Author: Rong ping source: official account: Rong Ping (id:rongping898) has been authorized to reprint
The United States is now worried about “excessive sanctions” against Russia.
On June 15, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally adeyemo expressed his concern that the excessive use of sanctions against Russia would bring “consequences” to the U.S. economy.
According to him, now the US Treasury has to recruit an additional group of people to study “the relationship between Russia and the global economy” and “the interdependence between the Russian economy and the US economy”.
In the past, western public opinion often ridiculed Russia as a “gas station tied to nuclear weapons”, but according to adeyemo’s statement, it is obviously out of sight.
This sentence is tantamount to secretly admitting Russia’s position in the global market and its implicit impact on the U.S. economy. In other words, the Russian economy is more important than expected. This war of sanctions will not continue!
Biden who made a hole
Before the U.S. Department of labor announced the CIP in May, the White House confidently told the media that our data in May may may be OK. Inflation is slowing down, growth is stable, and everything is under the control of the commander.
As a result, as soon as the data on the 10th came out, the White House was all dumbfounded – in May, the CIP soared by 8.6% year-on-year, a new record since 1981. Naturally, the support rate of the Biden administration also fell below 40% and fell to a new historical low. Now Biden is scolded wherever he goes.
What shall I do?
Biden actually thought of a lot of tricks, such as releasing oil reserves, considering canceling some of the “irresponsible tariffs” imposed on China, and even calling Powell into the White House for the first time to “give advice” regardless of the independence of the Federal Reserve.
However, to save the current inflation fire, these tactics are either not strong enough, or they are too slow to take effect. They have not hit the point yet.
You know, half of the price increases in the United States in May came from the rise in energy and food prices, so the crux of the problem mainly lies in energy and food.
In the final analysis, the reason why energy and food have risen so much today is that they can not bypass a key factor: sanctions.
It is precisely because of the overwhelming Western sanctions that Russia, the global resource base, and Russia and Ukraine, the two world-class granaries, have been restricted, which has magnified the market panic under the war. This has led to the uncontrollable rise of resource-based commodities represented by food and energy.
Therefore, at present, the only key to solving the inflation problem in the United States lies in the Russian Ukrainian battlefield, or in Russia’s vital energy and food reserves.
As a result, Biden, full of bags, looked at Russia and began to think about how to drill the loopholes in his sanctions policy.
For example, the omnipresent financial sanctions against Russia have limited Russia’s energy supply capacity. What should we do?
Easy to handle! The US Treasury Department took the lead in issuing licenses to the sanctioned Russian banks, signing them for six months at a time, so that the sanctioned Russian banks could carry out energy related businesses as usual before December.
Moreover, as long as the energy related products, such as natural gas, oil and coal, even wood, electricity and nuclear energy, can be exported by Russia, the United States will release them to you, and the Putin brothers will boldly sell them out!
For another example, before China and India bought Russian crude oil, the United States took the lead to spray it every day, but now Biden finally figured it out. China and India bought a lot of Russian oil, which can increase the international crude oil supply and ease the market panic. This is a good thing!
So Sullivan came out and said that we prohibited the United States from buying oil from Russia, but never restricted Russia from selling oil to other countries. Therefore, the purchase of Russian oil by other countries is not inconsistent with the sanctions imposed by the United States.
In fact, there is a problem here: if China and India buy a large amount of Russian oil and become a “new market” supporting Russian energy, what is the significance of the round of energy sanctions between the United States and Europe in recent months?
However, by calculation, China and India, together, could transport nearly 1.5 million barrels of crude oil from Russia every day in May, directly pushing Russia’s oil exports to near the highest level in history. In fact, in addition to the sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe, they stimulated Russia to increase production in disguised form.
As long as it can increase production, Biden can’t care so much.
The same is true of food.
At present, Russia’s grain and chemical fertilizer exports are facing various obstacles. They can’t find a boat, get insurance, and pay money. In fact, they are banned.
Russia is not in a hurry. It just announced this year’s bumper grain harvest. It turned around and said it would sell grain to friendly countries, especially to China on a large scale.
Then the Americans couldn’t sit still.
Jim O’Brien, the sanctions coordinator of the U.S. State Department, came out and said that the United States should remove the obstacles to Russia’s supply of food and chemical fertilizers to “southern countries”. If traders have difficulties in importing Russian food and chemical fertilizers, the United States will help solve one case and strive to completely remove the export obstacles.
We are quite familiar with these words when it comes to attracting investment and optimizing the business environment in domestic counties and cities. But when have you seen the strong US government show such a “shopkeeper” attitude in international trade? Especially this is Russia’s export!
