Home » How the Butterfly Effect of the Russian-Ukrainian Situation Intensive Mediation by Various Parties Affects the Commodity Market Hong Kong and US Stock Information | Huashengtong

How the Butterfly Effect of the Russian-Ukrainian Situation Intensive Mediation by Various Parties Affects the Commodity Market Hong Kong and US Stock Information | Huashengtong

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How the Butterfly Effect of the Russian-Ukrainian Situation Intensive Mediation by Various Parties Affects the Commodity Market Hong Kong and US Stock Information | Huashengtong

How the Butterfly Effect of the Russia-Ukraine Situation Spreads to the Commodity Market

Author: Pan Yinru

  [ 在备受关注的天然气领域,据洲际交易所(ICE)官网数据,被视为“欧洲天然气价格风向标”的TTF基准荷兰天然气期货已从去年10月的逼近200欧元/兆瓦时,回落至今年2月11日的77.04欧元/兆瓦时,较10日的74欧元/兆瓦时略有上浮。天然气价格的波动,推高了欧洲多国在今冬的用电成本。 ]

The first phone call between the leaders of the United States and Russia in 2022 has brought the already tense Russian-Ukrainian crisis to a climax again.

On the 12th local time, US President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone call about the Ukraine crisis. The minutes of the call released by the United States and Russia after the event showed that although the two sides still had serious differences during the one-hour call, they were both willing to continue to communicate in the future.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have deteriorated rapidly since the end of last year. Western media constantly exaggerate the deployment of “a large number of military personnel and equipment” in the border areas of the two countries: the United States, Ukraine and NATO claim that Russia has assembled a large number of troops on the border between Russia and Ukraine and may be preparing to “invade” Ukraine; Russia has always denied this statement.

Since 2022, the Russian-Ukrainian crisis has continued to heat up. According to a reporter from China Business News, several meetings of Western dignitaries were held almost simultaneously last week, and these bilateral or multilateral meetings have only one goal: to ensure that the situation in Russia and Ukraine will not be further intensified.

This week, the shuttle diplomacy represented by France and Germany will still be carried out. As French President Emmanuel Macron said before a meeting with Putin last week, “the situation in Ukraine will enter a critical moment.” In this regard, Wu Huiping, deputy director of the German Research Center of Tongji University, told Yicai that, judging from the current level of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has actually begun to gradually increase its attention to security affairs in Europe. During the government period, the United States was actually in a period of strategic contraction, and the global strategic center at that time slowly turned to the Indo-Pacific. “Therefore, since the Ukraine crisis, the United States has refocused its strategic vision on Europe, such as frequently strengthening policy coordination with NATO countries and strengthening its military presence in Eastern Europe,” she said. “At the same time, France and Germany are the representatives. Countries in Europe have also begun to gradually play more roles, hoping to better safeguard Europe’s own strategic interests through diplomatic mediation.”

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See you this week

On the 7th local time, the new German Chancellor Scholz started his trip to the United States, which opened the beginning of the Western mediation of the Ukraine crisis. In addition to the high-profile first offline meeting between the new leaders of the United States and Germany, Scholz also exchanged views on the issue with visiting Macron and Polish President Duda on the 8th after returning to Germany. On the 10th, Scholz also met with the leaders of the three Baltic countries (Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia) and promised Germany’s support when necessary. All three countries share a border with Russia.

In addition to holding talks with Putin, on the 8th, Macron took the lead in going to Kiev to meet Ukrainian President Zelensky, and then went to Germany to participate in a tripartite meeting between the leaders of France, Germany and Poland to discuss the situation in Ukraine. On the 9th, Macron had a phone call with Biden to inform him of the results of his visit.

Putin, one of the protagonists of the situation in Russia and Ukraine, also met with visiting Macron in Moscow in the past week. His meeting with Macron on the 7th took place almost simultaneously with the meetings with Scholz and Biden.

So, did the above-mentioned series of meetings cool down the tense situation in Ukraine?

