Prática de Shadowing: No One Is Talking About the "Winners" of the Iran War - Aprenda a falar inglês com o YouTube
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Eleanor Roosevelt once said that no one won the last war and no one will win the next war,
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Eleanor Roosevelt once said that no one won the last war and no one will win the next war,
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but obviously someone forgot to remind her that this is actually just a special military operation,
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because already as the conflict in Iran unfolds,
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there are two parties that are seemingly coming out ahead without even directly getting involved.
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Russia, now in the fourth year of its own invasion that was supposed to be over in two days,
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is enjoying the diverted global attention away from the war in Ukraine,
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but also potentially more importantly,
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this shakeup of global energy flows is throwing a lifeline to an economy
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that by most estimates was quickly running out of options.
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Now maybe getting saved at the last second by circumstances completely
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outside of their control may not really be winning in the traditional sense,
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but it is giving them more of what they need,
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which is time, money, and indifference.
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China on the other hand is pretty openly viewing this conflict
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as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to cement their influence on the global economy in ways
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that will probably continue to pay out for decades to come.
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Around two weeks ago it was announced
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that the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would be relaxed for ships transacting oil in Chinese RMB,
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rather than the long-time global default of US dollars.
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This, at the very least,
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was a major economic warning shot across the bow of America's global financial dominance,
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all at the same time that even its allies are playing around with reducing their dependence on their payments infrastructure.
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Understanding the petrodollar and what it could mean if it went away is one thing,
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but beyond these direct economic ambitions,
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it also must be recognised that China is seemingly getting something money can't buy,
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regardless of what currency it is denoted in.
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They are looking like the reasonable,
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sensible actor trying to broker a peaceful,
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profitable deal between the squabbling parties involved.
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Now, whether this is actually true or not behind the geopolitical scenes,
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it may not even matter economically,
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because China at least has the appearance of a stable and confidence-inspiring economic partner to trade,
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invest, or otherwise do business with.
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But these perks also haven't come completely for free.
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China, at the end of the day,
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is still by far the largest net importer of oil and natural gas in the world,
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and is hugely dependent on these energy sources to power their industries.
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Any potential
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and slightly abstract long-term geopolitical advantages it may be able to
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line up need to be pragmatically weighted against the immediate reality
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that the workshop of the world is now paying twice as much to keep the lights on.
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So, what were the economic realities these two economies are facing?
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How has the war in Iran furthered those interests?
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And finally, do these countries really have a vested interest in seeing this conflict come to an end?
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Due to this war in Iran,
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inflation has been rapid across most of the world.
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But it does not affect everywhere the same.
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To understand why Russia is quietly celebrating this conflict,
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we really need to look at where their economy was before the war in Iran started,
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and what their objectives were to assess how they have either been accelerated or hampered.
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All things considered, it's not a healthy economy.
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Russia became the most heavily sanctioned country on earth after its invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022,
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after ironically taking that title off Iran.
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Thousands of sanctions from dozens of countries have targeted Russian banks,
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oligarchs, state-owned enterprises, and entire sectors of the economy.
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The goal was to make the war economically unsustainable and to some extent it has worked.
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Russia's access to global financial markets has been severely constrained,
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major western companies have pulled out and the country's ability to import advanced technology has been significantly curtailed.
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Inflation has been a persistent problem and their central bank has raised interest rates to over 15% to try and curb it,
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but prices are still running hot as imports become scarce and increasingly hard to trade through legitimate channels.
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For ordinary Russians, that means the cost of everyday goods has been climbing steadily,
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while the range of available products has narrowed,
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the war in Ukraine has also been devastating to Russia's long-term economic prospects.
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Hundreds of thousands of young men have died or been injured,
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right at the start of what would have been their working careers.
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Which means Russia is losing a generation of productive labor at the exact moment it can least afford to.
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The demographic implications of that alone will be felt for decades.
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But there have been three lifelines keeping the economy from collapsing outright.
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The first is that Russia is the most resource-rich nation on the planet oil,
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natural gas, metals, timber, Russia has enormous quantities of practically everything the global economy runs on.
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These resources are also somewhat fungible,
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which means that once a barrel of Russian oil enters the global system,
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it becomes very hard to determine where it came from,
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especially for buyers that don't want to ask too many questions.
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Grey market sales through intermediary countries have kept Russian energy revenues flowing even under sanctions.
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The way this typically works is
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that Russian crude gets shipped to a country like India or Turkey where it gets refined or blended with other oil,
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and then re-exported as a product of that country rather than as Russian energy.
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The original origin gets laundered out of the supply chain and by the time it reaches a European or Asian buyer,
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there is plausible deniability built into every step of the transaction.
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The second is that Russia is a breadbasket.
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Domestically it can continue to feed its population just through its own agricultural production,
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even if the selection of seasonal produce is slightly more limited than it used to be.
