On October 26, the fifth round of Sino-US economic and trade negotiations in Kuala Lumpur suddenly ended prematurely-the originally scheduled three-day consultations ended in two days.

Not talking about knocking down the table, but rather through an unusual efficiency.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Bescent said that the two sides set a "successful framework" for leaders' follow-up discussions; The Chinese side also simply stated that "we have reached a basic consensus, and then we will go through our own procedures".

On the surface, this is a dialogue on tariffs, exports and market opening, but if we only focus on these, we will miss the real core of the game between big powers: this is not a simple trade negotiation at all, but a quietly started global financial war.

01.

First, clarify the "bright bargaining chips" of this negotiation.

The United States immediately put forward three key requirements, each of which seemed to be aimed at trade, but actually pointed to financial control.

Rare earth is not ordinary mineral, it is the "underlying raw material" of chip manufacturing, new energy batteries, military and industrial equipment - there is no rare earth, the U.S. high-tech industrial chain, the military and industrial system are all in the neck.

2. "Expanding the opening of the financial and currency markets", behind which is to allow the US dollar to enter the Chinese market more freely and consolidate the settlement hegemony of the US dollar.

3. "Discussing the extension and adjustment of 301 tariffs" seems to be a trade tariff issue, but in fact it uses tariffs as bargaining chips to force China to make concessions on financial opening.

In the face of these three demands, China¡¯s response was only eight words: ¡°Position firm, safeguard interests.¡±

These eight words look plain, but they hide the key logic: strategically, we will never give in, such as the core interests of financial sovereignty and rare earth control; You can be tactically flexible, such as finding consensus on non-principled issues.

Why does China dare to be so stable? Just look at the two sets of data.

In September, China's soybean imports to the United States were directly cleared, and soybeans were piled up in farms in the central and western United States, and slow-moving farmers could only worry about inventories; in terms of rare earths, more than 90% of the world's rare earth refining capacity is in China. Even if the United States signed a rare earth cooperation agreement with Australia in advance, Australia only produces raw ore and has no refining capacity, and the inventory will bottom out in a few months.

The U.S. is not unaware of these realities, but it needs to mention these demands ¨C because Trump is about to start the mid-term election cycle, he has to ¡°do results¡± diplomatically in order to see the U.S. voters.

Therefore, a few days before the negotiations, he successively signed cooperation frameworks among ASEAN, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Japan. It seemed to have "settled Asia," but it was actually a political show.

The core contradiction of this negotiation is not "whether or not tariffs should be lowered", but "whether the dollar system can be stable."

In recent decades, the United States hasined its hegemony by relying on ¡°global trade surplus countries returning dollars¡±¡ªsuch as other countries selling goods to the United States and earning dollars, then depositing dollars back to U.S. banks, buying U.S. government bonds, and the dollar is always circulating.

But now the global trade chain is broken, many countries no longer only do business with the United States, the path of the dollar's return flow is narrowed, the United States must find a new "bridge" for the dollar, otherwise hegemony will loosen.

02.

The United States has chosen two paths, both hidden in this negotiation and the surrounding move.

The United States and Southeast Asia signed the rare-earth, mineral, and energy agreements, viewed as trade cooperation, in fact, to build a ¡°new US-centric, resource-hypothesized dollar industry chain.¡±

Simply put, let these countries sell resources only in dollars, buy American technology and products only in dollars, hang resources and dollars, so that the dollar has a physical support.

On the day of the US-Japanese talks, Japan announced the launch of a "stable currency linked to the yen".

Don't think that this is a pure technological innovation. The essence of a stablecoin is a "linked dollar"-for example, one stablecoin corresponds to one dollar. By using it for cross-border settlement, you can bypass the existing international clearing system (such as SWIFT), allowing the dollar to regain its clearing rights through financial technology.

The ultimate goal of the United States is clear: to change the US dollar from "supported by trade surplus" to "supported by resources + digital technology" and build "Bretton Woods System 3.0".

In the last century, the dollar and gold disconnected at 2.0 and now rely on resources and digitalization to upgrade to 3.0, essentially to preserve the dollar¡¯s global settlement hegemony.

In the face of the U.S. financial layout, China has not chosen to "follow the dollar pace", but is quietly building its own "parallel system of RMB" - the core of one: let the RMB settle directly in more scenarios and no longer rely on the dollar.

For example, the cross-border settlement pilot of digital yuan, has been used in trade with ASEAN and the Middle East; and the BRICS country's native currency trade arrangement, is also what you buy me with yuan, I use your currency to buy your resources, circumvent the middle link between the dollar.

