The Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 occupies half of the global media. For the Chinese, the severe sanctions Russia suffered in this war are unprecedented. In addition to the traditional economic sanctions imposed on Russia, European and American countries have also imposed extremely comprehensive political and cultural sanctions on Russia. Even Russian cats and trees are not immune. This reminds us that if Russia fails in this confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, then how should the anti-China forces led by the United States target China, which is economically powerful?
This issue has yet to be extended in the future. The thing that deserves our most attention now is not the trend of the Russia-Ukraine war, but Li Ka-shing ’s emergency sale of British assets. On March 4, a consortium led by Australian investment bank Macquarie Group and global private equity giant KKR was negotiating with Li Ka-shing and his family insiders regarding the acquisition of his asset "UK Power Networks". According to detailed intelligence, "UK Power Networks" is the largest power distribution company in the UK, with a valuation of approximately £15 billion (approximately RMB 130 billion).
According to this year’s investment market, if this transaction is successful, it is likely to become the largest acquisition in the industry this year. The institutions currently known to participate in the bidding include Dutch Pension Institution APG, Canada's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and Canada Pension Investment Management Company. What we should know is that although this company is huge, it is at best only the tip of the iceberg of Li Ka-shing’s huge assets in the UK.
According to previous reports from some British media, after comprehensive information, we found that Li Ka-shing and his family insiders control about 25% of the UK's electricity distribution market, nearly 30% of the natural gas supply market, and more than 40% of the telecommunications market. , more than 500,000 square meters of land resources, etc. Even from a global perspective, the actual asset level of the Li family headed by Li Ka-shing, as well as its cultural and political influence abroad, have actually far exceeded more than 80% of the major capitalists and capital groups with assets of over 100 million.
However, why did Li Ka-shing start selling his family’s assets in the UK in less than 10 years after Li Ka-shing acquired a large number of British assets in the past few years? In this regard, some British economic analysts believe that after the British government announced its departure from the European Union, many left-wing British politicians promoted the idea that "assets related to people's livelihood should be taken into public ownership", which had a political impact on many British voters. After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the British economy suffered a certain degree of impact, which may have been the reason that prompted Li Ka-shing to sell assets.
In addition to some economic opinions, some British people also expressed their opinions on politics on the Internet. They believe that Li Ka-shing's reason for selling off British assets is likely to be related to possible future political actions by Europe and the United States to sanction China. After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, a large number of Russian capitalists' overseas assets were subject to more or less sanctions. However, China, as an important partner with Russia, did not condemn or sanction Russia in this war, which is bound to cause the United States to The government is confronting and even highly hostile.
If after the Russia-Ukraine war, the United States, on the basis of imposing sanctions on Russia, gathers developed countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Italy to impose sanctions on China, won't Li Ka-shing's assets in the UK be affected? Therefore, he must have foresight to prepare for a rainy day. And judging from his actions, we can observe that the situation in Ukraine has changed drastically. The political crisis and the scale of changes in the global situation derived from it are unprecedented in the 21st century. The crises we have seen before were either big countries fighting small countries (such as the US-Iraq war). Or it is a confrontation between small countries (such as the war between Georgia and Azerbaijan).
However, this time the Russia-Ukraine war seems to be a contest between Russia and Ukraine , but it is actually Putin single-handedly challenging the entire NATO group! For Russia, the United States, Britain, and France are all nuclear powers. Regardless of the final direction of the war, Russia at this stage has been forced into a corner under the joint sanctions of Europe and the United States.If Europe further cuts off Russia's natural gas and oil exports in an attempt to completely block Russia's way of survival, then the seemingly stable environment in Europe now is likely to become a "rare peaceful year" in the history books of future generations.
After all, Russia also has nuclear bombs. If Russia has no way to survive in the future, what will Europe do? (Putin said similar original words)? However, whether it is to ensure their own stability or to compete with the United States in the future, Western European countries are unlikely to let Russia decline too much. Multipolarity is likely to be the mainstream of the world in the future. However, as early as when Western European countries led by France considered achieving "independence" and proposed forming a European army and getting rid of the NATO system, the United States had actually considered harvesting the economies of European countries.
It is worth mentioning that before harvesting Europe, the United States once tried to harvest China's economy, and the most prominent incident at that time was the confrontation between China and the United States in the South China Sea. At that time, the United States directed Philippines to concoct the so-called "South China Sea Arbitration Case" incident. Moreover, it also used the powerful public opinion power of its own country and its allies in an attempt to make the Chinese people who do not know the truth madly exchange for US dollars, thereby causing the outflow of Chinese assets. Then, under the two major political and economic measures, they planned to rob the Chinese people for decades in one fell swoop. Hard-earned wealth.
Even after it felt that economic and political measures were insufficient, the U.S. government tried to use military means to force us to make concessions. In that year, in order to ensure the stability of the situation in the South China Sea, the Chinese government dispatched the main force of the three fleets in the North Sea, East China Sea, and the South China Sea. At the same time, under the joint command of multiple admirals, the Chinese government conducted actual combat operations in the South China Sea. exercise. Even at that time, our army's Rocket Force troops pulled various types of missile vehicles into predetermined positions, ready to respond to U.S. military threats at any time.
