That is a bunch of BS you read from western media, you are just regurgitating cope propaganda about how the west lost a bunch of money and how China supposedly "cheated" in the London metals exchange.
First,
is one the world's nickel producer, the short position is just their hedge. All commodities producers buy shorts as a hedge, that's the raison d'etre of commodities shorts, to protect the producers in case the market goes south.
Second, everything was normal until Russian-Ukraine conflict, the west decides it wants to stop the import of russian commodities, oil, gas, metals, etc. Glencore, intune with western policies decides to short squeeze Tsingshan since it knows blocking the export of russian nickels would cause the price to go sky high.
Third, Glencore and other western traders bet that Tsingshan currently doesn't have enough inventory of nickel to cover their existing contracts. Prices exploded, then Tsingshan made a statement they had enough nickel to fulfill their short contracts 200000 tons (which are still above their profit price point). LME decided to shutdown the market and reverse some of the trades? Why? Cause Glencore and the other traders would get wiped out and can't pay. They would have to fulfill their buy obligations for 200000 Tons of Nickel delivered unless they could find another buyer. Who in the world (besides China of course) could possibly take delivery for that much Nickel at an absurdly high price?
Fourth, so where did the western traders' plan go wrong? Normally Tsingshan would have enough inventory to cover their shorts since they are a Nickel producer. If they couldn't cover their bets they could always buy from the spot market, which always have ample supplies due to Russian exports. Glencore thought since LME suddenly banned Russian Nickel, Tsingshan couldn't cover the shorts, so western traders could make a massive profit and the short squeeze happened. When Tsingshan assured the market they had enough inventory to cover their positions, the rumor came out that China had opened its national metals reserve to Tsingshan. The massive bubble was about to pop, so the traders complained to LME to get them to suspend the market, while they figure out how not to get wiped out. In the end they convinced LME to reverse some of their trades, so the trading firms still survive but lose a hefty sum.
If the LME (now owned by HK) didn't suspend the market and reverse some trades, many western commodities traders would get wiped out and Tsingshan would make an even bigger profit. Of course, the western media has to spin its own version of the story to cope with their massive losses. In the end, this was just another failed commodities financial war against China and its domestic firms, which usually doesn't go well for the other side.
