Fisky my advice to you is do not read Zero Hedge.So this month the EU is bailing out UST when only a few months ago they wrote the FED is bailing out the EU. Belgium is the home of Euroclear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroclear
Euroclear is the largest international central securities depository in the world.The Euroclear group serves clients from more than 90 countries. Most are banks, broker-dealers, and other institutions professionally engaged in managing new issues of securities, market-making, trading or holding a wide variety of securities. Retail investors are able to have direct accounts in local CSDs, according to local laws, rules and procedures. Belgium is also a tax haven
http://www.bespaarbelastingen.be/algemeen/belgium-tax-haven/
It would appear these are private purchases.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
Also see this
http://acrossthecurve.com/?p=12333
This is an analysis of the monthly Treasury report on international capital flows via Gennadiy Goldberg at TD Securities. China was a huge seller and foreigners were net sellers of agencies and corporates and equities.
Via TDSecurities:
The December TIC capital flows report showed net long-term outflows of $45.9B from US securities – the largest monthly outflow since June 2013. Treasury securities were the only bright spot during the month, with private purchases of $29.7B more than offsetting $11.9B in official selling, bringing net Treasury purchases to $17.9B. Other US securities did not fare quite so well in the wake of the December tapering announcement, with foreigners shedding agencies, corporates and equities.
Foreign investors were better sellers of Agency securities to the tune of $15.4B in December, the largest monthly sale since September 2010. Corporates also saw strong selling by private accounts, selling a net $7.5B during the month – the largest monthly sale of corporates since June 2012. The shedding of corporates and agencies may have been a factor of investors positioning for gradual normalization in Treasury yields after the start of tapering at the December FOMC meeting, with net fixed income flows seeing an outflow of -$5B during the month following last month’s -$1.2B outflow. Equities also saw a notable -$13.7B in selling during the month, with investors likely taking profits following a strong year of gains in US equity markets.
Foreign official flows showed very strong net selling in December, with China shedding an enormous $47.8B and Japan selling $3.9B. It is worth highlighting that Caribbean accounts (a proxy for hedge funds) saw no change in Treasury holdings during the month, suggesting that Treasuries were largely well-positioned to receive the December tapering announcement. One particularly interesting change in country holdings during the month was the $17.1B purchase of Treasury securities by Hong Kong, the largest of its kind on record, potentially offsetting some of the selling by China.