Preface
It has not been a day or two since the United States wants to extend its tentacles into the Middle East, and after signing a $200 billion project with Saudi Arabia last year, it can be said that a small part of the layout of the United States has been completed.
But what I didn't expect was that in a year's time, the situation has gradually become uncontrollable by the United States, although this project has not been handed over to China, but China has blossomed because of the reversal of the ending, and the most feared thing by the United States may also happen.
Saudi Arabia and the United States cooperate
The image of the United States in the international community during this period is not very good, mainly because Israel's attack on Gaza has been strongly condemned by the international community.
The United States, Israel's arms supplier, has also been implicated, and the United States has made full preparations for the upcoming election in order to maintain its own image.
During this period of time, the United States has been maintaining good relations with various countries, and Saudi Arabia is one of them, but while maintaining good relations with Saudi Arabia, it has also played a cautious eye, which has caused some small contradictions between China and Saudi Arabia.
China has countless infrastructure projects around the world, known for being as cheap as Saudi Arabia's $200 billion project.
At first, everyone thought that China would do the business, but the United States made some concessions and won the business. More interestingly, however, the Saudis seem to be already regretting their plans.
In the world, Saudi Arabia gives people the first impression that it is rich, and the reason is simple, Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are too large.
Since the Industrial Revolution, oil has been the most popular energy source, and Saudi Arabia has huge oil reserves.
As an oil and energy company, Saudi Aramco is not worried about its performance, but with the Federal Reserve's multiple interest rate hikes in 2022, crude oil prices have also been affected.
In order to stop losses in time, Saudi Arabia had to set its sights on China, and this is mainly because China is one of the largest energy markets in the world, so at the end of 2022, China and Saudi Arabia signed a deal worth more than 200 billion yuan.
After China and Saudi Arabia finalized the cooperation, this news can be said to have attracted the attention of the whole world, and the most concerned is the United States, which has always paid special attention to Saudi Arabia.
Information source: Sina Finance 2022-12-14 "Signing a large order of more than 200 billion yuan, the relationship between these two major countries is heating up, and the United States is in a hurry? 》
Of course, the country does not mean anything, mainly because Saudi Arabia has very rich oil resources.
Moreover, the predecessor of Saudi Aramco was also an American company, so after seeing that China and Saudi Arabia signed a contract, the United States naturally did not sit idly by, so it immediately responded.
So the United States signed a large order for infrastructure projects in the Middle East, according to the United States' plan, extending from the Levant to the southeast to the Persian Gulf, and finally connecting with India, and this project is expected to be a major contractor of the United States, with a total investment of 200 billion US dollars.
Information source: Huanqiu.com 2023-9-8 "The United States, Saudi Arabia and India plan to sign a railway agreement to connect the Middle East, and the US media does not forget to involve China"
Saudi Arabia has given the United States a 200 billion project in order to give them a step down, but with the current strength of the United States, it is still unknown whether it can afford this infrastructure project.
After all, the United States is no longer the United States it used to be, and the infrastructure technology of the United States was still very leading in the world, but now the technology of the United States is still standing still.
Although Saudi Arabia had anticipated this for a long time, it still handed over the project to the United States, and according to the agreement, Saudi Arabia could buy more advanced weapons from the United States, and at the same time receive help from the United States in semiconductor chips.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has not had too many high-tech weapons under Israel's intervention, and this return gift from the United States can be regarded as a guarantee.
Why did Saudi Arabia choose to cooperate with the United States?
Many countries around the world believe that this project will eventually fall into China's hands, mainly because of China's advantages in infrastructure.
Moreover, the relationship between China and Saudi Arabia is also very friendly, since the beginning of the 21st century, the relationship between China and Saudi Arabia has become closer, especially in the military aspect, Saudi Arabia has introduced the mainland's advanced Dongfeng missiles several decades ago.
The mainland's 35 Dongfeng missiles have also won peace for Saudi Arabia for more than 30 years, and it can be seen that this deal has benefited Saudi Arabia a lot, and Saudi Arabia has become a fanatical fan of China.
They have also introduced advanced weapons such as China's automatic artillery, advanced anti-aircraft missiles, and pterosaurs, which have greatly improved their military strength in neighboring countries.
However, the weapons produced by the mainland on its own cannot be bought with money, and China will sell them only because of the close relations between the two countries.
From this point of view, this 200 billion project should eventually fall into the hands of China, but what I didn't expect was that Saudi Arabia was handed over to the Americans.
Many netizens feel that Saudi Arabia's behavior is digging a hole for itself, although the United States is the world's superpower, but in terms of infrastructure construction, it is far behind other countries.
Despite the deepening of friendship between China and Saudi Arabia in recent years, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stated that the relationship between China and the United States is by no means a "zero-sum game", and Saudi Arabia prefers to maintain a balance between China and the United States and form diversified economic and trade partners, rather than leaning towards one side or the other.
