Citing a Wall Street Journal report, the news portal of the American right-wing Gatestone Institute reported on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia considered pricing crude oil sold to China in yuan, the Chinese currency.
More than a fifth of Saudi crude oil exports are taken by China.
Saudi Arabia has been pricing crude oil in US dollars since the 1974 agreement with US President Richard Nixon.
If Saudi Arabia stopped pricing oil exclusively in dollars,
then, after the yuan, others could also start buying crude oil in their own currencies, which would be detrimental to the role of the US dollar as an international currency
and its earned prestige as a reserve currency - drew attention to the Gatestone Institute. Then the portal of the think tank noted: this would pose a potential threat to the entire American economy as well.
According to the portal, China, which seeks to undermine the global dominance of the dollar, could register a great success
if the Saudis would give in and extend the pricing of crude oil to other currencies as well.
The American conservative economic and political newspaper The Wall Street Journal already indicated in one of its high-profile articles year that "Saudi Arabia is actively negotiating with Beijing to price part of its crude oil sales to China in yuan, which not only would it break the dominance of the petrodollar on the global oil market, but it would also indicate that the world's leading crude oil exporter is turning its attention to Asia (...) and would also be a stab in the heart of the American financial system, which in the last decade took advantage of the dollar's status as a reserve currency to print as many dollars as the it was necessary to finance government expenditure".
According to the right-wing think tank, the fact that Saudi Arabia is seriously considering pricing crude oil in yuan, according to the latest news, indicates that
the Middle East policy of the Biden administration opened the way for the countries of the region to place their bets on China, which is considered an emerging global power.
The Gatestone Institute states: China is also trying to fill the void left behind in the region by the US government's attention being diverted to other areas. In the eyes of China, Saudi Arabia is not only one of the most important sources of energy procurement, but also an important link in the trade cooperation initiative called One Belt, One Road (BRI, also known as: Silk Road) Launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the project will establish a massive economic infrastructure between Asia, Europe and Africa to strengthen trade and economic cooperation. China has already signed cooperation agreements with 19 Arab countries on construction projects under the BRI.
China is also Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner, including military cooperation agreements. Beijing has been selling weapons to Saudi Arabia for years, and reportedly helped Riyadh start production of the Saudis' own ballistic missiles.
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