RIYADH, Saudi Arabia Dec 17 (AFP) - On the afternoon of the 7th local time, Chinese President arrived in Riyadh, the Arab capital, to attend the first China-Arab States Summit and the China-Gulf Cooperation Council summit, and pay a state visit to Saudi Arabia.
How much does the Arabic world attach to China's visit?
It is said that after Xi's plane entered Saudi airspace, four fighter jets from the Royal Saudi Air Force took off to escort it. Six other jets then accompanied the flight as it took to the sky over Riyadh.
This courtesy made Biden feel embarrassed.
Mind you, he would be grateful if his plane could not be locked on by radar. Only the missiles can match the coquettish Air Force One. President Xi`s visit to Saudi Arabia is seen as a great milestone, why? Because of the petrodollar monetary system，perhaps it will have to be reshuffled.
*Ⅰ The Secret of the United States -- Petrodollar
We know that one of the magic weapons of the United States to rule the world is its dollars.
Since the abolition of the Bretton Woods system, the international monetary system based on dollars and gold has come to an end.
In turn, a new international monetary system based on petrodollars was formed.
Many countries are highly dependent on oil, which is an irreplaceable type of energy.
Because of petroleum-dollar system, each country has to a country has to acquire and hold sufficient dollar reserves to purchase oil.
In order to get enough petrodollars, all countries can only obtain dollars through exports, loans or the transfer of national sovereign interests.
That is why the United States can purchase goods and services around the world by printing dollars, and strongly intervene and even control sovereign countries through the tight binding of petrodollars.
That is to say, by locking the petrodollars, the United States can enjoy the right to fill in dollar cheques in debt. Once the petrodollars' power is violated, the United States will increase its aircraft carriers and missiles to defend the hegemony of the dollar by force.
This is why oil producing countries often have political instability.
Therefore, although the wars in Kuwait, Iraq and Syria cost it a lot of manpower and material resources, the United States will not hesitate.
As we all know, the world's largest oil producer is in the Middle East, and the largest oil producer in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves account for 1/3 of the Middle East, and 1/5 of the OPEC's internal oil reserves. It can be said that Saudi Arabia is the leader of the oil industry. As long as Saudi Arabia does not shake its head, the United States can continue to settle oil in dollars.
However, what we see is that the United States is declining at a visible rate.
Its control and influence over the Middle East is also getting worse year by year.
In October 2022, OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, has declared oil production reduction despite the opposition of the United States
In order to retrieve Saudi Arabia's support, the US government not only threw olive branches to them again and again, but also paid door-to-door visits, and also gave Saudi Crown Prince Ben Salman "sovereign immunity", hoping that Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries can continue to price oil in dollars.
Especially in the context of over-issuing of US dollars at present, if the US loses the pillar of petrodollars, it will lose the privilege of buying anything with “the waste paper” all over the world. At that time, the US will go from rich to poor quickly.
The excessive currency issued by the United States cannot be released in the world, so the monstrous currency printed from the Federal Reserve can only be deposited in the United States, and the apocalyptic scenario of super inflation will be staged in the United States.
Ten thousand dollars for an egg, a kilo of rice is worth a sack of dollars…
Will there be a Unified States of American regime then?
It's hard to say.
But it is certain that Americans who can hold guns will create a beautiful country with firefights.
For the sense of crisis that the country will be destroyed, the United States may not fight for Israel, but it will fight to defend Saudi Arabia.
Ⅱ The Arabian, Turning Their Eyes to the East
But what makes the United States angry is that the weakening of its influence in the Middle East has left China with strategic opportunities.
Since 2014, China has established comprehensive strategic partnerships with four Arabian countries, including Saudi Arabia, and has established strategic partnerships with 8 countries, including Qatar, and has formed a "strategic partnership cluster".
In terms of economy and trade, China has also become the largest trading partner of Arabian countries. China-Arab energy cooperation has also taken more new forms. In addition to continuing to import crude oil from Arabian countries, China has also built refining facilities and large-scale photovoltaic power stations in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and other countries with "the Belt and Road" initiative.
More importantly, it is suggested to promote the use of RMB for the settlement of crude oil trade.
This year, it has been reported that Saudi Arabia is considering using RMB to settle oil with China. This is one of the most important reasons why the China-Arab Summit has worried the United States.
As the host country, Saudi Arabia is more likely to make some comments on this key issue.
At present, more than a quarter of Saudi oil will be sold to China. So it is a general trend to price and trade in RMB.
