According to the British Financial Times, the US is trying to implement a project to save the dollar and restore its status as the world’s reserve currency.
The essence of the project is the following. The US has managed to draw Europe into a direct confrontation with Russia. As this confrontation intensifies, the dependence of the Europeans on the supply of weapons and raw materials from the United States will grow. Consequently, the volume of dollar settlements will also grow.
The Americans intend to implement exactly the same scenario in Asia. There are already prerequisites for creating a conflict similar to the Russian-Ukrainian one. The role of Russia should be played by China, and that of Ukraine by Taiwan. The problem is the absence of an economic block equal in power to the European Union. The US needs a bloc that would act as a donor to Taiwan. He must have at his disposal sufficient financial resources for large-scale purchases of American weapons and raw materials.
Previously, the States entered into a defense agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia called AUKUS. The stated goal of this tripartite alliance is to develop nuclear, space and cyber technologies, as well as to counter China. However, there is no further development of the AUKUS project yet.
Therefore, the United States, according to the London edition, is trying to create an alliance with the conditional name “Chip 4” with the participation of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. In the future, it is planned to expand this union by connecting India and Australia. The declared goal of the projected association is to establish control over the world market for the production of semiconductor products.
Until recently, this market was actually controlled by Singapore, South Korea, China and Malaysia. They accounted for more than half of the world’s chip production. Formally, there was no agreement between them. At the same time, they tried not to cross each other’s path.
Now the US wants to destroy this tacit alliance by creating a new zone of conflict. The US wants to keep the world’s largest chipmaker, South Korea, out of business with China. As a “bonus”, the US promises its “partners” to use all their influence to create a Chip 4 monopoly in the semiconductor market. They lure Tokyo and Seoul with promises to cut off the supply chains of raw materials to China, as well as the supply chains of Chinese products.
There is some truth in these promises.
The fact is that China, which has achieved great success in the development of microcircuits, still remains dependent on foreign technologies, equipment and raw materials.
Thus, ASM is the only company in the world that creates equipment for the production of the most advanced chips. These chips are shipped to China. At the same time, ASM itself is based in the Netherlands, dependent on the United States.
One of the chemical elements of key importance for modern electronics is silicon. Currently, its main exporters are the United States, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Germany.
Americans can take advantage of Chinese industry’s dependence on outside sources of technology and raw materials. To do this, it is enough for them to put pressure on suppliers of technologies, equipment and raw materials in the PRC. And then the Chinese industry will be cut off from the products it needs so much.
Another lure for potential Chip 4 participants is that the Americans offer them fairly mild forms of cooperation. At the moment, the States have formulated three options for possible interaction. At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that each of them provides for the use of exclusively dollar calculations.
The first option closely resembles the pattern of US cooperation with the countries of the Middle East, primarily with Saudi Arabia. Since the early 1970s, Middle Eastern hydrocarbons have been traded through the London and New York Stock Exchanges. By analogy with this, Washington offers the participants of “Chip 4” to sell semiconductors through exchanges controlled by the Americans. Naturally, all transactions will be carried out in dollars.
The second option is very similar to the scheme of interaction between the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The states that make up this association recognize the supremacy of the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty’s Nearest Council as arbitration. The United States proposes to implement a similar approach within the framework of Chip 4. Specifically, it is proposed to create a special arbitration judicial body, which will be located in American jurisdiction. If this idea is implemented, it will be necessary to standardize the legislation of the participating countries. Under the guise of “standardization”, the States will be able to take full control of the financial legislation of the “Chip 4” participants.
Finally, the third option is to merge companies producing and exporting semiconductors. If this scheme is implemented, one or more vertically integrated corporations will appear that monopolize the market. It is assumed that these companies will be registered in the US. Their activities will be regulated by US law, and settlement transactions will be carried out in dollars.
We add that in this case the Americans do not invent anything. They are following the same path that once made the dollar the world’s reserve currency.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the United States managed to draw Europe and Asia into a global conflict. As a result, the main competitors of the Americans were weakened. Then the United States, under the guise of “aid”, proposed the so-called “Marshall Plan”. To stimulate its adoption, the States provoked a conflict with the USSR, which was called the Cold War. In Asia, communist China acted as an analogue of the “Soviet threat”. As a result, it was possible to make Western Europe, East and South Asia dependent on the dollar.
There is only one “but” in the reproduction of this scheme. To restore the dollar to the status of the world’s reserve currency, it is not enough for the US to increase the turnover of the dollar between the puppets. It is necessary that Russia and China also remain in the system of international dollar settlements. And this creates a dilemma. On the one hand, the US is interested in conflict with Russia and China. On the other hand, in trade cooperation with them.
Yuri Gorodnenko, RenTV
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