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In an economic siege, food self-sufficiency is an enormous strategic advantage that many sanctioned countries simply don't have.
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Russia is actually one of the world's largest exporters of wheat,
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and that gives it leverage over countries that depend on grain imports to feed their populations.
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And the third is that Russia has built a relationship of convenience with other major powers through the BRICS network,
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most notably China.
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China is thirsty for cheap energy and natural resources and Russia can be supported by China's manufacturing base in return.
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It's a symbiotic relationship that neither side particularly loves but both sides very much need.
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Russia gets manufactured goods and a willing buyer for its discounted energy exports.
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China gets cheaper fuel than it would pay on the open market.
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Now the war in Iran strengthens all three of these lifelines simultaneously.
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Which is why this conflict has been quietly one of the
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best things to happen to the Russian economy since the invasion of Ukraine began.
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As oil supplies from the Gulf have been disrupted,
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global oil prices have risen significantly.
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That translates directly into greater revenues for Russia,
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even with the discounted grey market prices they have been charging to get around sanctions.
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Higher global benchmarks mean Russia's discounted barrels are still fetching more than they were six months ago.
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If the global price of oil rises by $30 a barrel,
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even a steep discount still leaves Russia better off than it was before the disruption started.
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But it goes further than just higher prices.
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Energy sanctions on Russia have actually been relaxed in some cases
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as governments in the west are prioritizing keeping the lights on
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in their own countries over the geopolitical condemnation of russia's actions in ukraine
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which means russia is not only getting more per barrel it's
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also finding more willing buyers who would have previously avoided russian
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oil for political reasons the moral calculus changes quite quickly
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when your own citizens are facing energy shortages
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and heating bills are doubling governments
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that were loudly condemning russian aggression two years ago are now quietly importing russian energy through intermediary channels
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because the political cost of an energy crisis at home is
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higher than the political cost of hypocrisy abroad the food angle
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is also about to become much more significant oil is not
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just used for energy it's also a key input for making nitrogen fertilizers
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which are responsible for feeding most of the planet modern agriculture depends on ammonia-based fertilizers to sustain crop yields
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and ammonia production requires natural gas as a feedstock without affordable fertilizer crop yields fall
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and when crop yields fall food prices rise.
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So as oil and gas supply disruptions persist,
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the cost of food production globally is going to climb,
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and countries in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East
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that depend on imported fertilizers and grain are going to be particularly exposed.
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Russia's agricultural output combined with its oil
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and fertilizer exports will become even more strategically important the longer these supply issues carry on.
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Countries that might have otherwise kept Russia at arm's length are going to start finding reasons to pick up the phone,
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because the alternative is food insecurity at a scale they can't politically survive.
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Russia's relationship with China could also deepen as a result,
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because China is benefiting from this conflict in its own ways
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and the two countries now have an even stronger shared interest in maintaining their economic partnership.
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When both sides of a relationship are getting what they need,
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the partnership tends to harden into something more structural than transactional.
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And then there is the indifference factor,
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which might actually be the most valuable thing Russia is getting out of this conflict.
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Global media attention, diplomatic energy and military resources are all being redirected towards the middle east
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and away from ukraine the pressure on western governments to maintain tough sanctions on russia diminishes
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when their electorates are worried about a different war entirely now
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to be fair none of this means russia's economic problems are solved sanctions still bite inflation is still elevated
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and the structural damage from losing hundreds of thousands of working age men is real
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and long lasting the central bank can't cut rates without reigniting inflation
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and the technology gap with the west is widening every year russia's economy is surviving
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but it is not thriving and there is There is a meaningful difference between the two.
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An economy that is just surviving can keep going for a while,
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but it is not building the foundations for long term prosperity and eventually the cracks catch up.
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What the Iran war has done though is buy Russia something it desperately needed.
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Time.
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Time for its economy to stabilize,
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time for global attention to drift elsewhere,
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and time for new trade relationships to harden into something more permanent.
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Whether that time is enough to actually turn things around is another question entirely.
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China's situation is very different.
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The economy is not drowning the way Russia's is,
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which means China is viewing the Iran war less as a lifeline
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and more as an opportunity to accelerate ambitions it already had.
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That said, things haven't exactly been smooth.
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Trade tensions with the United States
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that have been playing out over the past 15 months have not been easy on Chinese industry.
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Tariffs have raised costs, disrupted supply chains,
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and created genuine uncertainty for manufacturers who depend on access to the American market.
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Some industries have adjusted by rerouting exports through third countries to avoid the tariffs,
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but that adds cost and complexity.
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Others have simply absorbed the higher prices and accepted lower margins.
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The property market, which is a major component of the domestic Chinese economy, is still struggling.
