China has opposed unilateral financial sanctions and will not participate in such sanctions imposed by Russia’s western states, Guo Shuking, head of China’s banking and insurance regulator, said on Wednesday.
In recent sanctions against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western allies decided on Tuesday to exclude several Russian banks from Swift’s global financial communications system.
“We will not take part in such sanctions and will continue to maintain normal economic, trade and financial exchanges with the countries concerned,” Mr Guo told a briefing.
Unilateral financial sanctions usually do not show a good effect and have no legal basis, he said in response to a question at the briefing.
Given the close ties between Beijing and Moscow, analysts believe China could provide an alternative by offering to use its own rival Swift, called the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, although the Chinese network has a very limited reach.
Regarding the impact of such sanctions on the Chinese economy and financial system, he said that “this is not very obvious now and should be monitored”, but the impact should be limited given the resilience of the Chinese economy.
–Grace Gray contributed to this article