TIC is how the Treasury counts who abroad holds American paper. Its tables report holdings by country and, in the historical series, split them into foreign official institutions, meaning central banks and finance ministries, and everyone else.
The split is the story. Official holdings peaked in June 2021 and fell; private foreign holdings rose from 3.3 to 5.5 trillion dollars over the same period, so the official share of foreign holdings dropped from 55 percent to 30 percent.
The Gazette uses TIC to answer the question no press release asks: who is actually buying the debt.