![#ShannonBrandao, #ChinaBoss: Milei's [Argentine] Government Pays IMF Without Tapping China Currency Swap](/content/images/size/w800/2023/12/1703407598909.jpg)
Shannon Brandao
Shannon's excerpt from the article: "💯🏆VOA [excerpt]: On Thursday, #Argentina's new government sent to the International Monetary Fund (#IMF) its scheduled #debt payment, thanks to a loan from the CAF - the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. In doing so, the government of Argentina's new president, Javier Milei, avoided tapping into a #currency swap line Beijing was preparing to make available, with strings attached.
Since Milei's victory on November 19, and his inauguration on December 10, intense maneuvers between Buenos Aires and Beijing appear to have taken place, largely under the radar.
Among the dignitaries attending Milei's inauguration was a special envoy dispatched by Chinese communist leader #XiJinping. Milei received Xi's envoy, Wu Weihua, accompanied by #China's Ambassador to Argentina Wang Wei, on December 11.
The meeting was cordial, by all accounts, and prompted Milei to send a letter to Xi the next day. ...
Prior to Milei's meeting with Wu Weihua, Chinese representatives have conveyed to Milei's team that for the line of credit to be activated, including possibly tapping it to pay the IMF on December 21, Xi needs to know where Milei stood.
According to Infobae, an influential Argentine newspaper that has closely followed developments between Buenos Aires and Beijing, Milei's appointee to head the country's Central Bank held a closed-door meeting with Wang Wei and discussed the currency swap, i.e., the credit line that had been sitting there but needed Beijing's approval before it could be tapped by Milei's government.
The Chinese #diplomat listened to the Argentina official before giving a simple answer: Argentina must clarify what it will do with its Central Bank because the yuan will be transferred there, and Beijing needs to understand what Milei and his foreign affairs minister, Diana Mondino's diplomatic agenda is.
...On December 14, Reuters and Infobae both reported that Milei's representatives had struck a deal with the CAF for a bridge loan of $960 million to help the new Argentine government make its December 21 IMF payment. On December 15, the CAF made the deal public through an announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
'It looks like China has overplayed its hand,' Christopher Ecclestone, a London-based strategist and longtime observer of Argentine #politicaleconomy, told VOA.
On December 19, Argentine media reported that Beijing has frozen the currency swap that it had offered to Argentina during an October meeting in Beijing between Xi and Milei's predecessor, Alberto Fernandez. A day earlier, Beijing had summoned its ambassador to Buenos Aires back to its capital, Argentine media reported. It is unclear whether diplomat Wang Wei's return to China is Beijing's gesture of displeasure with Buenos Aires, or an occasion for authorities in Beijing to hear out its overseas representatives before making its next move."
#news #geopolitics