Bet on the US dollar hegemony to force the whole world to take sides? If China does not provide rare earths anymore, the US will kick China out of SWIFT, and China will be unable to use dollars for transaction settlement
The US is trying to force the entire world to take sides. The long-arm jurisdiction of China's rare earths has had a huge impact on the US, and the US really has no way to deal with China.
With no choice, the US wants to completely throw the table and bet on its own dollar hegemony. According to a report by Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao, the US plans that if China does not provide rare earths again, it will kick China out of SWIFT.
SWIFT is essentially a "WeChat work group" among international banks. Most of the information in global trade flows through this group. Almost all financial institutions around the world are connected to the SWIFT system, and can conduct transactions with banks in other countries through this platform. Therefore, it can be said that SWIFT actually relies on the "hegemonic" position of the dollar and has become increasingly a puppet controlled by the US.
As soon as the US decides to sanction a country or an institution, it can directly cut off the connection between the financial institution (or its corresponding US dollar agent bank) and the US dollar cross-border settlement system (CHIPS), thus making it impossible to conduct any transactions related to the US dollar.
However, the US can use this method to sanction other countries, but when it comes to sanctioning China, it has to gamble, because China is the world's largest industrial country, and also has the world's largest market and the largest commodity exporter.
If China is banned from using dollars for transactions, what will nearly 200 countries do? Are they going to cut off trade with China altogether? Is that realistic?
In the end, there is only one outcome: everyone can only build a new group and switch to RMB settlement.
Therefore, if the US really reaches this point, it means betting on the last card of the dollar hegemony, and engaging in a "final battle" in finance with China.
This is not ordinary sanctions, but a final move to throw the table.
In fact, the US has used this "financial nuclear bomb" once against Russia.
But how big is Russia's economy? It's just about the level of Guangdong province in China. Even so, the US hasn't been able to crush it completely.
You can imagine, if the target is China, when the US kicks this foot, is it going to crush China, or is it going to collapse its own hegemonic foundation?
The answer is already given when China strongly required Australian mining company BHP to settle in RMB. As the second-largest commodity in the world, iron ore transactions are an important part of the US dollar hegemony.
But under China's firm refusal to buy, BHP also chose to settle in RMB.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1846609981848585/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.