They went up, they saw, they were amazed, they settled. The new presidential plane is a luxury aircraft compared to the old Tango 01. The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, made a decision before taking off for China with Deputy Máximo Kirchner; the Deputy Chief of Staff, Juan Manuel Olmos; the head of the Central Bank, Miguel Pesce, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, among other officials of more relevance, added the personal assistants of each of them. The presidential suite of the new jet that replaced the famous Tango 01, a spacious room located in the center of the aircraft, suite with bathroom and double bed, was locked so that none of the passengers is tempted and enjoy what by investiture corresponds to use the Head of State. There was no crucial trip to the East in search of money and other economic agreements against the "destituent climate", to use a jargon K. At least not in the air. A good part of the leadership of the government alliance formerly known as Frente de Todos then had to choose where to rest in other environments of fluffy seats, or in two work rooms that the brand new Boeing 757-256 has.
Since the first entourage of this ship took off from Buenos Aires to its first stop in Zaragoza, Spain, where it refueled, all the men and women who were the President's spoke little, rather they fell into the restful sleep. The policy did not stop after the takeoff to the second stop before reaching Shanghai, Astana, Kazakhstan. Massa, Máximo and Olmos spent a good part of those hours in the air to negotiate the pre-candidacies of the brutal internal that was unleashed in Peronism after the "resignation" of Vice President Cristina Kirchner to run for a position to which she had never officially applied. The negotiating trio is the same one that closed the lists during the 2021 PASO. Despite what transpired in the official offices of Argentina, in the new ARG-01 another agreement was hatched that ended up falling. The governor of Buenos Aires, Axel Kiciloff, was the PJ's candidate to be the only candidate for president. He should thus abandon his dream of being re-elected as Buenos Aires governor. To compete to be the successor of Axel, the first agreement that was believed confirmed was that different pre-candidates dispute a PASO: one of them would be the current Buenos Aires Chief of Staff, Martin Insaurralde, who would face the reference of the Casa Rosada, Victoria Tolosa Paz with a third not fully ratified, perhaps the current Minister of the Interior. Eduardo De Pedro.
The negotiations on the pre-candidates for national, provincial, and national senators were a source of continuous dynamic.
The "Axel Presidente" plan is the one promoted by the son of the vice, Deputy Kirchner, distanced from the Buenos Aires native.
According to official sources who knew the back room of these talks at thirty-two thousand feet, Massa swore that he does not want or is not able at this time to be the candidate of the PJ-K to the Presidency. It is what you should or can say. But he insisted, and there would be consensus with Olmos and Maximo, that the PASO should be avoided at the presidential level so that the chaotic official policy does not further contaminate the absolutely fragile economic situation: lack of reserves in the BCRA, super inflation, recession, increasing poverty.
It was still missing for the first crew of the plane that Alberto Fernández acquired for the National State to arrive in Shanghai, where they hoped to get the Chinese guarantee that guarantees loans to improve reserves, an essential scenario to fight possible bank runs or a complex but simple rearrangement of the exchange rate generated by the markets.
Very unique curiosity: the ARG-01 took off from Zaragoza and a few hours later entered Russian airspace, a country that crossed from end to end despite the fact that it is in war initiated with Moscow against Ukraine, which produced that no country or power of the West allowed its airliners to fly through that sky or, even less those who carry among their passengers heads of state or officials. Good relations with Vladimir Putin's regime are a fact. Without the authorization of the Kremlin, the new official Argentine plane would never have been able to fly as it did in those directions, even flying over Moscow at a time when a drone attack on the capital of the Russian Federation was denounced. PJ passengers were alerted that, to avoid dangers, the aircraft's GPS would be turned off. The return of China also made the same path but in the opposite direction. Putin re-authorized. This time, the intermediate stop before arriving in Recife, Brazil, was the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, where the AR-01 stopped to load naphtha to return to Buenos Aires.
The plan of the Peronist intern K that had been outlined on the way to China fell apart, or remained on "standby", already with the delegation in full negotiations with the eastern authorities. There the officials learned that Governor Kiciloff had proposed that to go for his re-election his candidate for vice president would be the one who today accompanies him in the same position, Veronica Magario. The news fell badly, especially to Kirchner Jr. Kiciloff then said goodbye. The conclusion regarding the internal one that today fills with nervousness a PJ that can be defeated in a historic way in the elections is that there is only one certainty: the uncertainty about who will be the candidates to make a very difficult campaign. The economy remains a problem.
Máximo Kirchner had boarded that plane, the first in his adult life that would take him to an individual destination, on maternal advice and out of his own concern. Knowing that on the trip to China there would not only be Massa, Olmos, Moreau, but also the deputy K, Paula Penacca, decided that it was time to know the planet beyond web browsing or the story of others. It's something he confessed to some of the passengers on that inaugural flight in several ways.
Massa remains steadfast in trying to show signs of hyperactive work to avoid an economic catastrophe with consequences impossible to measure.
