China so far does not appear to be helping Russia evade Western financial sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, but doing so would “do profound damage” to China’s reputation, a senior official from the administration of US President Joe Biden said on Saturday.
“The latest signs suggest that China’s not coming to the rescue,” the official told reporters after announcing that the US and its allies agreed to impose sanctions against Russia’s central bank and disconnect key Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial transaction network.
Reports that some Chinese banks have stopped issuing letters of credit for purchases of physical commodities from Russia were a positive sign, the official said.
Photo: AP
This “suggests that, much like has been the pattern for years and years, China has tended to respect the force of US sanctions,” the official added.
China is Russia’s biggest trade partner for both exports and imports, buying one-third of Russia’s crude oil exports in 2020 and supplying it with manufactured products from cellphones and computers to toys and clothing.
Some of that trade is conducted in China’s yuan currency, which could technically fall outside of sanctions aimed at cutting Russia off from transactions in US dollars, euros, sterling and other major currencies.
However, Chinese banks that do business with Russian banks and other entities hit with full blocking sanctions and put on the US Department of the Treasury’s “specially designated nationals” list could face sanctions themselves and loss of access to the US financial system.
The official said that if China were to help Russia evade US sanctions, “it really would be an unfortunate signal for China’s vision of the world,” and give “tacit or explicit accommodation to Russia’s invasion of a sovereign country in the heart of Europe.”
“It would do profound damage to its reputation in Europe, but really across the world,” the official said of China.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS