China News Agency, Beijing, April 28 (Reporter Xia Bin) In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, a series of sanctions against Russia by Western countries led by the United States have attracted global attention, including the removal of some Russian banks from the Global Interbank Financial Communication Association. (SWIFT), this operation is regarded as throwing a "financial nuclear bomb" on Russia, and the US dollar hegemony is "supporting" behind such lethality.
SWIFT, established in 1973, is a platform used by banks around the world to send and receive financial transaction information, and has become the most important payment system in the world.
SWIFT was not born to "stand" for U.S. interests, but that changed as the U.S. dollar emerged as the global currency hegemon.
According to SWIFT statistics, the US dollar accounts for about 40% of international payments, and the US dollar accounts for over 80% of international trade settlement. Sanctions "arsenal".
Pang Ming, chief strategist of China Renaissance, told a reporter from China News Agency that for a long time, the United States has occupied an absolute dominant position in the global monetary system.
The U.S. dollar accounts for more than 60% of global foreign exchange reserves. The currencies of many countries and regions are pegged to the U.S. dollar. The interest rate market also follows the Fed’s interest rate policy. and clearing tools.
“The U.S. dollar’s dominance in international trade, the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, coupled with the U.S.’s strong economic strength and huge market space, endow the U.S. dollar with special power. The U.S. uses this to influence the global economy, trade and international landscape, and safeguards Its own financial hegemony and national interests." Pang Ming said.
For Russia, the "killer weapon" of the US dollar is no stranger, and Russia is not the only country that has experienced the pain of US dollar hegemony.
After the Crimea incident in 2014, the United States froze 500,000 bank cards issued by seven Russian banks and repeatedly threatened to kick Russia out of the SWIFT system. The Russian ruble immediately depreciated sharply, and the economy was severely negatively affected.
For example, Pang Ming said that in 2012, SWIFT excluded many Iranian banks for four years, and it was not until 2016 that the membership of Iranian banks was reinstated.
In November 2018, as the United States unilaterally reinstated and strengthened sanctions against Iran, the SWIFT system once again cut off business contacts with many Iranian banks.
"The US government's unilateral action this time, and it can also force SWIFT to follow, reflects its financial hegemony."
He pointed out that the effect of financial sanctions on Iran is much more obvious than that of trade sanctions, which directly led to the depreciation of the Iranian currency rial at an alarming rate, and the GDP growth has been negative for many years.
Liang Haiming, dean of the Silk Road Intelligence Valley Research Institute and dean of the Belt and Road Research Institute of Hainan University, said bluntly that the sanctions imposed by the US financial war are also extremely cruel to the people of the target countries.
The economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by former U.S. President Donald Trump led to 40,000 excess deaths in the country between 2017 and 2018, data show.
Economic sanctions have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
U.S. sanctions have killed more foreign nationals than all of the post-World War II wars combined.
The world has been suffering from dollars for a long time.
In fact, when the United States wields the big stick of dollar hegemony, the global status of the dollar is also "backlashed", and the United States, which has set up "barriers", may eventually trip itself.
As the President of the 56th United Nations General Assembly and former Prime Minister of South Korea, Han Seung-soo, said, any obstacle in payment in financial history has the potential to change the existing hegemony.
Hong Hao, managing director of BOCOM International, believes that if the Western SWIFT ban leaves no room, energy transactions between Europe and Russia can only be de-dollarized, "that will be the beginning of the collapse of the dollar's hegemony."
"There are currently three very important signs in the world, indicating that the dollar may turn from prosperity to decline." said Chen Wenling, chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.
First, the global de-US dollar process has begun. Many central banks are considering or have already carried out research and promotion of digital currencies. Major economies are stepping up efforts to establish a settlement system independent of the US dollar.
Second, the process of removing U.S. bonds has begun, and many countries that hold U.S. bonds have sold U.S. bonds in recent years.
The third is that some countries have begun to transport gold back. With the US economy, the US epidemic, and the credit damage of major US powers, countries have become increasingly skeptical of the US dollar, and they have begun to transport gold back from the US.
Pang Ming believes that the financial hegemony of the United States comes from the economic strength of the United States, the liquidity and stability of the dollar in the world, its status as a stored value currency in the world, its centrality in world trade, and the world's trust in the dollar.
However, any grand strategic deployment has its applicable space and timeliness.
"We can fully believe that if countries around the world trust the openness and liquidity of the dollar and rely on the dollar for settlement, this is the most effective and successful time for this strategy. When many countries in the world suddenly realize that there is often a meaning behind this openness When they are shackled or even damaged their own sovereignty, they will naturally choose to gradually reduce their dependence on the dollar.” (End)