The study, funded by the U.S. Department of State, found that while the United States is a global leader in research on high-performance computing, quantum computing, small satellites and vaccines, it typically ranks second. The West is losing the global technology race, including the race for scientific and research breakthroughs. According to the report, China has "taken a surprising lead in high-impact research.
The report further shows that in the past five years, China has produced 48.49 percent of the world's high-impact research papers on advanced aircraft engines, including ultra-high speed, and is home to seven of the world's top 10 research institutions. Meanwhile, in the areas of photonic sensors and quantum communications, China's research prowess could dwarf some systems at Western institutions, including the Five Eyes Alliance of the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
For example, China may have a global monopoly in 10 areas, including synthetic biology, as well as batteries, 5G and nanomanufacturing. And China ranks first or second in most of the 44 technologies tracked in the report, covering defense, space, robotics, energy, environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials and quantum technology.
And just as China is leading the U.S. in global competition in several key emerging technologies and the U.S. and other Western countries are smelling a crisis in several areas, BWCChinese.com notes that in the global financial and monetary arena, the U.S. dollar reserve currency is also undergoing a substantial decline, the most obvious change is that several oil-producing countries around the world have started to call off the U.S. dollar settlement or call off the petrodollar in their own way, and keep moving their currency gaze eastward, closer to the yuan.
For example, Iraq, OPEC's second-largest crude exporter, just officially announced in February that it will allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan for the first time. U.S. financial analyst firm Zero Hedge analyzed that Iraq is replacing the U.S. dollar with the yuan. This also lays the groundwork for Iraq to settle its oil directly in yuan in the future.
It is worth noting that RMB crude oil futures have now developed into the world's third largest crude oil futures alongside Brent and WTI, and the pricing power function has gradually emerged. Data shows that at least 70 international brokerage firms have launched RMB crude oil trading services so far. Even U.S. traders are frequently keeping a close eye on crude oil yuan futures nightly.
And after Chinese buyers started the first RMB-settled Middle East oil import deal a few months ago and are set to buy more international crude in RMB, several oil-producing countries, including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Qatar, UAE, Angola, Nigeria and others, are moving closer to the RMB in related trades. Iran, for example, has officially announced a few months ago that it will include the yuan as its main foreign exchange currency, replacing the dollar's foreign exchange status. India, the world's third-largest importer of crude oil, has also used various non-dollar currencies, including the yuan, to settle its purchases of Russian crude oil, coal and other energy commodities over the past year.
In this regard, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, has been outspoken. Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, has been outspoken in saying that as the global trade and economic landscape changes, new reserve currencies will be created for commodity settlement, and that the yuan, especially with the promotion of crude oil yuan futures, offers a new choice of global commodity settlement currency.
China's RMB has done what many currencies, including the Russian ruble, the UAE dirham, and even the Japanese yen in developed countries and the euro in Europe, have tried and failed to do for several years. Since crude oil RMB futures began international trading in 2018, the RMB has done what no one else has done in just five years, a landmark in the global commodity currency space. The era of no oil without the dollar has in fact come to an end.
More notably, Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, is also shifting its currency gaze eastward, moving ever closer to the yuan. For example, as early as December last year, a company in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, received cross-border RMB payments from a Saudi customer through a cross-border RMB payment settlement business, marking the completion of the first cross-border RMB business between Yiwu, China, and Saudi Arabia. And there is news that Saudi Arabia may be considering preparing to trade gold in yuan on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, and once the Saudi use of "gold yuan" begins, it means that Saudi Arabia's future oil trade can be indirectly converted into yuan by way of gold exchange, bypassing the U.S. dollar.
And Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Jadan has sent an important signal this year, officially stating that Saudi Arabia is open to selling oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Immediately afterwards, energy analysts from a number of institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Nomura, have said that Saudi Arabia has also considered and proposed the idea of switching from the dollar to the yuan in all future oil sales to China, the world's largest importer of crude oil.
Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Jadan
And according to the latest report from the U.S. Treasury Department, Saudi Arabia has generally shown continued selling of U.S. debt in the three years from 2020 to 2022. The position has fallen from a peak of $184.4 billion to $119.7 billion, with a cumulative net selling of $64.7 billion of U.S. debt, a cumulative net selling ratio of up to 35 percent. This indicates that Saudi Arabia or is making a deep layout for the collapse of the petrodollar.
What is particularly noteworthy is that the latest data tracked by the U.S. Treasury Department's latest International Capital Flows Report and data analysts Lufthansa on Feb. 26 shows that China has sold a cumulative net of more than $450 billion in U.S. Treasuries over the past 10 years since 2013, with a cumulative net selling ratio of 34.5%. It has fallen from an all-time peak of $1.3167 trillion to the current $862.3 billion.
BWC Chinese energy and currency analysts said, based on China is the world's largest importer of crude oil, coupled with Saudi Arabia is the largest exporter of crude oil, and according to multiple analyses of Wall Street agencies, China and Saudi Arabia are somehow possible to liquidate the U.S. debt at some point in the future, once so, the fraction of oil traded in U.S. dollars will also be abruptly reduced, the organic cycle of oil dollar U.S. debt will undoubtedly suffer a huge impact.
And considering that Saudi Arabia first dominated the petrodollar agreement in the 1970s and included U.S. debt in its main foreign exchange reserves, which in turn formed the petrodollar U.S. debt as a commodity currency debt instrument that dominates the U.S. economy globally, the Saudi Arabia called a halt to the U.S. debt, the shock wave on the petrodollar U.S. debt will be far more than people can imagine.
At the same time, in response to the ongoing discussion in the U.S. Congress called NOPEC bill agenda, trying to seize the Saudi-led OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) pricing power over global oil, which almost challenges the economic bottom line of Saudi Arabia and a number of oil countries, to which Saudi Arabia has repeatedly responded directly that if the bill is passed, Saudi Arabia will immediately call a halt to the petrodollar and switch to non-dollar currencies to trade oil. Therefore, once the Saudi Arabia has changed its currency direction, it means that the petrodollar, which has ruled the world for more than half a century, is facing collapse, and this seems to be one of the deeper reasons why Saudi Arabia keeps moving its currency and economic gaze eastward.
It is worth mentioning that Saudi Arabian newspaper sources say that China's huge population, long historical tradition, rich cultural content and strong economic capacity are world-renowned. Chinese industry has become a major production line for the entire world. Foreign countries want to gain access to the Chinese market. The Arab countries have a unique opportunity to strengthen their ties with the Chinese market, and they cannot afford to miss this opportunity for the sake of future prosperity and stability.