Wu Huiping believes that the key to cooling down depends on whether Russia, Ukraine, and Europe and the United States can maintain sufficient strategic patience, that is, not to intensify conflicts, and all parties can be relatively restrained or relatively patient, and maintain a situation of fighting but not breaking. “Russia and Ukraine have strengthened their military deployment, which is more of a military mutual threat and deterrence. From their original intention, they are not willing to turn the confrontation in eastern Europe into a real hot war.” Wu Huiping said, “More The issue revolves around the division of camps in the Soviet republics like Ukraine, and in fact it is more about the US and Russia fighting for their respective spheres of influence in Europe.”

It is worth noting that this week, the diplomatic good offices of the international community on the Ukraine crisis will still be carried out. Among them, according to the timetable announced by foreign media, on February 14 and 15, Scholz will also visit Ukraine and Russia, respectively, to hold talks with Zelensky and Putin, and continue to hope to use diplomatic means to ease the current tense regional situation. .

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Looking forward to the upcoming German-Russian and German-Ukraine leaders’ meeting, Wu Huiping said that Scholz or the new German government hopes to further demonstrate a gesture of dialogue and reconciliation, but the meeting may achieve limited results, “because of Scholz’s personal influence , and the personal relationship with Putin is certainly far less than that of her predecessor Merkel.”

Wu Huiping believes that Scholz visited Russia for the first time, and then talked about the topic of conflict, more to maintain dialogue and show the attitude of European countries that hope to reconcile.

The international market waits and sees changes

While Western dignitaries are rushing to ease the crisis in Ukraine, the international market is also closely watching every move of the crisis. A little careless, against the backdrop of high global inflation, this crisis will undoubtedly trigger a butterfly effect, further exacerbating the supply crisis and causing the prices of commodities such as raw materials and energy to spiral upward.

In the natural gas field, which has attracted much attention, according to the official website of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the TTF benchmark Dutch natural gas futures, which is regarded as the “wind vane of European natural gas prices”, has fallen from close to 200 euros/MWh in October last year to this year. On February 11, it was EUR 77.04/MWh, a slight increase from EUR 74/MWh on the 10th. Fluctuations in natural gas prices have pushed up electricity costs in many European countries this winter.

Regarding the “North Stream 2” project, which is currently being shelved but can greatly alleviate the natural gas dilemma in Europe, Wu Huiping believes that this project could have been used as a bonus for Scholz’s contact with Russia, but at present it seems that Germany is on this issue. Too much pressure from the US. “When Scholz first took office in early December last year, he was still emphasizing that this was a purely economic project. But under pressure from the US government, Scholz had made it clear before that he would take ‘all options’ into account. Therefore, it is very It is hard to imagine that once a hot war really occurs, Germany can continue to promote the project.” Wu Huiping emphasized that from the perspective of the German government, the “North Stream 2” project is obviously not a purely economic project.

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For the prospect of this project, Wu Huiping expressed not optimistic. “Although U.S. LNG is more expensive than Russia, the U.S.’s own production and export capabilities should not be underestimated, and it continues to improve its ability to export to Europe, so for the U.S., to a certain extent, it also hopes to sell more U.S. to Europe. natural gas. In short, ‘North Stream 2’ has been linked to politics,” she said.

In recent weeks, international oil prices have soared, frequently hitting $100 a barrel. And the fluctuating situation in Russia and Ukraine is obviously fueling the flames. Brent reached a seven-year high of $94 a barrel last week, but has since retreated slightly.

As the world‘s second largest oil producer, Russia has a pivotal position in OPEC+. Once the West implements the “most severe sanctions” against Russia, such as the interruption of Russia’s oil supply, the already strong oil price will be destined to rise steadily. JP Morgan has warned that Brent could surge to $150 a barrel if Russian oil exports are halved. The last time Brent reached a new high was in July 2008 when it hit $147.50 a barrel.

In addition, Russia and Ukraine are also major suppliers of major crops such as wheat and corn in the world. Among them, the data of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture in 2021 shows that Russia has become the world’s largest wheat exporter, accounting for 1/5 of the global wheat market supply; Ukraine accounts for 9%, and the two countries’ wheat shipments account for nearly one-third of the world’s total. . At the same time, Ukraine’s corn export volume ranks fourth in the world, accounting for about 16% of the world‘s total exports.

Therefore, Russian media believe that once the hot war breaks out, the global economy that was originally rising due to the epidemicagricultural productsPrices will continue to present upside risks.

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