In yet another “exclusive” piece of news about the growing rapprochement between the two countries, the Wall Street Journal highlighted that Saudi Arabia “is in active negotiations” with China to switch to using the yuan “instead of the dollar for oil sales”.
Citing “people familiar” with the talks, correspondents in Riyadh and Dubai said the “measure would affect the US dollar’s dominance in the global oil market.” The information caused a jump in the price of the Chinese currency, according to Bloomberg.
The WSJ emphasizes the comment by a director of Neom, the Saudi project to build a high-tech city, that “any doubts that countries had about the need to diversify into the yuan” are over, in the face of the kidnapping of Russian dollar reserves. by the USA.
In recent days, other news about the rapprochement between the Saudi and Chinese governments was the possible visit of Xi Jinping and the announcement of a joint venture by state-owned Aramco in China, to build a refinery – which would also process Russian oil.
At the same time, India has accelerated its de-dollarization plans, highlighted Indian newspapers such as the Hindustan Times and the financial Mint, the latter citing two officials from the government of Narendra Modi. Again, the alternative would be the Chinese currency.
The country is “exploring the possibility of using the yuan as a reference currency to assess the rupee-ruble trade mechanism”, the Indian and Russian currencies. India, underlines the Mint, is “the world’s third largest oil importer”.
Other Indians, such as the Economic Times, tackle Modi’s project to spur the country’s credit card brand, RuPay, against Visa and Mastercard. The plans had already been announced by the prime minister four years ago.
Now, they return as a reaction to the “boycott” of American companies to Russian customers, who had to hastily switch to the Chinese UnionPay.
PUTIN, MODI & XI
The Council on Foreign Relations, the most influential organization in US foreign policy, published the above study, “In addition to China, Putin has another partner in Asia for de-dollarization”, India.
The strengthening of existing mechanisms for trade in their own currencies, between the three countries, which were already discussing greater integration, would be an “unintended consequence of Western punitive sanctions”, which expelled Russian banks from exchanges with the dollar.
EUROPEAN INFIDELITY
On the one hand, German newspapers such as Bild and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung welcomed the purchase of 35 fighter jets from the American Lockheed Martin, announced by Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, with praise for the “superjet”, even talking about “Ferrari”.
On the other hand, Le Monde and other French noted that the acquisition of the “American fighter” is an “infidelity to the project” of a new plane under development by the two European countries, “a bad sign”.
