China sold a net ¥769.2 billion worth of Japanese bonds in September, the second straight month the nation cut holdings of yen-denominated assets after the currency rose to a 15-year high.

China offloaded a net ¥624.3 billion in short-term Japanese debt and ¥144.9 billion in long-term bonds, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.

The country may have sold Japanese securities on concern the yen will weaken after it reached 80.2 per dollar on Nov. 1, the strongest level since April 1995, according to Junichi Makino, a senior economist at Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd.

"If China sees ¥80 close to the currency's possible peak of appreciation, it makes sense for them to sell," Makino said. "Because Japanese debt has almost no yield, China can only get returns from currency gains."

Japan's benchmark 10-year yields sank to a seven-year low of 0.82 percent on Oct. 6, a day after the Bank of Japan cut its key interest rate to a range of zero to 0.1 percent and announced the creation of a ¥5 trillion fund to buy domestic debt. The yield was at 0.96 percent Tuesday.

China sold a record ¥2.02 trillion in Japanese debt in August after having bought ¥2.32 trillion of the securities this year through July, according Finance Ministry data going back to 2005. The nation boosted holdings of South Korean sovereign bonds by 438 billion won (¥31.82 billion) in October, the biggest increase since May, according to figures from Seoul's Finance Ministry.

China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, surged by a record $2.65 trillion at the end of September, a statement from the People's Bank of China said Oct. 13.

Japan had ¥904 trillion in outstanding government bonds and borrowings as of June, Finance Ministry data show.