India, China and Russia meet for security, but the focus is on the dollar – 07/05/2023 – Nelson de Sá

While the coronation echoed in England, India turned to another ceremony, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) chancellors meeting in Goa.

This year the country presides over the group, which is treated on coverage as a Brics for national security, and its famous minister S Jaishankar even welcomed his Pakistani colleague Bilawal Bhutto. Newspapers like Jagran, in Hindi, highlighted his open criticisms, such as “Pakistan is the mouthpiece of the terrorist industry”.

But the focus was on China. For the second time in two months, Jaishankar met with the Chinese Qin Gang, to advance a little more in the solution of the border dispute, as shown by Times of India and Global Times, among others. In the background, however, was the exit of the dollar.

By Indians like Economic Times, Bloomberg and Reuters have reported, from behind the scenes of the SCO in India, that Moscow is negotiating with New Delhi to receive payments for armaments, oil and gas in other currencies, not the Indian rupee or the US dollar.

According to an Indian official, “Russia wants to be paid in yuan”.

Not coincidentally, the Axios website reported that the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, rushed to Riyadh to meet later this weekend with his colleagues from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and India. The first two have just joined SCO as “partners”.

Sullivan would offer American investment to build a network of railroads, to dispose of oil to be paid for in dollars, in opposition to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, notes Axios.

BELT EXPANDS

Indian Express and Hindustan Times assess that the SCO, like the Brics, is being dominated by the rise of China, with members joining the Belt and Road — with the exception of Brazil, “but it is already receiving billions for infrastructure with Lula snuggling to Xi Jinping”.

Still, they are useful for India to “converge with the comrades” of the two groups, “emphasize its proximity to Moscow” and, in the case of the SCO, “stay involved in the regional discussion”, from Central Asia, on issues such as Afghanistan , “from which it would be excluded”.

According to Bloomberg, on Sunday Afghanistan also joined the Belt and Road, in a meeting in Islamabad between Qin, Bhutto and his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi.

BUFFETT AND FAITH IN COIN

Another global event that gained attention, even in China, was the annual meeting of investor group Warren Buffett, 92, when he and his vice and successor, Charlie Munger, talk to investors (above). CNBC separated the highlights. A young woman asks:

“They intend to monetize the debt [dos EUA] printing trillions. Anticipating this, large economies such as China, Saudi Arabia and Brazil are already moving away from the dollar. Will we face a time in the future when the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency? What can we American citizens do to guard against what appears to be the onset of de-dollarization?”

With the young woman under applause, Buffett smiled and replied:

“It’s very interesting. We are the reserve currency, I don’t see any other option. [Mas] no one knows how far you can go before it gets out of hand. You don’t want to pick the point where it becomes an issue, because then it’s all over. We must be very careful. It’s easy for America to do too much, but if we do too much it’s hard to see how it recovers once you let the genie out of the bottle and people lose faith in the coin. All kinds of things can happen. I can’t predict, but I know they’re not good. We will see. You wait for leadership that recognizes the problem. America is rich, we have everything going for us, but that doesn’t mean we can just print money endlessly.”

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