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Developers that over-leverage during the boom years are carrying enormous debts,
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and consumer confidence in real estate has not recovered.
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Companies like Evergrande and Country Garden,
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which were once some of the largest property developers in the world,
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have either defaulted or are still working through restructuring processes that have dragged on for years.
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This matters because for most Chinese households,
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property represents their primary store of wealth.
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Which means when property values stagnate or decline,
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people feel poorer and spend less,
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and that drags on the broader economy.
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It is one of the key reasons why domestic consumption in China has been slower to recover than many economists expected.
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The government itself has accumulated significant debt through various channels.
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Local government financing vehicles, state-owned enterprises and direct central government borrowing.
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This creates fiscal constraints on how aggressively Beijing can stimulate without creating new bubbles or undermining confidence in the RMB.
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Beyond the immediate challenges though,
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China has a set of strategic objectives that predate the Iran conflict by years
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and the war is accelerating almost all of them.
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The first objective is moving up the value chain.
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China's workforce is getting older and more expensive,
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which undermines its competitiveness in low-cost manufacturing
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against countries like vietnam bangladesh and indonesia countries
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that also haven't come with the strategic baggage
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that china does like intellectual property concerns heavy government regulation on foreign businesses
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and capital controls the response has been to pivot towards higher tech products
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that depend on industrial expertise rather than just having the cheapest possible workforce batteries solar panels
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and electric vehicles are the headline industries here
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and china now dominates all three at a global level chinese
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companies now produce more than 80 of the world's solar panels and roughly 75% of all lithium-ion batteries.
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The second objective is building up the loose coalition of countries
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that have been left aside from the Western-led global economic system for the past 50 years.
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This has manifested in things like the BRICS partnership,
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which China has been actively expanding beyond its original five members.
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It has also shown up in direct investment into developing economies,
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particularly across Africa, with varying levels of strings attached.
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And of course the Belt and Road Initiative,
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which is essentially China's infrastructure diplomacy program building ports,
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railways and telecommunications networks across Asia,
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Africa and Latin America to create trade dependencies that flow through Beijing.
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The idea is straightforward.
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If your country's most important port was built with Chinese money and your telecommunications backbone runs on Chinese technology,
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the economic relationship becomes very hard to walk away from.
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The war in Iran is accelerating almost every single one of these strategic objectives,
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and in some cases creating entirely new opportunities that didn't exist before the conflict started.
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The most immediate advantage is the opportunity to push the RMB as a viable alternative currency for global trade.
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The Strait of Hormuz arrangement,
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where the blockade was relaxed specifically for ships transacting in Chinese RMB,
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was a direct challenge to the US dollar's dominance in global energy markets.
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For countries that fear reprisals from the United States,
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which has clearly shown it is willing to weaponize its payments infrastructure as a geopolitical bargaining tool,
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the RMB is starting to look like a practical alternative.
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Not because they trust China more necessarily,
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but because having a second option reduces their vulnerability to American financial pressure.
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To understand why this matters,
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you need to understand how the petrodollar system works.
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Since the 1970s, the vast majority of global oil has been priced and traded in US dollars.
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This means that every country that imports oil needs to hold dollar reserves,
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which creates enormous global demand for dollars and for US government debt.
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That demand is one of the key reasons America can borrow as cheaply as it does
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and run the deficits that it does
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if even a fraction of global oil trade shifts to being denominated in rmb instead of dollars it would reduce
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that structural demand for dollars and increase demand for rmb
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that might sound abstract but it has very real consequences for borrowing costs currency stability
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and the geopolitical leverage that comes with controlling the world's reserve currency
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if the rmb can establish itself as even a partial alternative petro currency
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that also changes the dynamics around china's own debt chinese government
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debt denominated in rmb becomes slightly more attractive as a cash equivalent
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if other countries are already holding RMB reserves for energy purchases.
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It's not going to replace US treasuries overnight,
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but even a marginal shift in global reserve holdings is economically significant.
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The countries that China has been investing in across Africa,
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Central Asia and the developing world are also likely to become even more China focused as a result of this conflict.
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When the United States is projecting military force and China is projecting economic stability and infrastructure investment,
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the choice for countries that just want to trade and develop their own economies becomes a little easier to make.
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There are also direct benefits to the major industries China has been building its future around.
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Solar panels, batteries
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and electric vehicles are all going to be in significantly greater demand as oil prices rise and energy security concerns intensify globally.
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China has become the undisputed global leader in all three sectors,
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which means elevated oil prices don't just hurt their competitors,
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they actively boost demand for China's most strategically important exports.
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Every country
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that decides to accelerate its transition away from fossil fuel dependency
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is almost certainly going to be buying Chinese equipment to do it.
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The West has been talking about energy transition for years,
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but China has been building the actual supply chain,
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and that head start is now paying off in a way
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that even the most optimistic projections in Beijing probably didn't anticipate happening this quickly.