Moreover, the US government is also encouraging American enterprises to go out to Russia without saying anything about it. Agricultural enterprises are engaged in grain and chemical fertilizers, and transportation enterprises are engaged in logistics. In a word, American patriotic enterprises are moving to quietly solve the difficulties of selling grain and chemical fertilizers to Russian comrades.
Looking back at history, who would have thought that the Americans would be so open-minded in order to provide good customs clearance services for Russia?
If you had this spirit, what war would you fight!
Runaway Europe
Of course, the big stick of sanctions has brought Biden problems, not only the inflation that can not be suppressed, but also an angry Europe.
Let’s think, why does the United States bother to fight this proxy war?
In addition to the impoverished Russia, a core strategic goal is to use the “Russian bear threat” to reshape the transatlantic alliance, interrupt the process of European “Strategic Autonomy” and strengthen U.S. control over Europe.
In the early stage of the war, the situation was undoubtedly good – “the anti Russian united front” was united, NATO was reawakened, European and American relations became closer, the EU’s “Strategic Autonomy” was also severely hit, and Biden really acted like a “world leader”.
But that is not what the war means today.
The EU is increasingly finding itself a fool.
The United States is far away from the ocean and is not afraid of making enemies with Russia. However, Europe cannot move away. It has to be a neighbor to the Russians all its life. Now that Russia and Europe are in full confrontation, what good is it to Europe?
Moreover, Russia and Europe have close economic and trade relations, especially in the area of energy supply. Over the years, it has simply turned its back to Putin. Many countries have imported more than 90% of their oil and natural gas from Russia, and more than 30% of their grain from Russia and Ukraine. In addition, the euro accounts for the highest proportion of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves. Since the sanctions war, energy, food and the euro have fallen one by one, and inflation has soared, The EU has lost its grip.
Like the United States, the biggest barrier to inflation in the EU is the soaring energy prices.
However, as a major energy country, the United States is more or less self-sufficient, and there is still a little room for maneuver. As for the European Union, it has to carry on with all the losses.
For example, after Putin issued the “ruble settlement order”, the “unfriendly countries” in Europe were forced to use the ruble to buy energy, which successfully supported the value of the ruble currency, right?
As soon as the rouble strengthens, these countries will spend more money on energy and bear greater inflationary pressure.
According to the data released by the Finnish energy and clean air research center on June 13, since the war between Russia and Ukraine began, the European Union is still the largest buyer of Russian natural gas and oil, contributing $98billion to Russia in the first 100 days of the conflict, and helping Russia break its own record.
The most important thing is that the average export price of Russian energy is about 60% higher than that of last year due to layer upon layer sanctions!
In other words, Russia’s energy has not been sold less, but the European Union has spent more money. A group of people are studying how to cause “pain” to Putin, and as a result, they make themselves miserable. Who is sanctioning who?
What is more magical is that up to now, the sanctions war has created a feeling of “the world sanctions the EU”——
Siemens of Germany sent the accessories of the North Stream pipeline from Russia and Europe to Canada for maintenance. As a result, the accessories could not be taken back because of the sanctions imposed by Canada on Russia. Russia saw that, well, we also came to a wave of anti sanctions, so we took advantage of this to pinch the Beixi pipeline and cut the supply of natural gas to Europe by 60%, and the price of natural gas in the European Union rose sharply!
Can we find someone else without Russia? Certainly. Germany has found Qatar, a big natural gas producer, but people in the Middle East are so skilled in doing business. Seeing that you are cornered in the EU, barabarabara put forward a lot of conditions on the spot, such as how many years the contract has been signed, the price should rise and fall with the oil and gas market, and cannot be resold to other European countries. The German dare not sign this overlord agreement!
The Big Middle Eastern families can’t rely on the United States, can they? After all, when Biden visited Europe in April, he just signed the “natural gas Marshall Plan” on his chest, and as an iron alliance, he can’t take the lead in critical times.
It’s just unexpected. Americans are even more shameless. At a difficult time when Russia seized the natural gas of the European Union, a natural gas terminal in the Gulf of Mexico exploded directly, and people were not hurt. However, this terminal is a hub for transporting to Europe. It can’t be repaired before the end of the year. So Biden promised to export LNG to Europe. Sorry, it can’t be delivered!
After the bombing, the price of natural gas in Europe soared again, but because this part of natural gas was not exported, the people in the American market were convinced that the energy price immediately fell
In short, as the world’s largest developed market, the EU has now fallen into a situation where everyone can take control of it because of sanctions. It is commonly known as little sheep!
Naturally, this dilemma is transmitted to the economy. No one, from the government, enterprises to the people, has a good life.
As time went by, Europeans began to reflect.