These actions may seem slow, but they are actually weakening the dollar's settlement monopoly bit by bit.

Moreover, China still has two hard cards in its hands, which are also the reason why the United States is keeping a close eye on them in the negotiations.

As I said before, 90% of the world's rare earth refining is made in China, and the United States, even if it can buy raw minerals from Australia and Mongolia, must be shipped to China to refined - without refining the rare earth is "stone", can not make chips and missiles.

U.S. military giants have long been panicked. Reports of inventory shortages have been heard, but no alternative production capacity can be found in the short term.

In the past, the United States was the main supplier of soybeans to China, but now China has turned its orders to Brazil and Argentina.

Farms in South America have long changed their planting structure to soybeans, and soybeans in the Midwest of the United States cannot be sold. Farmers' votes are the key to Trump's mid-term elections, which is why he is anxious to let China "rebuy American soybeans".

But once the supply chain is transferred away, it will be difficult to turn it back. South America already accounts for more than 80% of China's soybean imports, and it will not be so easy for the United States to grab it back.

03.

Now that the negotiations are just over, the two sides are "going through the process", and the most crucial node for the next three weeks is the APEC summit in Busan, South Korea - this summit will determine the next situation.

If the U.S. leaders meet at APEC, showing that the results of the negotiations have passed high-level approval, the market will interpret as ¡°stage consensus achieved¡±, global risk assets (such as stocks, commodities) could rise a wave, and the feelings of risk will fall.

But if they do not meet, it means that the two sides have not met on the core issues yet, and the outcome of the negotiations is questionable.

At that time, the U.S. stock could fluctuate again, the dollar exchange rate, the price of gold, these shelter assets would be kicked up ¨C after all, now the U.S. stock has been like a ¡°leaked balloon¡±, two trillion market value evaporated, and the market itself is sensitive.

In fact, whether we meet or not, one thing is clear: the "extreme pressure" of the United States doesn't work.

Trump said for a moment "will to visit China", for a moment "deal first", and even spoke "ready to cancel the summit", but these emotional cards did not allow China to make concessions - the data is really useful on the negotiating table, not scam.

The United States also has many troubles of its own: inflation cannot be suppressed, the problem of supply chain disconnection has not been solved, factory owners complain about rising raw material prices, and farmers are worried that soybeans cannot be sold.

These internal issues force Trump to ¡°go out¡± in the negotiations, but China is stable like Thailand and will not compromise because of the U.S. sentiment fluctuations.

The financial war seems to be far from ordinary people, and the truth is related to everyone¡¯s wealth¡ªbecause behind the game of great powers must be the re-pricing of global assets.

The physical resources of rare earth, copper, aluminum and gold are being redefined as ¡°the underlying mortgage of the currency¡± ¨C the United States wants to seize the dollar on resources, and China is also guaranteeing the security of resources, these resources will have a ¡°strategic premium¡± in the next three to five years, and their value will be more stable than those that rely only on stories.

For example, it will be more convenient for companies related to trade with ASEAN and BRICS countries to settle accounts in RMB in the future, and the risks of overseas business of these companies will be reduced; if digital RMB is popularized in cross-border payments, relevant financial technology companies will also have opportunities.

Looking at the news of the Sino-U.S. negotiations, don¡¯t just look at ¡°how much tariffs have fallen¡±, ¡°how much exports have increased¡±, think more about ¡°what the settlement currency is used for¡± and ¡°who¡¯s in the hands of pricing resources¡± ¨C because who has mastered the settlement system, who defines the order of wealth.

Conclusion:

Looking back at this fifth round of Sino-U.S. economic and trade negotiations, the surface speaks of tariffs, exports, market opening, the bottom layer is actually the restructuring of the global financial system - the dollar is digitalizing, the RMB is internationalizing, resources are financializing, these three lines intersecting, is the main battlefield of the wealth flow in the next 10 years.

Over the past few decades, the dollar has relied on settlement hegemony to "print money and buy the world", and now this model has changed; China does not want to overthrow the existing system, but rather wants to build a "parallel system", so that the RMB has its own foundation.

Finally, I would like to say that every trade negotiation between the great powers, on the surface, is a ¡°price issue¡± and behind it is always a ¡°monetary issue¡±.

Like this negotiation, the U.S. side is fighting for rare land, for financial opening up, for China's sovereignty, for its own currency settlement, and essentially for "who will formulate the rules of global wealth."

This financial war has just begun, and the next APEC summit, next year's general election, and the adjustment of the global supply chain will all be key variables.

Ordinary people do not have to panic, as long as they see the two core of "settlement right" and "resource right", they can find their own wealth direction in the new cycle.