In both Shanghai and Beijing he had the treatment given to a Head of State. He held a thousand meetings with Chinese political authorities and businessmen. He reached agreements that he considers important, such as the renewal of the Swap with the People's Republic of China, that is, the loan of 19 billion dollars for the reserves of the BCRA but in Chinese currency, yuan. Of that amount, "five billion dollars would be freely available," that is, they could be used to combat the rise of the free dollar. Once exhausted, five billion more could be renewed, but in installments of one billion. The official, who generates confusion and anger in the Casa Rosada because he shows himself as the great administrator of the State, relegating the President to the background, admitted in the privacy of the trip that it is an achievement for him to have finalized that monetary agreement, but that the total amount that Argentina needs to navigate the exchange rate storm is still insufficient. at least, until the end of the year.
"At what rate does China grant this credit? The figure is confidential, according to the Central Bank. Even so, officials who claimed to be informed of what happened in China said that the amount would be lower than the rate imposed by the US Fed, which does not lend money, but does impose that number for the US market and, therefore, in part, worldwide.
The agreements signed by Massa were more, and of diverse items.
Maximo, while the official participated in most of these negotiations, led other types of events, such as the one he held, in the company of Moreau, with the president of the Chinese National People's Congress, Zhao Leji. He wore a suit, no tie.
Yes, this is an informative novelty regarding the national deputy and president of the Justicialist Party of Buenos Aires.
Kirchner also spoke at Fudan University. The rector, Jin Li, gave him photos of the moment when his father received the title of "Honoris Causa" in that same place.
Kirchner highlighted in an oral presentation, in that house of higher studies, without generating astonishment, the vital importance that must be given to the education of a growing nation. This happened at a time when his province, Santa Cruz, is going through a critical moment in that area that he, in the East, highlighted as admirable in the Far East.
In addition to the renewal of the Swap, Massa signed agreements to release exports to China of corn, sorghum, wheat and poultry meat.
Businessmen from other areas, especially energy, promised to invest in projects that Chinese companies already have in the country regarding lithium. They could bring more dollars into the country.
And, above all, within the framework of Cooperation in the Memorandum on the Belt and Road, it also signed new businesses of oriental companies linked to the renovation of the wagons of the Roca railway line; the financing of the Kirchner-Cepernic dams in Santa Cruz; in wind farms in Jujuy; modernization of the Belgrano Cargas trains; and two financings for drinking water plants called "Laferrere" and El Jaguel". The minister would have made a joke at that time with the Chinese official with whom he agreed this latest investment: "There will be peace in my house," alluding to the fact that his wife, Malena Galmarini is the owner of the Water and Sanitation company, AySA.
Galmarini had also been named, in the negotiations of the internal Peronism, as a possible candidate for vice governor of the ruling party. Its objectives, in fact, are to recover the leadership of the municipality of Tigre.
Between Kirchner and Massa there was no lack of mischief and slander against the current Chancellor, Santiago Cafiero, absent from the trip.
The inmates of the Frente del Todo continue planet in between. Like the president, Cafiero encouraged the current ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Scioli, to pre-candidate for president by disputing a PASO against a candidate related to Kirchnerism.
Everything is in the air.
Kiciloff's act mentioned above upset the sand maps drawn by the trio of PJ shipowners on flights between Buenos Aires and China, round trip.
The economic agreements with the People's Republic of China generated suspicions in the parliamentary opposition because they could hide leonine clauses for the country.
What does voracious China ask for in return for its support?
Clarín was able to learn according to government sources that the Chinese are not direct in their demands but explicit when they have the opportunity to do so.
Chinese pressure will be brutal to obtain benefits in fundamental strategic aspects, including three ports of its own in Argentina.
Many of them had already been raised in the past.
These "requests" are these: that the control of the Waterway be re-tendered, that is, the administrative and economic control of the Paraná River, through which almost all the country's exports and imports pass.
That tender is stopped in Justice because it was done, but it was considered that it was rigged. The Argentine ambassador to China, Sabino Vaca Narvaja, received a letter from a company in the country in which he lives, called China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), in which they explained the "economic benefits" that Argentina would obtain if "His Excellency" remembered the "maximum effort" that that firm had made to win the fallen tender. In one line, that letter summarizes how the Chinese lobby is in exchange for business earned thanks to the National State: "Political influence, multilateral cooperation for shared benefit and savings in foreign currency for the Argentine government."
Other agreements signed by Massa are linked to electric power, in non-technical language, to the improvement of the distribution of light in the AMBA to improve what has been done by both Edenor, Edesur and the La Plata company Edelap.
The Republic of China also expects Argentina to purchase the JF-17 warjets.
The Easterners would also have a special interest in investing in the Atucha III nuclear power plant.
And that the tender is opened so that China can compete to provide the 5g cellular technology service.
In this bid was involved, as in the vast majority of the aforementioned interests, the government of the United States, which resists the eastern advance in this regard.
Massa managed to start tendering wi fi technology via 6G. Only U.S. companies have the sophistication over that other tech fight that will divide the world.
Was Massa and Maximo's tour of China a successful one?
"The extension of the Swap helps us because we can use China's currency, the yuan, for trade with that country, which takes pressure off our reserves," explained an official, who added, sincerely: "Maybe it is a pichicata. The money obtained, for now, is not enough."
Massa will arrive in Buenos Aires after another long flight and his first activity is to connect with members of the IMF to try to get 10 billion of the loan with that multilateral organization released.
Maximo Kirchner declared in his first international tour that China helps Argentina "without exerting any kind of pressure."
If you really believe it, it's like, in reality, you wouldn't have traveled to the country where gunpowder was invented twelve hundred years ago.