When I woke up, the Maldives had changed.
On April 21, local time, the Maldives held a [parliamentary election], and 368 candidates will compete for 93 parliamentary seats.
Preliminary vote counts show that the People's National Congress Party, led by President Muiz of Maldives, has won more than 60 seats, gaining an absolute majority in Parliament.
The Maldives is a presidential country, and although the president was elected last year, this year's parliamentary elections also play an important role in Maldives' politics, with the power to legislate, supervise the government, and review the national budget.
△ On September 29, 2023 local time, Muizu participated in the second round of the presidential election campaign rally in Male Photo from AFP
And now that the dust has settled, the so-called 'pro-China' People's Congress Party has won again, and the most uncomfortable person to know this news must be India, and next, New Delhi is probably going to be angry!
After all, the brightly clear pro-China president who won the victory acted frantically with his own actions, and after taking office last year, he made a series of moves, going to Beijing to sign contracts and change the garrison......
Let's talk about the two big news in April, on April 11, the Maldives announced that it will soon be able to settle imported goods in yuan.
On the 14th, the government will also officially announce the entry of Alipay and WeChat into the Maldives market.
Of course, some people scoff at it, thinking that this kind of news is purely eye-catching, and the Maldives using WeChat and Alipay to settle is not a big deal, after all, there is no decent industry in the Maldives, purely relying on tourism.
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the tourism industry in order to make money from mainland tourists, it is not eye-catching that Alipay can be used, and the number of users may be more than that of the Maldives.
But if you look at the previous news, it's not so simple.
TWO
Rushed away from India, and the big brother officially settled in
Truth be told, the Maldives is small, but its location is crucial.
It's not been a day or two since we quarreled with India.
China's energy mainly comes from the Middle East, and at the same time, China's industrial products to the Middle East and Europe need to go through the sea channel of the Indian Ocean.
Maldives.
As a result, the Maldives has become a country under India's active influence and control, and India has taken advantage of its proximity to the Maldives to exert constant pressure on the Maldives in an attempt to bring the Maldives into the fight against China.
For a long time, India has been "calling and drinking" the Maldives, and the pro-Indian Maldives Democratic Party is India's Maldives dog.
But if you keep doing this, it doesn't mean that the masses have no opinions, so there is a People's Congress Party to which the current President Muiz belongs, and this People's National Congress Party advocates "Maldives first", to put it bluntly, it is the India-weary Party.
The fact that Muiz is president is a testament to the local situation. The president said, "
After the president came to power, he worked actively and decisively, abandoned the original pro-India strategy, and began to attack China.
△ In January this year, the first stop of the Maldives President's visit to China was Xiamen, the picture is from the website of the President of the Maldives
At a time when tensions between India and the Maldives continue, Muiz made Beijing the first stop of his foreign trip, breaking the tradition of the Maldivian president visiting New Delhi first, and causing the Indian side to be highly vigilant.
In addition to visiting China at the beginning of the year and signing a bunch of cooperation documents, Muiz formally demanded that India withdraw its troops the day after he officially took office as president of the Maldives.
In the past, the Indian army was in the Maldives under the pretext of humanitarian aid, and although the number of Indian troops stationed in India was small, Muiz did not give India a chance to gain an inch.
This is not Muiz's personal sentiment, the slogan of the election campaign is to drive out the Indian army, which belongs to the opinion of the masses.
According to a March 12 report by The Sun Online, all Indian military personnel stationed in the Maldives city of Addu have left the country, and the rest of the Indian military personnel are also scheduled to be evacuated by May 10.
India was driven away, and someone quietly passed by.
Also in March, many foreign media reported that the Maldives signed a "military aid" agreement with China, which is self-evident.
This has made the West choke enough, and they have angrily criticized in the media that the overwhelming victory of the "pro-China" ruling party in the Maldives may push the Maldives away from India and "move closer to China".
THREE
The dollar empire opened its mouth
Although the population of the Maldives is only 550,000, whether it is paid in US dollars or not, it is not much of a splash against the US dollar world and the RMB world, but it points out a core problem:
There are not enough dollars.
The Maldives' foreign exchange reserves have been growing in the past, with a further $980 million in 2020. But in just three years, the Maldives' foreign exchange reserves fell to $580 million in 2023, a 41% decrease in three years.
The United States has not cut interest rates now, and in three years, will the Maldives become the next bankrupt Sri Lanka?
As the de facto reserve currency of the world, the US dollar has strong world liquidity.
It is precisely because of this that the Fed can control the rise and fall of world demand and world asset prices through the dollar tide, so as to realize the interests of Americans.
Otherwise, what is the hegemony of the dollar?
It's because it's hard for people to get rid of the dollar, because there's simply no alternative currency to use.
What are the euro, the pound, the franc, the yen, etc., in fact, they also look at the face of the dollar to do things.
However, China's high development in the past two years has brought about the result: China can not play with the United States, and the renminbi can really buy things.
In the past, the US dollar raised interest rates, and the US dollar was in short supply in the market. Everyone is in a hurry, but they can't make up for it with other currencies, but now it's different, I can swap dollar bonds for RMB debts and trade directly with RMB.
The U.S. is now in a dilemma, and if it wants to maintain a high-interest rate environment, it can only cut domestic inflation, but when it comes to cutting interest rates, it will find that the dollar's pricing power over assets is gone.
You can tangle it yourself, anyway, the Maldives chose the RMB first.
And the significance of the use of RMB settlement in the Maldives is here: the absolute amount is nothing, but the dollar territory has dropped another piece.
FOUR
Some things are not easy to say, but they all understand
Since then, the Maldives and the mainland have become closer and closer.
There is a big brother stationed in the military, and the economy uses yuan.
Nominally, it does not belong to Chinese territory, nor does it sign any concession for 99 years, and respects the independence of our Maldives.
Inside the system and outside the system, as long as we mix well, our wages will rise.
In the future, more small countries will follow suit.
It's a big change unseen in a century.