The demise of the dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region’s conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China’s extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America’s power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China’s growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China’s reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America’s trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington’s control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. “The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies,” a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. “The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won’t be able to use the US dollar.”
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years’ time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
“These plans will change the face of international financial transactions,” one Chinese banker said. “America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate.”
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
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<인디펜던트> “아랍, 원유 결제 달러 사용 중단 계획”
“중국, 러시아, 일본, 프랑스와 함께 비밀회의 가져”…’달러의 종말’?
출처 : 프레시안 기사입력 2009-10-06 오전 11:51:30
중동문제 전문기자로 명성이 높은 영국 <인디펜던트>의 로버트 피스크가 달러의 종말을 알리는 상징적 사건을 특종보도했다.
6일 이 신문은 ‘달러의 종말(The demise of the dollar)’이라는 제목의 기사(☞원문보기)를 통해 “아랍 국가들이 중국, 러시아, 프랑스와 함께 원유 거래 결제에 달러 사용을 중단하기 위한 조치에 은밀하게 나섰다”면서 “이는 새로운 세계질서를 보여주는 생생한 사례”라고 전했다.
“중동 근세사에서 가장 중대한 금융 변혁”
피스크는 “걸프 연안 아랍국가들은 현재 중국, 러시아, 일본, 그리고 프랑스와 함께 원유 결제에서 달러 사용을 중단하고, 그 대신 엔화, 위안화, 유로화, 금, 그리고 사우디아라비아, 아랍에미레이트, 쿠웨이트, 카타르를 포함한 걸프협력회의(GCC) 회원국들이 만들려는 새로운 공동통화 등으로 구성된 바스킷 통화로 바꿀 계획”이라면서 “중동 근세사에서 가장 중대한 금융 변혁”이라고 분석했다.
보도에 따르면 러시아, 중국, 일본, 그리고 브라질의 재무장관과 중앙은행장들이 참여한 비밀회의들은 이미 진행됐으며, 이 계획이 실행에 옮겨진다면 원유 거래에서 더 이상 달러가 사용되지 않는다는 것을 의미한다.
피스크는 이 보도의 소식통에 대해 “홍콩에 있는 걸프 국가들과 중국의 금융 소식통들이 이 계획에 대해 확인해주었다”면서 “최근 금 가격의 갑작스러운 상승을 설명할 수 있는 요인이며, 향후 9년 내에 달러 시장의 급격한 변화가 초래될 것임을 예고하고 있다”고 지적했다.
“미국, 비밀계획 저지에 나설 것”
그러나 피스크는 “미국은 이런 비밀회의들이 열렸다는 사실을 알고 있으며, 구체적인 내용은 아직 파악하지 못했지만 확고한 동맹관계를 맺어온 일본과 걸프 아랍국가들이 포함된 이 비밀스러운 국제적 계획을 저지하기 위해 나설 것은 분명하다”고 덧붙였다.
중국의 중동특사를 지낸 쑨비간(孫必干)은 “중동에 대한 영향력과 원유를 둘러싸고 중국과 미국 사이의 분열이 깊어질 위험이 있다”면서 “양국간의 분쟁과 충돌은 불가피하다”고 경고했다.
