A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives specifies that the U.S. can confiscate one of Russia's sovereign assets abroad to support Ukraine. Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States and the West have racked their brains to freeze Russia's overseas assets and business, but now that the United States has once again raised its butcher's knife and dealt with it, does it want to give Putin, who has been re-elected as Russian president, a blow to him, or is there any other intention? In addition, the news of Putin's visit to China has already been released, and it is obvious that China has once again become the center of the vortex.
The confiscation of Russia's overseas assets has always been extremely controversial in the United States and Western countries, and the focus is naturally on how to confiscate these assets in legal theory? In capitalist countries, private ownership of assets is the foundation of the country, and whether or not to confiscate Russia's sovereign assets has become a paradox in the eyes of the United States and the West. Previously, most of them were frozen, but now they are going to be confiscated and turned into a budget to support Ukraine, and it is obvious that the Americans are the first to take this step, but the deeper purpose is probably not simple.
Russia has been courting the United States and the West for many years, but the Americans have always been very wary of this behemoth, and the main reason is probably that they are still worried that the Eurasian continent will form a strategic reconciliation and cause it to lose control of Europe. Europe is a different story, with the EU long being Russia's largest trading partner, thanks to the prevalence of Gaullistism, the emphasis on strategic autonomy by some political forces, and the complementarity of the industries of the two sides. As Russian State Duma Chairman Volodin said, of the $280 billion in frozen overseas assets of the Russian side, only $5 billion are in the United States, and the main purpose of the US move is to instigate the EU to adopt the same procedure to confiscate Russian property. Russia's remarks are a reminder to the EU that if the EU and other European countries also choose to confiscate Russia's overseas assets, it may lead to a further escalation of Russian-European relations and damage Europe's own economic interests.
It remains to be seen whether the EU will deal with this huge amount of money in the future, but Putin has his own serious business to do. The Kremlin has released news that Putin will start his visit to China after his re-election, and the meeting of Chinese and Russian leaders at least once a year is itself sending a positive signal to the outside world that Sino-Russian relations are in the best period in history. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that 90% of trade cooperation between China and Russia is settled in local currencies, almost "de-dollarization".
In 2023, the bilateral trade between China and Russia will reach 240.1 billion US dollars, and the proportion of RMB in Russia's foreign exchange savings has reached 25%, which shows that the trade between the two countries has reached a new high, and there is also full room for improvement. It is worth mentioning that before Putin's visit to China, US Secretary of State Blinken will arrive in Beijing first, and according to the rumors revealed by the US media, the Russia-Ukraine conflict will be the focus of the high-level meeting between China and the United States. The successive visits of the United States and Russia to China are a bit like China setting up a table to build a platform for dialogue and consultation between the United States and Russia. Therefore, Putin's visit to China has important matters to discuss, one is to discuss the deepening and expansion of cooperation between China and Russia in various fields, and the other is to find a timely window to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Returning to the frontal battlefield of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the $60 billion budget approved by the US Congress this time is not a lot, at least for the Ukrainian army to fight for more than a year. Judging from the current movements of the two militaries, there may be a wave of high-intensity offensives this summer to determine new bargaining chips. At present, NATO's red line of "never ending" has been slightly loosened, and a number of well-equipped special forces have penetrated deep into the front line of the conflict.