstances [19]. This aligns with a historical precedent for creditor nations using debt as leverage; during the 1956 Suez Crisis, the British government used its significant holdings of U.S. debt to exert pressure on the Eisenhower administration [20]. The threat is not just abstract; it is designed to influence specific U.S. policy debates, such as Congressional votes on sanctions or technology export controls, by creating uncertainty and giving ammunition to domestic political factions arguing for a less confrontational stance with Beijing [3].
| Year (End of Year) | Holdings (in billions of USD) |
|---|---|
| 2001 | $78.1 |
| 2005 | $263.2 |
| 2010 | $1,160.1 |
| 2013 (Peak) | $1,316.7 (Nov) |
| 2015 | $1,240.9 |
| 2020 | $1,072.3 |
| 2023 | $797.7 |
| 2025 (June) | $756.4 |
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury data, compiled from [1, 2, 5]
The "Debt Weapon" operates within the broader strategic context of de-dollarization, a long-term effort to create a "sanctions-proof" economic bloc insulated from U.S. financial leverage. The primary vehicle for this is the expanded BRICS framework. Since its formalization, the bloc has established parallel financial institutions, most notably the New Development Bank (NDB), launched in 2015, which provides an alternative to the World Bank and IMF for infrastructure financing [6]. Since its inception, the NDB has approved over $30 billion in loans for projects in member countries, focusing on sustainable infrastructure and clean energy, though its overall lending portfolio remains a fraction of that of the World Bank and it has faced significant challenges, including the imposition of Western sanctions on Russia (a founding member and shareholder) which have complicated its operations [13, 16].
The strategy is rhizomatic: it focuses on creating a decentralized network of alternative payment systems (such as the in-development BRICS Pay, a blockchain-based system) and promoting bilateral trade in local currencies, thereby eroding the dollar's centrality through a thousand cuts rather than a direct challenge. The dramatic surge in Russia-China trade settled in yuan and rubles following the 2022 Western sanctions is a prime example of this strategy in action, demonstrating how the network can be activated to route financial flows around established blockades [7].
While the BRICS+ bloc serves as a key vehicle for the Minimisation Plan's "multipolarity" psyop, its internal dynamics reveal significant fractures and strategic "hedging" by key members, complicating its function as a monolithic anti-Western front. The voting records of major "Global South" members on critical UN General Assembly resolutions concerning Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine provide a clear, quantifiable measure of this strategic divergence. On key votes condemning the invasion and demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces, core BRICS members India, South Africa, and, at times, Brazil, have consistently chosen to abstain rather than vote with Russia and China [23, 24].
This pattern of abstention is a deliberate policy of strategic ambiguity. It allows these nations to avoid directly alienating the Sino-Russian axis, with whom they share significant economic ties and a stated desire for a multipolar world, while also avoiding a complete rupture with the West. This "hedging" behavior demonstrates a core tension within the bloc:
The biggest systemic challenge to the BRICS project, therefore, remains the significant internal friction and economic disparities within the bloc. Deep-seated geopolitical rivalries and the tension between China's desire for a yuan-centric system versus the interests of other members, present significant obstacles to the deep trust and policy alignment required for a truly unified financial and political system [8, 21]. This makes the BRICS bloc a useful tool for the Minimisation Plan's narrative warfare and de-dollarization efforts, but a potentially unreliable one in a direct, high-stakes confrontation with the West.
Economic dependency is the primary vector for elite capture. This is a core mission of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department (UFWD), an extensive network of organizations tasked with co-opting and influencing overseas Chinese diaspora communities, business leaders, academics, and politicians to advance Beijing's political agenda [9]. A key tactic is the "revolving door," where former Western officials leverage their connections for lucrative positions in Minimiser-aligned corporations.
In Australia, this is exemplified by the case of former Trade Minister Andrew Robb, who, after overseeing the approval of the 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese-linked company in 2015, accepted an $880,000-a-year consultancy role with that same company, Landbridge Group, in 2016 [10]. In Germany, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's post-political career on the boards of Russian state-owned energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom was instrumental in lobbying for and securing political support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a project that deepened Germany's strategic dependence on Russia. This led to formal sanctions from the European Parliament against him and a move by Germany's Social Democratic Party to expel him, contributing to a measurable decline in public trust in the political class [12, 14, 22].
This influence extends deep into Western academia. The UFWD has been documented funding Confucius Institutes at universities worldwide, which, while publicly framed as cultural and language centers, have been identified by intelligence agencies like the U.S. FBI as being involved in intellectual property theft and the monitoring of Chinese students abroad [17]. A 2018 report from the Hoover Institution detailed the UFWD's use of Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) to control and mobilize Chinese students on Western campuses, effectively creating a network to suppress academic discussion of topics sensitive to the CCP, such as Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang [18]. These high-profile cases demonstrate a systemic vulnerability, where the pursuit of personal enrichment by political elites and the pursuit of funding by academic institutions directly serve the Minimiser goal of embedding influence at the highest levels of society.