中国评级机构下调美国信用评级

Guan Jianzhong has poured over the US financial books and he doesn't like what he sees. He once worked as an accountant for Chinese firm on Wall Street, but now he says he's lost faith in America's economy and its political system.

'The two political parties acted in a very irresponsible way and it greatly exposed the negative impact of political system on the economy.'

Guan heads up Dagong, China's only independent international credit rating agency. While the big three, Moody's, Fitch, Standard & Poor's watch and wait, Dagong has already downgraded the US once last November. And now on the back of the debt crisis, Guan says he's marking America down again.

'Our downgrading of the US simply reflects the US inability to pay back its debt. It reflects reality.'

The people who work here pride themselves on being independent. Dagong says it is not controlled by the Chinese government and will make the hard calls where other international credit ratings agencies will not.

'People are used to credit ratings by the big three, but the financial crisis has proved them wrong. They can no longer shoulder the responsibility of rating the world.'

Downgrading the US could hurt China. As America's biggest international creditor, any damage to US financial credibility could cost China billions of dollars. Analysts say China, with big reserves of cash and committed to low-currency, high-export growth, is tied to the US, like it or not.

'There aren't that many other markets that are as deep or as liquid as Treasuries. Actually there are none. So when they accumulate reserves, this is really the only place that they can put them.'

Dagong though has a warning: China needs to start looking elsewhere to put its money. Stan Grant, cnn, Beijing.