The Chinese concern with “food security” comes from December. On Sunday, the Chinese-language Guancha portal headlined “Xi Jinping: Don’t Expect Food Security to Be Solved by the International Market.”
It was also the headline, in a more restrained tone, of the People’s Daily (picture below), the main newspaper of the PC. And Xi’s statement was reproduced on the country’s main network, CCTV, “We should not trust the international market.”
When Xi’s warnings began four months ago, they were seen as a reference to US and Brazilian imports. But the phrase has now echoed on Bloomberg and Reuters as linked to “the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, two major grain producers”.
If Xi is worried about food, Joe Biden is attentive to inflation, to oil prices. For the Wall Street Journal, it is the biggest risk of the conflict for the country’s economy, in the face of pressure to ban Russian oil.
The WSJ has been covering the American effort to hastily strike a deal with Iran and release its oil. And the New York Times reported that Biden sent top diplomats to Venezuela for a deal that would allow the same.
“If the US reduces imports from Russia, Venezuela could replace part of the lost supply,” pointed out the NYT, citing an expert.
CHINESE BAZAAR
As for the Russian economy, finance firm Kommersant has been covering efforts to keep the businesses of American and European companies that leave the country active – as well as financial operations, in this case, appealing to Chinese institutions.
According to the WSJ, “Western sanctions” will have less effect “if China offers its bazaar” of financial tools, used with countries like Iran.
BUYING RUSSIA
The WSJ also highlighted at the top of the page that “Investors [americanos] start buying bonds from Russia”, projecting that “they will recover if the war comes to an end”.
An end that the NYT, on the other hand, citing a diplomat, projects as “the new world of disorder, if Russia takes most of Ukraine and Putin is still in power in a largely stable Russian economy.”
NY POST, NYT AND THE SINO-AMERICAN VOTE
A movement by the Chinese community toppled Democratic officials in San Francisco and woke up the press on both sides to its electoral strength.
The New York Post, first, and then the NYT, this one even with electoral analysis, began to highlight the Chinatown protests (above) against the “wave of racist attacks”.
