The American Bondholders Foundation is a citizen-led organization that was founded in 2001 to advocate for the resolution and repayment of defaulted sovereign debt of the Peoples's Republic of China that is held by 20,000 families in the United States. The PRC has refused to pay the American holders of these bonds, despite settling with Great Britain in 1987.
Contact Us

What Is The Story?

Before 1949, the Republic of China issued a large volume of long-term sovereign bonds for the construction of infrastructure. In 1938, China defaulted on the bonds during the conflict with Japan. Under well-established international law, the “successor government” doctrine holds that the current government of China, the People's Republic of China, is responsible for the repayment of the bonds.
In 1987, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher forced payment from the PRC on behalf of British holders of these same bonds as a condition of allowing China access to U.K. capital markets.

The Time to Act is Now

  • Senior members of prior U.S. administrations, as well as members of Congress, have vetted and confirmed the validity and defaulted nature of these bonds, yet to date, no U.S. administration has actively pursued repayment from the PRC.
  • With the President’s approval, the U.S. Treasury has the existing legal authority to acquire the Bonds from ABF and use them to pay down the U.S. national debt to China.
  • Congress should pass legislation requiring the PRC to abide by international norms and rules of finance, trade, and commerce, including transparency rules of capital markets and exchanges, and end its practices of exclusionary settlement, discriminatory payments, selective default, and rejection of the successor government doctrine of settled international law, or be barred, together with its state-controlled enterprises, from access to all U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign bond offerings.
For more information, contact:
American Bondholders Foundation, LLC
376 Jack Pickle Rd.Lewisburg, TN 37091Tel: (931) 359-8781