Chris Lange, FISM News
China’s economic regulators held an emergency meeting to discuss ways to work around potential economic sanctions from the West, stoking fears that Beijing is planning to invade Taiwan.
Officials from China’s central bank, finance ministry, and domestic financial institutions met with China’s economic regulators and international financial sector leaders in late April to formulate a plan to insulate their economy from economic isolation that would presumably result from aggression toward Taiwan. Tensions between the U.S. and China remain high amid Beijing’s repeated threats toward the independent island nation China considers to be part of its territory. The U.S. has responded to the rhetoric with counter threats of unspecified retaliation.
China has closely monitored the effects of Western sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine which have crippled Russia’s economy. The EU on Wednesday proposed hitting Moscow with a sixth round of sanctions targeting major banks and banning Russian oil imports.
A source close to the Chinese officials who claimed to have knowledge of the meeting told the Daily Mail that none of them “could think of a good solution to the problem.”
“China’s banking system isn’t prepared for a freeze of its dollar assets or exclusion from the Swift messaging system as the US has done to Russia,” the source said.
One of the ideas reportedly floated in the meeting was to force Chinese companies that export goods internationally to cut their holdings in U.S. dollars in exchange for renminbi, Beijing’s currency.
Another proposal to diminish U.S. dollar holdings to favor the Euro was ultimately considered to be impractical.
The source also indicated that some of the Chinese leaders in attendance expressed doubt that the U.S. would be capable of sanctioning China’s economy, given America’s deep business ties to the communist country and its dependence on Chinese goods.
Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong, said, “It is difficult for the U.S. to impose massive sanctions against China. It is like mutually assured destruction in a nuclear war.”