Fortunately, after the Americans saw the PLA's posture and knew that the war was difficult and had no chance of winning, they finally chose to withdraw from the South China Sea. It was also from that time that the newly-appointed President of the Philippines Duterte immediately changed the anti-China attitude of his predecessor Aquino III after seeing the changes in the situation in the South China Sea, and turned into a person who was in charge of China-U.S. The leader of a small country who has a good relationship between the two countries. What worries us to this day is that if the U.S. military in the South China Sea at that time did not choose to withdraw, but chose to "walk alone", then the outbreak of a war was possible.
Moreover, if the Chinese government had not curbed the outflow of assets in time, China's foreign exchange reserves would have suffered heavy losses, and the United States would have finally completed its economic harvest of China through victory in the economic war against China. Since the United States cowered in front of China in 2016, it was unable to harvest the wealth of the Chinese people. Among Southeast Asian countries, Japan has been harvested by the U.S. economy before, and has not yet "grown fat." So the only big fat sheep worth plundering are European countries.
So in this situation between Russia and Ukraine, the reason why countries such as India, Turkey are also very supportive of Russia instead of expressing friendly attitudes towards Ukraine is very simple. This is because political leaders like Erdogan and Modi who are good at playing both sides have noticed the "strangeness" of the United States. If Russia loses in this confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, then the next target of the United States will definitely be China. What about China after that? There is no doubt that India and Turkey, which want to rise and rejuvenate, will also become the steps for the United States to maintain its hegemony.
Therefore, when countries such as Turkey and India saw the situation clearly, they chose unequivocal neutrality, or secretly supported Russia. In fact, for the United States, it means that they want to unite to fight against the United States. On the contrary, countries such as Germany, France, , Switzerland, and other countries are obviously confused. They don't know that after Russia is brought down through sanctions, they may be the next ones to suffer. You know, when the US leader can still bring his European brothers to plunder other countries, these European countries can still get some advantages; once the United States' ability to plunder foreign countries becomes worse, then the fattened Europe will be the first victim.
Even and the third world can clearly see the face of the United States. Can Europe not see clearly? In fact, after Merkel stepped down in Germany, and France left Charles de Gaulle, they really didn't know what to do. If the United States launches an economic harvest against Europe in the future, the most optimistic estimate is that European capital will lose more than US$5 trillion. The most pessimistic scenario is that under the economic harvest of the United States, the Eurozone is at risk of disintegration. In this way, the impact on the global economy is likely to be far greater than the 1998 financial tsunami, or even greater than the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis Even more serious.
Of course, events like this are likely to be only small-probability events. We hope that Europe can maintain overall stability. This will not only be beneficial to Russia, but also very beneficial to China’s investment in Europe. In fact, in this Russia-Ukraine war, Biden will hope that Russia will swallow up all of Ukraine more than Putin. This has three advantages. In the first place, Russia can use the political name of embezzling Ukraine to unite countries around the world to impose lasting economic sanctions on Russia. Secondly, it can also inflate populist sentiments in Russia, laying the groundwork for possible political instability in Russia. Thirdly, it can temporarily unite European countries and closely rely on the United States to jointly contain Russia. development of.
After the above benefits are achieved, the United States can openly harvest the wealth accumulated by Europeans. After all, if Western European countries do not want to be harvested and exploited by the United States, then Russia, which is watching all this, will also wait for opportunities to seek "retaliation." Germany and France also know that they have sanctioned Russia, and will inevitably have conflicts with Russia and the United States in the future. Difficulty finding balance. Moreover, if Germany stops importing Russian oil and gas resources, the United States can still open its mouth and extort Germany's money.
Under such circumstances, can Western European countries still unite to fight against the United States and Russia and become one of the "poles" in multipolarity? Obviously this is unrealistic. In the past, Germany had senior politicians like Merkel to balance EU diplomacy, but after Schultz came to power, he canceled the Nord Stream 2 project that Merkel had finally won, leaving While Germany responded to the United States diplomatically, it also committed an "act of self-mutilation" on its own people (referring to the lack of heating in winter).
In addition to Germany, the current president of France, Macron, was denied tens of billions of dollars in submarine cooperation orders by Australia in an extremely ridiculous manner. Australian Prime Minister Morrison also turned around and cooperated with the United States. Let Macron dare to be angry but not speak out. If these two politicians without strategic vision cooperate with the United States and negotiate with Putin, what good results can be achieved? Moreover, after Macron negotiated with Putin, he returned home and stated that Russia would not attack Ukraine. However, within a few days, Putin announced a special military operation against Ukraine, which "swollen" Macron's face.
In today's changing situation, with the confrontation between Russia and the United States and the confrontation between China and the United States, can the United States "turn the tide" in the future of declining hegemony? Can Europe avoid being harvested by the US economy in the future? At least the only thing we can be sure of is that the United States has entered an irreversible decline, and at the same time as the decline of the United States, the economic and military rise under the framework of China-Russia cooperation will also allow countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to see the dawn of hope. We will look forward to this with eagerness and wait and see!
