It looks like Japan is 最後嘅水魚.
The Chinese have $3+ trillion foreign reserves, about $900 billion in $US.
But the Japanese running dogs have only $1+ trillion foreign reserves, of which about $800+ billion is $US.
If the US defaults, the Japanese will be in big trouble.
China can dump $1 trillion $US, and still have $2+ trillion of foreign reserves, which is more than enough.
When China starts dumping the $US, many other countries will just follow. This will probably wipe out most of the value of Japan's foreign reserves.
I think US will be in more trouble if it loses AAA. A lot of people are going to back out of using US Treasuries as their default investment. They will have trouble borrowing and have much higher cost in borrowing themselves. People will resort to gold much more. Oil prices will shoot up against the USD. Domestic US will inflate, if not hyper inflate.
Using this just to scare China and to reduce export cost is self destructive at the same time.
Besides, with a drop in USD, who owns the most US denominated asset in the world? It's the US.
Moral of the story? With QE3 not completely off the table, Gold have a lot way to go before it's gonna top.