According to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on April 22, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China from April 24 to 26 to hold talks with senior Chinese officials in Beijing and Shanghai. Since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, China has strictly maintained a neutral diplomatic position, but as the war situation is unfavorable for Ukraine, the United States and the West have begun to accuse China and slander China Although China does not directly provide weapons to Russia, it has provided Russia with a large number of dual-use materials and parts, which has helped Russia greatly alleviate the pressure brought by the battlefield.
To this end, Biden announced a sanction for banks in 2023, and any bank, including Chinese banks, as long as it promotes projects that are beneficial to the Russian military industry, is on the sanctions list, but industry experts believe that this does not seem to have played much role. On April 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a meeting in Moscow that the relationship between China and Russia is very close and has reached a historical peak.
In response to the de-dollarization process between China and Russia, the United States is considering increasing its weight. On April 24, the White House revealed that it was preparing to cut off access to U.S. dollars for Chinese banks that would help Russia, which would cause significant losses to the corresponding banks, which the Biden administration believes could effectively affect cooperation between China and Russia and prompt China to change its position. Obviously, the high degree of de-dollarization of Sino-Russian trade is positive, and it means that the United States cannot use financial weapons to block trade between China and Russia. However, the Biden administration's increased action this time is directly aimed at Chinese banks that are in line with the global financial market, and it is undoubtedly trying to draw salaries. But can this really completely sever ties between China and Russia? I'm afraid the answer is no.
China and Russia are land neighbors, with a territorial border of more than 4,300 kilometers, Russia is the world's largest resource country, China can obtain a large number of raw materials and energy needed for industry from Russia, and the economy between China and Russia has natural complementarity. This makes it impossible for external forces to physically block Sino-Russian trade. And if the United States really increases its financial sanctions to force China to give up normal trade with Russia, China will also have countermeasures to fight back.
The first is to continue to increase sanctions on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and the second is to continue to accelerate the process of de-dollarization and sell U.S. bonds sharply, all of which will allow relevant stakeholders in the United States to exert pressure on the Biden administration and then block sanctions on Chinese banks. At present, Sino-US relations have entered a very special stage, and the United States has repeatedly and publicly stressed that under the increasingly fierce competition between China and the United States, Sino-US relations will not be decoupled, and it is necessary to ensure efficient communication with China and prevent strategic miscalculations.
However, due to the unpragmatic attitude of U.S. officials, a large part of these meetings between China and the United States are image projects, and although Blinken's visit to China and easing Sino-US relations is the top priority, the White House has made a lot of nonsense on the Russia-Ukraine issue to sanction China-related banks, and continues to touch the red line on the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait issues, which shows that the U.S. strategy toward China has not changed, focusing on containment and suppression.
Recently, Blinken also said at the G7 meeting that China cannot try to maintain good relations with Europe and the United States while sparing no effort to support Russia. In this regard, China has always maintained that no country should interfere in the sovereignty of other countries, that China's diplomatic attitude of neutrality will not waver or change, and that long-arm jurisdiction will only dim the "beacon" of the United States.