Moreover, as a large regional country, if its position changes, the oil producers around can't stick to do anything.
Saudi Arabia will set a good example to its neighboring countries.
*Ⅲ The Gradual Weathering of US Dollar Hegemony
In fact, no currency hegemony can last forever, and the US dollar cannot escape the cyclical law of birth and death.
Since its birth, petrodollars have been sustained by "force" and "credit".
If one of them is lost, the dollar will no longer be able to dominate the world.
Let's first take a look at the military strength of the United States.
First of all, the strength of the US Air Force is much less than it used to be.
At present, the size of the US fighter fleet and bomber fleet has shrunk to about 40% of the 1980s. In addition, the adequacy rate of most of the US military's fighter jets is also appallingly low. The adequacy rate of F-22 fighter jets is around 50% all the year round. Even the F-16C/D fighter jets with the highest level of combat readiness, its adequacy rate does not exceed 70%.
In 2018, then Secretary of Defense Matisse strictly ordered the USAF to increase the availability of F-22 aircraft to more than 80% as soon as possible. However, four years later, the availability of F-22 aircraft has not improved, as a result, the USAF has abandoned this idea.
In fact, the current situation of the United States Navy is also not so good.
Since the beginning of this century, the United States Navy has always said that it would increase the number of naval ships to 350. Since the United States Navy proposed this goal in 2005, the number of naval ships has only increased from 291 to 296.
Due to the intense de-industrialization of the United States, a large number of shipyards that meet the standards of technology have been moved to other countries or closed down, resulting in the United States Navy having no enough shipyards to build new ships, and even being reluctant to maintain existing ships. However, the manufacture and maintenance of warships involve national security, and the US government dare not give such orders to foreign shipyards. Therefore, the warships of the United States Navy can only serve beyond the age limit and deploy beyond the time limit.
About one third of the US Navy's warships are deployed, while only one sixth were deployed during the Cold War. Too frequent deployment and mobilization made the soldiers and equipment of the United States Navy extremely tired, which led to many accidents.
Finally, the Army has never been the strength of the US military, and now the decline of the US ground forces is beyond the imagination of all parties.
Although the US military expenditure is as high as 800 billion US dollars, due to the impact of inflation, the actual purchasing power of the US Army's military expenditure has decreased by nearly 60 billion US dollars compared with 2021, which forced the US Army to abandon many new weapons R&D and procurement projects.
Even the recruitment work of the United States Army has been affected, and the situation of the Marine Corps is even worse. Due to insufficient funds and difficulties in completing the recruitment task, the size of the Marine Corps has been reduced from 27 battalions to 21 battalions.
The Heritage Foundation, a well-known US think tank, warned that if this trend continues, the US military will soon be overwhelmed.
In the 2023 US Military Strength Index Report, the Heritage Foundation lamented that the US military is not only "already very weak", but also "continuing to decline", and may have been "unable to safeguard the core interests of the US"
In terms of military affairs, the US military has experienced structural and systematic weakness. At the same time, the credit system that supports the hegemony of the US dollar is now facing life and death.
On December 1, the US Treasury Department announced that the US federal government's debt has reached $31.36 trillion.
Many people may have no idea about this figure. We should know that the total GDP of the United States in 2021 will only be 23 trillion dollars. That is to say, even if Americans do not eat, drink or consume for a year, they will have to work hard to pay back the debts of 8.36 trillion dollars. That is to say, 300 million people who have successfully acquired American citizenship have a debt of 104，000 dollars per capita, equivalent to nearly 700，000 yuan. Is that absurd?
The problem is that such a high debt limit is only 40 billion dollars short of the debt ceiling.
If the United States broke the debt ceiling, what would happen if it could not pay its debts?
It means that the dollar credit will collapse, and the world will abandon dollars. At the same time, it will force the United States to repay its debts in various ways.
In terms of military, it will be like a paper tiger, strong in appearance but weak in reality;
In terms of credit, it will be like Zimbabwe.
In addition to the growing super inflation in the country, the United States has dug a grave for dollars. Even if we don't do anything but quietly watch, dollars will be completely weathered in recent years. Therefore, the petrodollars are declining.
Based on this background, Arab countries seek new anchor currencies, actively explore the RMB petroleum settlement system, and vigorously promote the digital RMB system.
This is the significance of China's visit to Arabia,
For China, it is also a great milestone which will be written into history.