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Beyond all of the economic mechanics,
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China is gaining something that's arguably harder to put price on.
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They look like a stable third party.
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Even if other countries don't necessarily trust China's intentions,
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they are at the very least somewhat consistent and predictable with their objectives,
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which in a crisis makes them easier to deal with than actors whose positions shift with domestic politics.
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If China can successfully mediate or even partially broker a resolution to this conflict,
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it will gain significant clout on the world stage as more than just the big economy that makes stuff,
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but as a genuine global power that can shape outcomes.
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That kind of reputation takes decades to build under normal circumstances.
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The Iran war is offering China a shortcut.
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Now of course it would be misleading to pretend that this conflict has been nothing but good news for either country,
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and particularly for China there are some real costs accumulating.
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The RMB is still a compromised currency.
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Capital controls and government intervention in the exchange rate mean
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that it will get a boost from countries that don't have any other options,
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but it is still unlikely to become the global default anytime soon.
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Trust in a reserve currency ultimately comes from trust in the institutions behind it.
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Transparent central banking, rule of law,
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open capital markets, and China's financial system is still far more opaque than what most major trading economies are comfortable relying on.
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You can't freely move money in and out of China the way you can with dollars or euros,
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and that is a significant limitation for any currency trying to become a global standard.
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Countries will use the RMB when they have to,
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but they won't choose it voluntarily over a currency they can actually move around without government approval.
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China is also incredibly oil and energy dependent.
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As prices have risen, the country is paying substantially more for something that it overwhelmingly imports in one direction.
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All of those abstract long-term geopolitical advantages need to be weighed against the very concrete reality that Chinese factories,
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power plants, and transport networks are all more expensive to operate at the moment.
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And it's also undermining the strength of a lot of China's coalitions at the same time as making them more important.
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BRICS now has more than just its title name members,
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and those extra members include Iran,
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Iran, but they also include Saudi Arabia and the UAE,
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two countries that Iran is actively attacking.
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Geopolitical coalitions tend to work better when their constituent members aren't blowing one another up.
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The credibility of BRICS as a serious alternative to western-led institutions takes a real hit
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when the group can't even maintain peace among its own members.
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This doesn't necessarily mean BRICS collapses,
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but it does mean that managing the coalition just got significantly harder for Beijing.
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The diplomatic balancing act of maintaining good relations with both Iran
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and the Gulf states simultaneously is not a problem that gets easier as the conflict escalates.
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At some point Beijing may have to pick a side,
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and that's a choice it has been very carefully trying to avoid.
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So the question is, do Russia and China actually want this conflict to come to an end?
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The honest answer is complicated,
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because their interests don't fully align even with each other.
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For Russia, the incentives are almost entirely in favor of the conflict continuing,
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at least in the short to medium term.
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Every month the war in Iran drags on is another month of higher oil prices,
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relaxed sanctions enforcement, and diminished global attention on Ukraine.
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Moscow doesn't need to do anything to benefit from this,
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it just needs the world to stay distracted.
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Russia's economy has not fundamentally reformed,
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it has simply found breathing room.
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If the Iran war ended tomorrow and by some miracle oil prices quickly dropped back to pre-conflict levels,
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many of the pressures that were building before the conflict started would come roaring back.
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For China, it's more nuanced.
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The strategic opportunities are real,
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the RMB gains, the coalition building,
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the demand for green energy exports,
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but the costs of elevated oil prices and of fractured bricks are also real.
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China's ideal outcome would probably be a resolution that it gets to broker,
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which gives it the diplomatic credibility,
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while also bringing oil prices back down to levels that are more favorable for its manufacturing base.
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A prolonged conflict serves some of China's interests,
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but a swift Chinese mediated peace would serve almost all of them,
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Which is why Beijing has been publicly positioning itself as the responsible adult in the room,
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even as it quietly benefits from the chaos.
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The uncomfortable reality is that both countries are rational economic actors who will make decisions based on their own interests,
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not on abstract principles about war and peace.
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And right now their interests are at the very least not pointing strongly towards a swift resolution.
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This is one of the more underappreciated dynamics of this conflict.
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The countries with the most influence over the parties involved,
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the ones who could theoretically apply the most economic pressure to bring things to a close,
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are also the ones who are benefiting the most from it continuing.
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That creates a structural incentive problem that makes a negotiated peace significantly harder to achieve.
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These aren't just petty squabbles either.
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These attacks will have real implications across these countries,
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making throwing the future effectiveness of this group into serious doubt.
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But we have actually made an entire video on the economic fallout of the Iran war on the gulf itself,
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so as always we don't want to repeat too much here,
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but you should be able to click to that on your screen now.
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Thanks for watching mate.
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Bye.
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