The Japanese government has always been the largest buyer of US treasury bills in the last several years, except 2008 when China overtook it. But Japan has successfully regained the number one slot from China with a massive 105 billion dollars of new treasury buying in the first eight months of 2008.
This is also due to the sharp cut down on US treasury investments in the last few one year by China, due to the need to reduce the risk profile. The Chinese government has been aggressively buying Gold and other industrial commodities and shoring up the inventory, which in turn has resulted in most of these commodity prices going up through the roof.
Also does the Japanese investments indicate the impending arrival of a much bigger global financial crisis ?