According to a recent poll conducted by the EU Foreign Affairs Committee, 35% of EU representatives believe that Ukraine should be forced to seek peace at any cost, even if it cedes land; Only 20% believed that Ukraine should be supported to fight a protracted war.
Among them, in Germany, France and Italy, the proportion of support for Ukraine’s surrender is as high as 49%, 41% and 52% respectively – what the big three are going for in their recent visit to Kiev, and why the drivers have a cold attitude, are all hidden in this data.
Following this trend and going further, many people have begun to point the spearhead at the United States, the initiator of the terracotta warriors.
Kolakusic, a member of the Croatian European Parliament, said that the EU is the 51st state in the United States and has not yet had the right to vote. He said that the EU’s policies towards Russia, including reducing Russia’s energy imports, increasing defense spending and implementing multiple rounds of sanctions, “basically bear the main cost of Washington’s opposition to the Kremlin”.
Charles de Gaulle’s grandson also said that the only purpose of the United States to provoke a new confrontation between the East and the west is to weaken and split Europe and impose American directives on Europe.
These remarks have spawned extensive discussions on the Internet, and are basically bad for the United States——
Russia saw the way. Although the United States apparently announced that it was launching a “crusade” against China and Russia, one of its hidden targets was the European Union. The implementation of sanctions against Russia by EU countries under the pressure of American hegemony was tantamount to “economic suicide”.
The Russian representative to the European Union also moved out the “beixi-2” that had not been mentioned for a long time, saying that “it is too early” to put an end to “beixi-2” in the context of recent events. The subtext behind this statement is deep.
China has also seen its way. At the UN Security Council, he publicly called on Europe to “strengthen strategic autonomy”, saying that the EU, as an important force in the process of multi polarization, should play its “own role” in global affairs.
This is the second reason why the United States is worried about “excessive sanctions” – if the sanctions continue, it is one thing for the U.S. economy to be under pressure. What is worse, it may be that Europe jumps back, the Atlantic alliance continues to split, and even in the end, leaving the United States in a lonely situation.
Failed Biden
Well, now comes the question. After the war between Russia and Ukraine, the United States has a strong attitude and European countries are united. Why did the sanctions war come to this stage when the western economy is absolutely dominant?
I think there are two reasons.
First, it underestimates the importance of the Russian economy.
In 2021, the economic scale of Russia was 130.8 trillion rubles, about 1.78 trillion US dollars. In the same year, the nominal GDP of Jiangsu, not to mention Guangdong, exceeded 1.8 trillion US dollars. Considering the development potential and growth rate of Jiangsu, even its advantages would be greater.
From this point of view, the Russian economy seems to be just like that.
But in fact, such a comparison can not accurately reflect Russia’s economic strength.
The correct perspective should be that Russia holds two important economic resources, energy and food. It is the largest exporter of natural gas, the second largest exporter of oil and wheat, and an important supplier of key mineral resources such as titanium and nickel. This determines that the Russian economy has a huge potential influence on the global industrial chain.
In normal years, Russia may be a low-end “gas station”. However, once the global economy is disrupted, with the addition of a protracted epidemic and the release of the US dollar, the importance of Russia cannot be overstated.
In particular, Europe’s high dependence on Russia for energy and food magnifies this influence.
Therefore, any economic and financial sanctions against Russia will have a spillover effect on the global economy, especially the European economy. The more severe the sanctions, the greater the systematic impact. According to the current situation, it may even trigger a new round of global economic recession.
In this case, sanctions against Russia have to worry about the consequences.
Second, it underestimates the resilience of the Russian economy.
The goal of Western sanctions against Russia is very clear: punish Russia for using force, threaten Russia to withdraw troops, weaken Russia’s national strength, and most importantly, subvert Putin’s regime and undermine Russia’s political stability.
The success of these goals does not depend on the deterioration of Russia’s economic indicators, but more on the tolerance of the Russian economy and the people.
That’s a coincidence.
On the economic structure, as mentioned above, Russia is the only country in the world that can be self-sufficient in all kinds of resources. No matter what the situation, the minimum internal circulation can be guaranteed. Especially when Putin has already made full preparations for a comprehensive “economic war”, Russia’s pressure bearing capacity is stronger. In a word, it can’t be worse.
Let alone the endurance of the people.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has never missed any economic and financial crisis, and it is also familiar with being comprehensively sanctioned. That is to say, the sharp decline of GDP, the sharp fluctuation of exchange rate, the collapse of stock market, high inflation and debt crisis, which one is put in the Western countries, has long been rebellious and shaken the national foundation. However, over the past 30 years, the Russians have endured these things many times.
To put it mildly, in the post Soviet era, when did Russia’s external development environment and internal difficulties “get better”? All of them came through adversity or even bankruptcy. Such a Russia is bound to be difficult to deal with. This is also the confidence that Putin can withstand the pressure and that Russia can be more united.