Information source: Huanqiu.com 2023-6-9 "In front of Blinken, Saudi Foreign Minister: Saudi Arabia's relationship with China and the United States is not a "zero-sum game"
The most direct reason why Saudi Arabia chose the United States this time is that it wants to maintain good relations with China without offending the United States.
After all, American capital has infiltrated Saudi Arabia for many years, and if there is a rift in the relationship between the two countries, American retaliation is definitely a very dangerous thing for a small country like Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia also hopes to use the power of the United States to gain more voice in the Middle East, so as to lay a good foundation for Vision 2030.
Of course, Saudi Arabia is mainly interested in the advanced weapons provided by the United States, after all, the Middle East is very chaotic, and there will be war at any time, so in the eyes of Saudi Arabia, security and stability have become more important.
In fact, Saudi Arabia has long hoped to be able to purchase more advanced weapons from the United States to meet Saudi defense needs, but due to Israel's intervention, Saudi Arabia has no way to purchase some advanced weapons.
And this time the United States also made concessions, lifting the restrictions on these advanced weapons, and allowing Saudi Arabia to regain the glory of being a great power.
Saudi Arabia also hopes that through this project, the United States will receive more support in the fields of artificial intelligence, semiconductors and chips.
Saudi Arabia is well aware that selling oil alone will not work, and the only way is to develop more high-end industries, which is why Saudi Arabia wants to establish artificial intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing centers in the Middle East.
The main reason why the United States is pulling India to cooperate is also because of India's labor advantages, the cost of hiring construction workers in the United States is three times that of China, and the price of labor in China is three to five times that of India.
It can be said that labor in India is very cheap. With India's accession, Saudi Arabia's infrastructure construction costs will be greatly reduced.
What the United States feared happened
It can be said that the United States and Saudi Arabia have their own ideas about this cooperation, and the condition put forward by the United States is to restore normal relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and hopes that Saudi Arabia will reduce cooperation with China in various fields. But what the United States did not expect was that Saudi Arabia did not choose to jump into the trap of the United States.
According to relevant media reports, the Saudi Central Bank officially announced that it will jointly launch the "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge" project with the Bank for International Settlements and China.
It is an innovative international collaboration platform that aims to test and promote the global use of central bank digital currencies to improve the speed, efficiency and transparency of cross-border transactions.
Source: Global Times 2024-6-7 "Saudi Arabia Joins the "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge"
It can be said that this is an epoch-making milestone for the settlement of China-Saudi Arabia crude oil trade, and in the future, the two countries will no longer need to go through the cumbersome US dollar exchange procedures, but can directly use digital currency.
In the future, the two countries will no longer need to go through the cumbersome procedures of exchanging dollars, but will be able to use electronic money directly.
For Saudi Arabia, there is no need to continue to be a vassal of the United States by optimizing the cross-border transaction process through digital currency technology, reducing dependence on traditional middlemen, and providing a new way for Saudi Arabia and the world economy.
If this relationship is broken, then the demand for the dollar will be greatly reduced, and then the dollar will also fall into a phase of depreciation, which will affect the hegemony of the United States in the world.
The decline in the international liquidity of the dollar will cause other countries to shrink their dollar reserves and invest in other currencies, which will have an impact on the dollar's centrality as the world's financial system.
If crude oil trade stops being settled in US dollars, the United States will also lose some of its ability to regulate global financial markets through monetary policy, which will affect the United States' voice and influence in the world economy.
If the U.S. system collapses, international investors will lose trust in the U.S. dollar, raise U.S. financing costs, and make U.S. fiscal and trade deficits even more serious.
Moreover, the United States also uses financial and economic sanctions to achieve the goal of foreign policy, and if it loses the hegemony of the dollar, it will weaken the United States' control over its "little brothers."
Especially for the oil giants in the Middle East, if things really develop in this way, it is very likely that the world's geopolitical pattern will be reshaped.
But for China, it's a big opportunity, so China has been trying to find a way to get the crude oil trade around the dollar, but the United States certainly doesn't want that, so the United States threatens to kick China out of the SWIFT system.
And now that Saudi Arabia and China have joined forces, with the support of Saudi Arabia, a major oil country, it is no longer a dream for oil trade to bypass the dollar, and China must seize this opportunity.
Source: Global Times 2020-7-24 "Expert: Excluding China from the SWIFT System Will Seriously Hurt U.S. Economic Interests"
epilogue
The United States has always been very ambitious, and while trying to suppress China, it is also trying to consolidate its hegemonic position, but in the end it finds that it has achieved nothing, but has run into ashes, and it can only be said that the current situation of the United States is asking for its own hardships.