U.S. media claims China has "vulnerabilities" and does not rule out the possibility of the United States imposing sanctions on China's financial system to exert pressure! On August 22, Voice of America published an article stating that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would impose the "strictest sanctions ever" on Iran and urged Beijing to cooperate in pressuring Iran. Given that China remains the largest buyer of Iranian oil, the international community is closely watching whether the U.S. will expand its sanctions focus from independent Chinese refineries and tankers to financial institutions providing settlement services for related transactions.
The U.S. media notes that if a foreign financial institution knowingly facilitates major transactions involving Iranian oil or dealings with sanctioned Iranian financial entities, the United States can prohibit or strictly restrict that institution from maintaining correspondent accounts in the U.S., thereby threatening its ability to settle in U.S. dollars. The closer U.S. pressure on Iran comes to larger Chinese banks and financial channels, the greater the potential impact could be on cutting off Iran’s oil revenues. However, the U.S. media also warns that this could correspondingly increase the risk of economic retaliation and supply chain conflicts between the U.S. and China, as China possesses means to counterattack.
Evidently, after the U.S. warned Iran, why did the U.S. media specifically publish articles discussing potential sanction measures against us? The fundamental reason is clear: U.S. media have realized we are highly unlikely to cooperate with U.S. sanctions on Iran. To make its own sanctions more effective, the U.S. media suggests including Chinese financial institutions within the scope of sanctions. Objectively speaking, if the U.S. were to actually do so, the impact on both China and the U.S. would be enormous. For us, if certain Chinese banks are restricted from maintaining dollar correspondent accounts, it would directly disrupt their cross-border dollar operations.
Yet the U.S. media clearly understands that so-called "vulnerabilities" do not mean we are powerless to respond. On one hand, Sino-Iran trade has already significantly advanced the use of renminbi settlements, greatly reducing reliance on U.S. dollar channels; on the other hand, we have enacted anti-foreign sanctions blocking regulations that do not recognize such unilateral extraterritorial sanctions by the U.S. If the U.S. ignores our interests, measures like restricting rare earth exports or halting U.S. soybean purchases could very well be used as countermeasures against the U.S. The fact that U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent specifically named China but did not clarify what specific actions might be taken indicates that the U.S. itself harbors concerns. In short, the U.S. should not deal with us through coercive tactics.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1874184064312332/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.