Third, Biden’s sanctions are problematic.
After Biden came to power, he did not look down upon the brutal sanctions measures of the trump period and tried to carry out sanctions reform.
It can also be seen from this sanctions against Russia that Biden has indeed made some highlights. For example, in the early stage, Biden was highly coordinated with Europe and five eye allies, and the whole west issued the same voice; For example, on some major issues such as stopping “beixi-2” and starting swift sanctions, Europe was successfully persuaded to follow suit.
But the problem is, from the very beginning, Biden set the tone of “not sending troops”, directly ruling out one of the possibilities that Putin was most worried about, which reduced the power of pressure on Russia by more than half.
Then, the United States concentrated its firepower on Putin. Biden even said that “Putin should not continue to be in power”. At the same time, he also closed all channels of dialogue with Russia and gave Putin no chance to bargain over the “downgrade of sanctions”.
What would you think if you were Putin?
There is only one idea, that is, the United States is determined to overthrow the existing regime in Russia, and there is no room for negotiation or compromise.
It is equivalent to cutting off Putin’s future. In addition to fighting for death, is it possible for Putin to step back?
Under such circumstances, the nature of the “sanctions war” has changed, from putting pressure on Russia to stabbing Russia at each other to see who can’t bear it first.
Then, as we said before, the Russians have survived the collapse of the Soviet Union. Will they be afraid of you?
At the end of the article, the author said:
For China, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is a good window of observation. Various sanctions encountered by Russia today may be staged in our future war of national reunification. Therefore, we can also learn a lot of lessons.
From what we have seen, Rong Ping believes that there are at least three warnings:
First, we should have the confidence of “not asking for people”.
In the current environment, it is no longer necessary to discuss the issue of “x is better than buying”. All links that may be blocked, from resources to technology, from information and data to the international multilateral system, should take precautions to ensure their control.
China has actually done a good job in this regard.
Just look at this “sanctions war”. Europe is suffering from energy and food problems because of its high dependence on Russia. However, China has long opened up diversified import channels and realized a high level of energy and food reserves. The same trick will have limited effect on China.
Another example is that Russia has been suppressed by swift sanctions this time, but China has been trying to promote the internationalization of the RMB in recent years. Although our cross-border trading system CIPS has not been widely accepted, it is also a preliminary opening of the market. We are not afraid of the same trick.
Of course, China is not without weaknesses, such as the dependence on the high-tech industry. But long before the war between Russia and Ukraine, we were consciously making up for our weaknesses, and we had already fought with the West. It is impossible to completely block it. The United States takes it for granted that it wants to use sanctions against Russia to “make an example of the monkey”.
Second, we should have the ability to “fight against murder”.
Since Trump’s containment of China, in recent years, we have obviously accelerated the layout of the “the Belt and Road” and various multilateral cooperation. Why?
Just as Russia has resources, China’s sea fixing magic needle is an industrial chain that goes deep into the world. We speed up the global layout to embed the Chinese economy firmly into the global interest pattern. In this way, even in extreme cases, if the West really wants to carry out comprehensive sanctions and stab them, they will have to die first!
The most typical example is that although the United States has imposed tariffs, its imports from China have kept setting records, which shows that the United States can no longer be moved by the current status of China’s economy. It is more difficult to “decouple” from China than it is to decouple from Russian resources. The United States must be prepared to peel off its own skin first!
Third, we should have the ability to “guard against theft”.
Russia has suffered a big loss in foreign exchange this time. Basically, it has been robbed directly. China’s foreign exchange reserves are as high as $3trillion, which is several times more than that of Russia. The risk is even greater.
As a matter of fact, some people in the US political arena have already let go of the words of “defaulting” and even resorted to political blackmail on the Taiwan issue by taking advantage of our huge amount of US Treasury bonds.
In fact, China has realized this problem. What is the purpose of buying minerals all over the world these years? That is to remove the useless foreign exchange figures from the hands of the United States and replace them with tangible assets!
But then again, China is not Russia. Do Europe and the United States dare to rob China’s foreign exchange like Russia?
Surely not!
Although China’s foreign exchange reserves are more than US $300 billion, only US $100 billion has been invested in US debt, and the investment of western enterprises in China has exceeded this figure, not to mention that the Chinese government bonds invested by Western governments and financial institutions have also exceeded 2trillion. With this chip, the West dare to rob China’s foreign exchange assets?
Therefore, if the United States wants to take the current means to deal with Russia as a preview of the decisive battle with China in the future, play as soon as possible!
Why do you think about “killing dragons” every day when a bear can’t beat it down?